Be Careful what you wish for
By
Wayne Casey
By
the time you read this magazine your future could be sealed. You could
be heading towards oblivion and your future could be in the hands of
others.
You see, due to pressure the Transport Select committee
are to look into the taxi and private hire trades. Whilst they will
primarily be looking into cross border hiring issues with Private Hire
vehicles, they will also be open to suggestions and input from any
concerned persons into the taxi and private hire trades.
Not scared yet? You should be.
What
will happen if, and I have every reason to expect they will, the large
private hire companies across the country actually get themselves
involved and tell the select committee they cant get on with their
business properly due to (and in their opinion) silly licensing rules?
What
will happen if the licensing officer groups and local government write
into the committee and say the system is a mess and in need of a total
shake up?
The fact the taxi trade itself seem to have brought it
to the attention of the Committee suggests they (some in the taxi trade)
already think its worthy of consideration by the government.
So,
you’ve got three groups, maybe more, all banging on the government door
saying the current licensing system isn’t good, isn’t workable and it
needs overhauled, what do you thinks going to happen, more importantly,
do you actually care?
Well you should. If the select committee
advise the government that the system is in meltdown, the government may
be forced into a cab act. But I fear this act won’t be a thing that any
of you will like.
Would a new act retain limitation of numbers?
Would a new act decide cross border hiring is a bad thing, particularly
if the licensed vehicle is pre-booked? Would a new act see the need to
even have a two tier system?
Lots of questions, not too many answers.
Those
of you that want new legislation point towards the 1847 act as being
out of date. Yes, the act was around before the Crimean War, but the
question we should ask is why? Why has this act lasted 164 years when so
many others have come and gone?
Those people who want a new act should look through the 1847 act and think what they would replace it with.
For
example, section 62 of the act makes it an offence to leave a cab
attended at a place of public resort. This was originally intended to
avoid horses wandering off and becoming a nuisance, yet it is still used
in cases where drivers leave cabs unattended on ranks. Are we saying we
want cabs unattended on ranks whilst drivers go shopping?
Section
53 makes it an offence to refuse to take a passenger to a destination
within the prescribed area (without reasonable excuse). Are people
suggesting drivers should be able to cherrypick fares?
Section 54
makes it an offence for a driver to demand more than the agreed fare.
Do people want the taxi trade to have the ability to demand more money?
I
could carry on, but I’d only be pointing out further examples of
workable legislation. Any new legislation wouldn’t surely go beyond the
driver being fit and proper with the vehicle being fit for purpose.
Justifiably, the fitness and propriety of both driver and vehicle is
always open to interpretation.
One expert, James TH Button,
stated in his (infamous) book that in his opinion taxi law was outdated
and there was no substitute for modern legislation. Really Jim? There’s
one chapter in the Equality Act 2010 dedicated to taxis, and this has
created more confusion and more ambiguity than any previous act known to
taxis (save for section 16 of the 1985 transport act).
Indeed,
if you can all recall section 52 of the Road Safety Act and the use of
immediate suspensions. Everybody thought this was going to be used for
serious offences, unfortunately they didn’t actually factor in some
councils being slightly retarded.
Am I really to trust the
draftsman or local authorities given the above examples with new
legislation? I seriously don't think so.
The fact of the matter is
that if a person in Liverpool wants to pre-book a private hire vehicle
from Sefton they can, whatever new act is worked out, phone for a
vehicle from another area. If the people of the Wirral go into Liverpool
for a night out, and don't want a Liverpool Hackney Carriage, possibly
due to an unfortunate experience involving going through a tunnel, they
will continue to call a private hire vehicle. That is called customer
choice, and there’s nothing a government can do about someone’s choice.
Furthermore,
if any part of the act is going to be looked at, it’s more than likely
to factor in changes that would benefit private hire. For a hackney
carriage people to suggest a PH car should return to its area when its
completed a fare, knowing full well there’s a pre-booked job in the next
street in half an hours time, isn’t only folly, its bordering on sheer
stupidity.
Indeed, current legislation forbids private hire
operators passing bookings on to other private hire operators across
district borders. This is permitted in the London Private Hire act, but
not the 1976 act. If this changes we could well see large national
private hire companies.
To my knowledge only the National Taxi
Association are currently opposed to wholesale change in legislation and
they appear to be akin to King Canute, their opposition, given their
size, will be as ineffectual as England’s recent world cup bid, unless
of course people begin to take this threat as serious and join the body.
I summed all this up recently when I said;
“Local
Authorities have every tool available already at their disposal, from
the 1847 act onwards, they have guidance from government and numerous
conditions they could apply to both hackney proprietors and private hire
licensing, yet for some reason some people out there are trying to
convince government things need changed. Changed to what exactly? Is any
new act going to stray from drivers being fit and proper and vehicles
being in decent order? I’m convinced people out there are mad.”
It
appears to me that a good number of people in the hackney carriage
trade look down their noses at private hire, the reality is that private
hire are much better funded than the hackney trade. For example, how
many thousands of pounds were invested in lobbying to get private hire
removed from the equality act?
Do people seriously expect the private hire trade to sit down doing nothing as the hackney carriage trade try to dictate?
Believe that and you need a bib.
© Wayne Casey
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I agree with everything in the above post, BUT, in particular the
following paragraph. At a recent meeting in Stockport, one man, a
respected, long time Cab man kept harping on about the fact private hire
MUST return to thier own area before answering the radio for another
job. I thought then, God help us ! What a plonker.!
Furthermore,
if any part of the act is going to be looked at, it’s more than likely
to factor in changes that would benefit private hire. For a hackney
carriage people to suggest a PH car should return to its area when its
completed a fare, knowing full well there’s a pre-booked job in the next
street in half an hours time, isn’t only folly, its bordering on sheer
stupidity. |
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