Cockney Rebel

I might be a crank, but I don’t claim expenses for being one.

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pparently, Westminster City Council are up to their usual tricks extorting money from motorists. £840,000 pounds has been taken in one month alone from those who unwittingly, or not, decided to use Wilton Road in Victoria when it clearly states that driving through the roadworks is only for buses and taxis. Drivers are moaning that the signage was put up without clear warnings. To be fair most drivers who couldn’t be bothered to heed the advice of the rather large orange signs were minicabs trying to drop off or tout in the area of the station and they have been caught by the cameras and fined £120. I wonder if one certain minicab company would pay their drivers’ fines the same as when they are illegally using the bus lane on the M4? I don’t think as yet anyone has been brought to court on the M4 bus lane issue but I can’t help wondering why the police haven’t cracked down hard. It’s only a matter of time before one of these very misguided and ill informed potential killers kill someone on the M4 and I suppose they would put forward a mitigating defence of: ‘my boss said it was okay to use the bus lane.’ Tell that to the families in mourning.

Listening to the usual banter and b******s, and it has to be said, mostly b******s at various watering holes apparently some drivers cannot fathom why there is still such a down turn in work. Apart from the recession and volcanoes in Iceland chucking out everything it can into the atmosphere some drivers have managed to whittle it down to a manageable moan, or in the case of where I eat an extremely loud shout. They are all waiting for the Flower Show to finish and they recognise only then the work will come back to the trade. Really!!!

The minicab trade have all but taken over all the work that the Hackney trade thought was theirs traditionally. In my view I still believe we have the wrong vehicle for the job thus we can’t compete on a level playing field. Fuel will rise quicker than a volcano and that will only put the trade further back. Some think that the Carriage Office are putting more drivers out from the knowledge and they are taking up the work load. I don’t believe any more taxi drivers are out on the streets than say ten years ago. But, think about the drivers we are attracting to the trade. They are from different walks of life but mostly, brickies, plasterers, painters and decorators, in fact most men who worked the tools as a profession probably since they left school. Then along came all the European workers undercutting every job just to get the work and the British skilled workers soon became extinct. Some working the cab might get a building job here and there and they are off the cab for three or four months laying bricks, or building a conservatory or two. Some drivers work the cab on a week on and a week off basis because they live so far away. The age of drivers in the

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trade is quite high so maybe they only work two days a week to top up the pension that Gordon Brown stole. So to say we have more drivers today I really believe is wrong. What is a stark reality in fact is that the account work has been lost massively by all the radio taxi circuits for various reasons. So called cheaper minicab companies have pushed their way into the corporate companies with promises of a better and more cost effective service which when you realise what tools the taxi driver has to work with it’s not rocket science to see why they say they are cheaper. We can’t compete on costings because of the massive amounts put on top of a job by the circuit which the driver never sees. It’s incredible they have got away with it for so long.

A large corporate company in the City have told their staff not to call a taxi for any short journeys. They must go outside and stop a taxi but always get a receipt. Journeys to the airport are going into minicabs at a fixed price but not in all cases are they cost effective to the customer. By taxi it could prove horrendous by the time the circuit puts their charges on the back of the job.

Now I want to put two scenarios to you. I was on the rank at the Carlton Tower hotel and it was running slowly. I was number three and noticed three smartly dressed young ladies go to the first taxi. They all stepped back and looked at each other and began walking away. I asked them what the problem was and they told me that the driver chucked his newspaper into the luggage area and was not happy with their request to go to a local hotel. They walked away probably with the negative idea that all cab drivers are the same. I went to the driver and asked whether he was going to broom every job until he found one he liked. Again he threw his newspaper into the luggage bay

and said: ‘Whoopee doo get the red carpet out, they want to go to the Oriental Mandarin

hotel.’ Obviously this idiot only wanted to go to the airport, but waiting for that type of job on the Carlton and you could grow very old before that happened unless you bung the porter. The ladies walked away probably never to return to the cab trade but more likely they would use a minicab because they will go where you want without all the fuss.

A friend and myself left a large eatery used by many cab drivers and he noticed a taxi leaning to the right as if the suspension had collapsed. As we got to the front of the cab we realised what was wrong with the cab. Nothing! The driver however was making the cab look as if it had two flat tyres. He was huge. Not so much tall but so overweight he was without a shadow of a doubt a danger not just to himself but to the public at large (no pun intended). I have seen this guy before and know he cannot get out of his taxi even to order a take-away from the café

and he has to ask others to do it for him. What happens when he needs to use the toilet? I think I can answer that one. About three years ago I was hand balling taxi talk magazines to the drivers when I walked towards his cab. He was standing at the front of his cab peeing against the wall. The toilets were twenty yards ahead of him but because of his morbid obesity he obviously couldn’t make such a journey on foot. How he keeps a licence to drive a taxi is a mystery to me but if he were on a rank and I needed a cab then I would take the one behind or walk. Where on earth does he spend a penny? If my nasal senses are anything to go by then I believe like many other drivers they are using a bottle in the cab and throwing it out into the street and on the ranks. Judging by the stench of pee at the Carlton Hotel rank and most station ranks these dirty stinking cretins are doing the obvious which only bodes well for the minicab trade and puts the majority of taxi drivers trying to do their jobs properly into an impossible situation with the public.

So apart from prolific broomers of jobs, cabs not fit for purpose on viability and smoke emissions, old dirty fleet cabs, radio circuits charging extortionate charges on the back of account jobs, drivers who only want to go a certain direction, those who are constantly picking an argument with the fare and every other word begins with ‘F’ one wonders why they are leaving the taxi trade for minicabs. I couldn’t say why, but go on, have a think. I can’t be bothered any more.

Having said all that I am convinced the work lost is mostly because of radio circuits. They are losing drivers hand over fist but that only plays into their hands for more minicabs on their circuit, and we all know they use minicabs anyway, but the drivers paying subs to these circuits are in denial. These circuits know when a minicab driver is offered a job he will take it, the same cannot be said of a licensed taxi driver constantly not fancying the job because it’s either not lucrative enough or going the right way, comical isn’t it?

The Carriage Office must send their officers on to the ranks at weekends and I wonder why John Mason has not done so considering the Yellow Badges using the station ranks. Take their licences away for a time or better still as I said in the last issue the drivers who steal the work in town are no better than minicab drivers with a sat nav and they should get their fat lardy arses on the bike and learn the streets as all Green Badge drivers did before them.

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