UNITE VIEWPOINT
Firstly, I hope I find you well, this month I thought we’d take a look at the destina- tion at the end of the road that we are currently on....
I’m grateful to Stuart Hope, the Secretary of our London Taxi Branch for his assistance with the information surrounding London for this article.
During the current global pandemic, sadly there seems to have been more going on ‘behind the curtains’ than in front and I’m not talking about the NHS here.
It’s been an insidious form of what the British Forces would call ‘mission creep’. Local Authorities up and down the nation, have, are, or are planning to, alter local traf- fic regulation orders in order to ban certain vehicles from many roads, streets and local thoroughfares.
Perhaps the most pernicious bit of all this is that some are even now using the shadow of the coronavirus in order to camouflage and justify their actions.
Most including me, would call these actions shameful!
Perhaps the worst hit area currently is and will be our country’s capital – London! Although there is evidence of the ‘mission creep’ extending to other areas up and down the nation...
Many street closures or restrictions on vehicular usage are being enacted, not on a piecemeal basis, but in many cases – in large swathes and batches. A number of local thoroughfares have been closed, even to the local residents who live there and lots of larger roads are also now being closed off to many vehicles.
The bans typically preclude anything other than bicycles, pedestrians and buses – and there’s the problem!
Buses can use the roads in question as they’re public transport, but not Taxis.
This highlights a gaping chasm in local authority thinking and planning (if that even exists by my definition of planning) as it seems that in their eyes, taxis are not public transport or even part, it would seem, of the ‘Local Transport Plan’. Quite frankly this beggars belief and simply goes to reinforce and prove what I’ve always said and thought of local authority officers and the deficien- cies in their powers of logical reasoning!
Now if all this wasn’t bad enough – there are other authorities, including London, that are
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allowing an exemption to the use of closed roads for electric taxis only, such as the LEVC taxis. But - there’s a fundamental flaw in their plan and it’s a large one.
This may all seem fairly innocuous and eas- ily justified, were it not for the fact that many electric vehicles are not fully electric!
Confused? You’re in good company, so am I!
Many of these “electric” vehicles have a back up fossil fuel engine. In the case of the LEVC TXE, it’s an 81-hp Volvo sourced 1.5-litre turbo charged three-cylinder petrol engine.
In LEVC’s own word’s: “...TX is powered by an electric motor that drives the rear wheels, the range-extender supports the electric motor to remove any range-anxiety. There is no mechanical connection between the range-extender and the wheels; it is there to maintain the charge in the battery pack if and when required...”
Range-extender seems to be code for the petrol engine!
Let’s go back to London, some roads are open to EVs, but they cannot charge any- where, as there’s very few or no charging points en route. Therefore, they are being run on petrol for a lot if not, most of the time. Now excuse me but doesn’t that defeat the object?
Just to add a further complicating factor to the mix, many London black cab proprietors were incentivised by TfL into converting their existing cabs to run on LPG.
LPG vehicles have proved to reduce harmful emissions by 70%, and here’s the thing - all the time, without the need to rely on a petrol engine as a back up. So the reduction in emissions is across the board!
Many cab drivers spent up to £20,000 (including incentive) on the conversion and bought into the dream, only to find that fur- ther down the road (pardon the pun), the dream is fast becoming a nightmare. As they are now not included as a clean air ini- tiative vehicle.
In London’s case, Unite were at the forefront in cleaning up our working environment for all the right reasons and in a productive manner. This has been applauded and then abused by those who have the power to make decisions that will decimate our trade. In short many trade members have been hoodwinked and are now being punished for doing the right thing regarding LPG conversions!
Zero Emissions Capable (ZEC) seems to most to be a white elephant, which has not
lived up to the vision set out by TfL and the Government. This seems to be a policy by TfL and the London Mayor, based upon dividing the London cab trade, as it will when it rolls out elsewhere! “Electric” vehi- cles on certain streets, but other extremely clean vehicles excluded.
Here’s the real hypocrisy - the LPG conver- sion scheme in London is still running!!!
Very soon, there will be nowhere left for our trade to ply their business. As other areas across the UK, led by London, are now also shutting off streets and roads to taxi drivers because they are not part of the public transport system!? This is nothing short of a ‘land grab’ of our road network, plain and simple by those in power and those, who will not be financially affected by the deci- sions they make.
There needs to be a national mandatory order, forcing authorities to incorporate the taxi trade into “public transport” and treat them with parity to that of other members of the “public transport” family locally, alongside buses, trains, tubes, trams etc. Even subsidies that were handed out in a £83m package have passed us by.
In order to achieve this, we need to lobby, talk and write to those making these deci- sions – nationally!
Finally, the other worrying part of this is that it has all the potential to be a wealth tax or a form of financial exclusion. It now appears to have been choreographed and exploited, away from the environmental health initia- tive it was initially set up to be. Remember the “clean air initiative” we were sold?
The potential product is a dystopian world where purely those with wealth can afford to play the game. A world in which only the rich and those who can afford hugely expensive vehicles will be able to traverse the highways and byways of the country!
Is this the real end game? One of financial exclusion and social cleansing based on your ability to pay.
Hipsters ahoy!
Cue
music...Talking Heads – Road To Nowhere... Drive carefully and above all, stay well...
Article supplied by: Sean Ridley Secretary Unite the Union South East Region (Cab Section)
Sean.Ridley@unitetheunion.org
AUGUST 2020
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