WORLDWIDE
WWTF has been on its travels again... well, at least our contributors have been. We’ve received an interesting item sent in to us by retired chief of licensing in Kirklees, Doug Holliday MBE, who recently went on holiday to Canada.
In addition to this we have a harrowing story from Ghana, a campaign for no smoking in Mumbai (India) and the reaction of Athenian and Cretan taxi drivers over proposed austerity measures across Greece.
from CANADA PLYING YOUR TRADE AND SELLING YOUR PLATE IN TORONTO
Picking up an edition of the Toronto Star, Doug came across an article enti- tled “Ambassador cab roots forgotten”, in which a magnifying glass was once again applied to the taxi trade in the city of Toronto. Its author, Royson James, reflects back over the past decade in the lives of Toronto taxis, and no doubt hits a familiar note or two for PHTM readers: “More than a decade ago, citizens were disgusted at the state of the [taxi] industry – smelly cabs, slovenly drivers, dangerous vehicles, profiteering absentee plate owners who accumulated scores of plates and leased them out at exorbitant rates. “Now, some would have us go back to the future... I say no. Fix the ele- ments of the current system that need fixing. But don’t return to an era we roasted in the Toronto Star over ten years ago. [In those days] more than three quarters of the city’s taxi licences were held by people who didn’t use them personally. Instead, licence holders rented them out to working drivers, some of whom paid an average of $1,000 a month to use them. “This practice put more than $30million a year in the hands of plate hold- ers and middlemen, while draining money from drivers who had to work ever longer hours to pay the exorbitant fees. Cab plate holders included
TAXI SHOP A1 11 A2 18 / 24 / 36 A3 18 / 24 / 36 A5 10 B5 10 A6 18 / 19 Screen Signs Airport Board Messenger
dentists, lawyers, airline pilots and Bay Street investors. Some families collected up to 145 plates, worth £90,000 each on the open market. “Now, the going rate runs between $200,000 and $300,000 on the open market. As always, that payoff is what drives the constant noise around the intractable issue of who should get taxi plates, how many, and the abil- ity to sell them.
“The 1998 city council came up with a novel approach. Stop issuing stan- dard taxi plates, the ones attracting the huge payouts. Any new taxi plates awarded would be for what they called Ambassador cabs – essentially, an individual willing to make a career as a cab driver, with no expectation that the cab licence would be a retirement benefit akin to a pension. “To ensure that, the Ambassador plate could not be sold or leased. Use it or return it to the city. Some 1,321 such plates are on the market. The last one was issued five or six years ago. The waiting list numbers 1,200 drivers. “It’s rich that Ambassador plate owners now complain they don’t have the same rights as the standard plate owners. They are correct – this is exact- ly what was intended. As soon as you allow a cab owner to lease out his cab, the owner is propelled to run the cab round the clock, with multiple drivers. Quality suffers. Before long, the owner becomes a middle man lux- uriating in the sunny climes while the lessee becomes the serf. No thanks. “Ambassador cabs were supposed to instill pride in ownership and a little bit of entrepreneurism. There is a lot of sympathy for a cabbie who’s injured on the job and must see his car sit idle, unable to earn money while he has bills to pay. The taxicab review being conducted by Cllr Cesar Pala- cio should consider strict guidelines to address such anomalies. Other than that, let it be.
“Standard plate owners are of two minds: the satisfied ones want no change because a limit on the plates issued maintains the value of their plates... supply and demand. Others who are more entrepreneurial want Ambassador plates available for sale so they can acquire them and create competition for the multiple plate owners and the big cab companies. “The lowly driver? There is no road paved with gold. The cabs scheme is a window into an industry that lets few drivers in and then closes.”
from GHANA BEWARE OF TAXIS AT KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
At where, you might be thinking? Kotoka International Airport, in Accra, is the airport of the African country of Ghana, and this item was posted on a website entitled
peacefmonline.com by a native Ghanaian who strongly believes that security at the airport taxi rank needs stepping up immedi- ately.
This person had just flown back to his country from Frankfurt and was waiting to be collected by his wife. During this half-hour he recognised a fellow passenger who had been on the same flight; the man had come from the USA and this was his connecting flight to Accra. After a brief peri- od of time the American who had hired a taxi ran back to the airport crying. According to him, the taxi had stopped by the roadside and two men wielding guns forced themselves into the taxi. They took his bag contain- ing his passport, money, keys, bank cards and very important documents and pushed him out of the taxi.
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Many onlookers confirmed that this problem has persisted for a long time. The airport-related taxi robberies centred on simple crimes where two men and a woman who are accomplices of the driver snatch mobile phones and money from the unlucky and unsuspecting person who joins the group in the taxi. Nowadays armed robbers posing as taxi drivers flock to the airport to pick up the newly arrived passengers and rob them big time.
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Evidently it is very easy to pose as a taxi driver at Ghana’s airport. There are no security checks on the taxis that come to the airport; any person who gets out of the airport is met by a swarm of taxi drivers while securi- ty officers look on. It is very difficult to determine who is a genuine taxi driver and who is not. Each day, one or two persons fall victim to the evil machinations of such drivers. Some foreign visitors to Ghana have been victims of serious and violent crimes by robbers posing as taxi drivers. Some of these robberies have even resulted in deaths. Such unfortunate incidents undermine the fact that – according to the writer of this article - Ghana is a peaceful and problem-free country.
There had previously been a security system in place where taxis operat- ing at the airport were registered and allocated specific parking places. However, the security officers have completely neglected this precaution-
PHTM AUGUST 2011
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