Andy Peters
Brighton & Hove Cab Trade Association
info@bhcta.co.uk www.bhcta.co.uk
LICENSED VEHICLE ID
I have long had the strong belief that all licensed vehicles must be properly and permanently marked for public awareness, showing the status of the vehicle, whether a hackney carriage or a private hire vehicle, and all licence details.
I know there are issues currently going on in areas where some councils have insisted on door signs with company names which is mainly for PHVs. But the problem nowadays with this is where self-employed drivers are now working on more than one platform. Unless an unjustified and challengeable condition is imposed that forbids this, such as in the case of Wolverhampton. Why no Wolverhampton driver, or indeed any union has never challenged this is beyond me? However, this should not stop the licence details being shown which should include door signs with the council logo for easy and instant identification.
I have said before that for many years the local cab trade was the ‘eyes’ in the city here and we could spot rogue ‘taxis’ very easily, and often we dealt with this ourselves. Nowadays this has been made utterly impossible with the issue of permanent cross-border hiring of vehicles, working many miles away from respective local enforcement, if indeed there is any in place.
For example, here in Brighton & Hove, all the hackneys have a distinctive coloured livery and the PHVs must have door signs that contain the company name, or there is a choice to leave the company name out but there must still be the wording: ‘Private Hire – Prior Booking Only’ in place, plus a rear plate and door repeater plate. But we have Havant PHVs pre-dominantly working here that only have a rear plate, which for all intentions and purposes look like ordinary cars unless you walk around the back. We also have TfL cars working here with those silly corner mounted front and rear windshield roundels that most of the time you can’t see behind the tinted glass.
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When there is a multi-force joint enforcement operation in the city for licensed vehicles it’s been admitted that it’s always the case that there are many more Brighton & Hove cars stopped because of the easy identification of these as opposed to the out-of-town cars which are harder to identify. Quite ironic really.
Anyway, at one time the public knew exactly what they were getting into here in the city, but now this is not the case. So, I strongly believe that without proper vehicle identification the public are at risk, although I do know there are exceptions under executive hire where the plate does not need to be externally shown. I’ve had this view since the 80s which I expressed in a radio interview about the tragic Susie Lamplugh case at the time.
I do know and appreciate that others have the opinion of “It’s my car and I use it privately so why should I have permenant door sticker on it”. Well dear sirs/madams, once your vehicle is licensed it remains licensed until the time it is not. And public safety takes a higher priority over you going to the local supermarket to do some shopping.
So, where is this all going? Well, earlier this year a despicable fake ‘taxi driver’ was caught having committed two rapes in the city. He’d travelled from Pevensey to carry out this crime and was jailed for twenty-three years:
https://tinyurl.com/ruguedriver1
It is understood that the vehicle used had no markings and it was probably due to the evil intention of the driver that gave the victims the impression that it was a licensed taxi. Of course, there is absolutely no excuse for this and it will always remain an unfortunate situation where the public do not carry out a personal risk assessment when getting into taxis/PHVs to ensure that the vehicle is genuine. And, in my opinion, the only way is for all licensed vehicles to carry distinctive door signs that show the vehicle licence number and council licensing identification as standard, especially with such cars working many miles outside their respective licensing areas.
But with this case in mind I consider that some thought must be given to having different coloured number plates for hackneys and PHVs. So, no matter whatever conditions of licensing are in place for local vehicle identification, a national identification should be a step forward for public safety.
AUGUST 2023 PHTM
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