MOBILITY MATTERS
THREE BRISTOL DRIVERS SUSPENDED FOR REFUSING PICK UP
The mother of a dis- abled girl who was turned away by three Bristol taxi drivers has said she hopes taxi drivers will learn lessons after three were suspended. According to the Bristol Post, Karen Tilley and her daughter Josselin were left stranded after they came out of the Hippodrome last November. Mother and daugh- ter, from Wiltshire, went to the nearest taxi rank to catch a Bristol hackney car- riage back to Temple Meads sta- tion, but several drivers refused to take them, because
11-year-old Josselin is in a wheelchair. She later posted on Facebook together with photographs of the taxis that turned her away, in a post which went viral around the city. Bristol City Council investigated after the matter was reported to them, and now they have been suspended for various periods of time.
A meeting of the council’s public safety and protec- tion committee was held behind closed doors and decided the level of punish- ment for the taxi drivers, but ruled that they could not
be named. Two of the drivers had their licence suspended for four months, while the other received a six- month suspension. “I am pleased the committee chose to apply some punish- ment to
these
drivers,” said Karen. Not because I want- ed to see them off the roads, but because I would like this to be a lesson to other taxi drivers that they need to make sure
they
aren’t putting dis- abled people in the same position as my daughter and I. “Making sure you have made the right adjustments for
people with wheel- chairs really is a small obstacle com- pared to those that disabled people have to face on a daily basis.
“I hope this helps to raise awareness am- ongst taxi drivers about the need to be accessible to people with a dis- ability,” she added. The council said all three drivers will be required to under- take further training on disability assis- tance prior to getting their licence back.
This will be at a cost to
themselves
through the coun- cil’s Gold Standard taxi driver training programme, which all Bristol taxi drivers are required to complete. The chair of the committee is Cllr Fi Hance. She said: “It is absolutely unac- ceptable that any- one should be turned away by a taxi service because they use a wheel- chair, or have any other disability. “We require all our taxi drivers to use
wheelchair accessi- ble vehicles and it is their responsibility to know how to use their equipment properly when it comes to assisting a disabled person, so there is no excuse for turning some- one away. “The majority of our taxi drivers provide an excellent service to the city, but on occasions like this where
passengers
are subjected to dis- crimination we will investigate and take action where neces- sary,” she added.
LIVERPOOL DRIVER BANNED FOR WATCHING VIDEOS WHILE TRANSPORTING BLIND PASSENGERS
A black cab driver who watched videos on his mobile phone while transporting blind people around Liverpool has been taken off the road. Cabbie Nazeed Hyseni has had his hackney carriage licence suspended for 28 days by the city council after being found to have failed to ensure the safety of his passen- gers. Hyseni, 34, from Anfield, picked up a party of four out- side Lime Street Station in March of last year. Three of the party
14
were registered blind, with one hav- ing a guide dog. The passengers, who were all in their 60s, were travelling to Old Swan. Licensing Commit- tee members heard that during the jour- ney, the fully- sighted member of the party became aware that Hyseni had his mobile phone switched on and was watching videos on his lap as he drove. The passengers claimed that when they urged the cab- bie to concentrate on his driving he
ignored them. When the party got out of the taxi they told Hyseni that he was not going to be given a tip because they were unhappy with his service, to which he replied: “It’s none of your business.”
One of the passen- gers immediately complained to the City Council’s Li- censing Team. Hyseni was asked to make a statement about the incident. He denied the alle- gation, claiming he was unaware that his phone was on his lap and claimed
that the passengers were rude to him. The committee re- jected Hyseni’s ver- sion of events, ban- ning him from working as a taxi driver in the city for 28 days.
He initially appealed against the ruling to the City’s Magis- trates Court. When this was re- jected he appealed to the Crown Court, which again reject- ed his appeal. Presiding over the appeal, Judge Brian Cummings, QC, said Hyseni should never have appealed the Committee’s deci-
sion.
Judge Cummings went on to describe Hyseni’s conduct as ‘disgraceful’, before telling him to: “wake up to his responsi- bilities as a taxi driver”. The Judge also praised the passen- gers for their public spirit in complaining which would help protect other pas- sengers from ex- periencing a similar journey. As well as being taken off the road, Hyseni was ordered to pay the council’s full legal costs. Welcoming the de-
cision, Chair of Liv- erpool City Council’s Licensing Com- mittee, Councillor Christine Banks said: “This was clearly a distressing ordeal for the passengers. Hyseni’s actions put their safety and the safety of other road users and pedestri- ans at risk.”
Mmmm… He only got 28 days’ suspen- sion??!! Unbelievable! If something had happened and any of the passengers had been injured or worse, that driver would be history. You couldn’t make it up – Ed.
APRIL 2018
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