IN THE NEWS
COLCHESTER POLICE ACTED UNLAWFULLY IN BIG FREEZE
A cab boss has accused police of helping others to break the law. Police recently stepped in to help late-night rev- ellers who were left stranded in Colchester town centre as temper- atures plunged well below zero.
With the roads almost impassable and long queues building up at taxi ranks, police ensured cabs were full, hailed passing PHVs to pick up passengers and even asked pass- ing motorists to take
revellers home. However, Tony Saun- ders, chairman of the Colchester Hackney Carriage Association, says their actions were unlawful.
He told the Colchester Daily Gazette about PHVs having to be pre- booked. He added: “It is also not safe for people to be giving lifts to strangers. What would have happened if one of the drivers had been attacked? “If conditions were so bad, police should have asked the private
hire bases to open their offices so people could take refuge and book their cabs, which meant they would have been insured. “We have complained to the police, but they seem unable to grasp the concept that their actions were not law- ful.”
A police spokesman said: “These were exceptional circum- stances in atrocious weather and the offi- cers took exceptional steps to ensure peo- ple were safe.”
MAJOR POTHOLES COSTING TAXI TRADE IN DUNDEE
Dundee drivers could be facing huge car repair bills as a result of the explosion of potholes around the city following the recent cold snap. Dundee City Council has confirmed it has already received around a dozen com- pensation claims from motorists, while a campaigning website is reporting a surge in the number of reports it has received nation- ally from angry drivers since the start of the bad weather.
According to one local trade leader, almost all taxi drivers in Dundee can expect to have their cars damaged by potholes this winter. The dire prediction was made by Graeme
Stephen of the Dundee Taxi Associa- tion.
He told the Dundee Evening Telegraph he already knows of one driver who has had to replace suspension springs as a result of hitting a particularly vicious pothole in the Dens Road area. “Fortunately, he used to be a mechanic so was able to do the repairs himself,” he went on.
“The roads are full of really bad potholes just now and a lot of drivers have been complaining about it, and a lot of passen- gers, too. It’s got to the stage where just about every taxi is going to suffer prob- lems.
“We are not just driv- ing over them once going to work and once on the way home - we are going over them all the time and that affects every part of your suspension,” he explained.
Even so, Mr Stephen urged drivers to show patience when push- ing for road repairs. “I must stress the ice and snow have just recently gone and you have to give them a chance to get the pot- holes sorted,” he continued.
“Obviously the weath- er has had an effect, because they weren’t so bad before, but I would hope that, through time, they will be fixed - and sooner rather than later.”
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RAC PATROLS’ ICE BREAKER WITH STRANDED LONDON CABBIE
London taxi driver, Michael Walker, was going nowhere fast when his cab got stuck on an icy side road earlier last month. And to make matters worse, he was forced to stay put with his foot down hard on the brake to stop the taxi colliding with two parked cars.
Enter RAC, which - within fifteen minutes - fielded a patrol to help the stranded driver. With a second RAC patrol arriving to provide extra assis- tance, the patrolmen used a blow-torch, de-icer and club ham- mer to free the
vehicle.
The two patrolmen then pushed the taxi about 50 metres in icy conditions before Mr Walker could engage the accelerator.
He said: “They could easily and understand- ably have walked away from this prob- lem and left me stranded. Instead, they went far beyond what I pay RAC sub- scriptions for.”
RAC took more than half a million calls and handled 300,000 call- outs during the recent cold snap.
Steve Whitmarsh, sen- ior partnership mana- ger of RAC Corporate
Partnerships, says: “Extreme conditions sometimes call for extreme methods to help motorists get moving. During times of bad weather the public rely on profes- sionals, such as taxi drivers, to get them where they need to go. In this case it was the Driving People helping the driving people.” RAC’s protection for taxi and PHV drivers, Taxi-Assist, gives driv- ers tailored options including roadside assistance, recovery, breakdown assistance at home plus the option to cover family members.
I don’t know about the RAC..... they’ll need a flamethrower to get me out of this...
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