TAXI FOCUS


local government. About 6.6 per cent of residents use taxis as their pri- mary mode of transportation, with 70 per cent travelling less than 8 kilometers per trip. Worsening traffic jams and below-average driver incomes have led to the proliferation of smartphone applications that allow commuters to book a taxi by offering to pay more than the metered fare. The China Daily newspaper reported that the city will ban such apps from this month. Shanghai, where the practice has also become widespread, will ban taxi drivers from accepting such bookings, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Sun Jianping, head of the municipal transport authority. In the past seven years, Shanghai has raised taxi fares twice, while Guang- zhou and Shenzhen had one increase, according to the Beijing government.


from USA TEXAN DRIVERS CONCERNED OVER SAFETY


Any day of the week and any time of the day, you’ll find cabs parked at the Hilton Hotel at 5th and Trinity in Austin. They’re waiting on hotel guests most of whom are well behaved business types. But that isn’t always the case when you drive a taxi. “We have no protection other than calling the police if we have a problem,” said Dan Osemene. Fellow cab driver Abbas Yawoai agrees. “How do you protect yourself? Noth- ing. Just God protecting us otherwise you have to call the cops,” said Yawoai. He tells KVUE (Radio) News that he’s experienced a drunk unruly passen- ger who started kicking the back of his seat and yelling racial slurs. “I pulled over on 35 at the gas station, I said to the police officer: ‘Officer I have prob- lem with this guy.’ The police officer said, ‘take it home,’” added Yawoai. A city ordinance says cab drivers can only refuse to transport a person if: they are disorderly, engaged in unlawful conduct, have no ability to pay the fare or put the safety of the driver or cab at risk. Dustin Rowden is charged with injury to a disabled person for severely beating Akbar Amir-Akbari in 2011. Attorneys say Rowden was kicked out of a bar for fighting and officers forced Akbar Amir-Akbari to take him home. He’s now suing the city and police. “In the shortest, horrifying time but it was the longest suffering that I expe- rienced,” says Amir-Akbari. Because of the pending lawsuit, Austin police are not commenting on poli- cies involving asking cab drivers to take drunk passengers.


from Ireland


CCTV USED AT DUBLIN RANKS TO CATCH DRIVERS FLOUTING RULES


Cameras at taxi ranks will be used to police driving behaviour by taxi driv- ers under a new law proposed in the Dail. CCTV recordings will be used to spot breaches of regulations that target taxi drivers who park on public roads beside taxi ranks when the ranks are full, said public and commuter transport minister Alan Kelly. A new Taxi Regulation Bill will also disqualify people with very serious criminal convictions from driving taxis. A new ‘demerit’ system will also be enforced to penalise taxi drivers who flout the rules. But demerits will not be issued to drivers parking illegally beside full taxi


ranks, as the Minister acknowledged complaints by taxi drivers about the general shortage of ranks. Bans on drivers with serious convictions were being challenged and overturned in the courts, but the new law will tight- en regulations disqualifying drivers with serious convictions in Ireland or in other countries, said the Minister. “Quite frankly, there are a few individuals who should not be driving taxis who are currently doing so, and this legislation will directly address that,” he said. The new demerit system will punish those with recurrent breaches of regulations and will be similar but separate to the traffic penalty points sys- tem. Those who get too many demerits will be disqualified from driving taxis for three months. “Just to give one example of a demerit, should a taxi driv- er deliberately take a customer on a longer journey for the purpose of increasing the fare, if this is investigated and found to be an offence, the driv- er concerned could be given a demerit,” he told the Dublin Evening Herald. The new law will oblige drivers to reveal if they also have other jobs or employment. An RTE Prime Time Investigates documentary showed how some taxi drivers had jobs driving other public service vehicles, which put them at risk from driving excessively long hours. This posed a danger to the safety of passengers, themselves and other road users, said the minister.


from Europe LEAF BRANCHES OUT AS TAXI IN EUROPE


Cities across Europe are going through a quiet revolution as taxi compa- nies start to shift from conventional diesel-powered cabs to zero-emission - and near-silent - Nissan LEAF taxis. The world’s best-selling electric vehicle (EV) is fast becoming the taxi driv- ers’ favourite too; attracted by lower running costs and fuelled by a desire to reduce airborne pollution in city centres. Two years after the ground-breaking EV went on sale in Europe, Nissan LEAF taxis are now operating in Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the UK And more are on the way! The Chester Leader reports that one of the strongest advocates of the Nis- san LEAF as a taxi is Amsterdam-based Taxi-E company. With a fleet of 13 Nissan LEAFs, the firm’s drivers have covered over 700,000km - that’s further than the distance of the earth to the moon. The cars are quick-charged two or three times a day using 100 per cent green energy, meaning they’re always ready for passengers. One of the entrepreneurs behind Taxi-E, Ruud Zandvliet, said: “Amsterdam has some 3,000 taxis, so while our fleet is helping to reduce emissions there is obviously room to reduce these even further.”


and finally from South Korea... KOREAN URBAN LEGEND STORY GOES VIRAL


You've heard it before: Person wakes up in a bathtub of ice, only to find a kidney has been harvested. It’s an urban legend that, according to Snopes, has been around since 1991. Now in South Korea, there's a somewhat sim- ilar story that involves taxicabs. And it's taking the internet by storm. Numerous websites and news programmes have been reporting about an urban legend that has passengers getting drugged in taxis and then waking up minus a kidney. The rumor is spreading through social networking sites.


AS MANY AS HALF OF ALL TAXI & PRIVATE HIRE DRIVERS HAVE BEEN MIS-SOLD PPI


START YOUR CLAIM TODAY... YOU COULD BE OWED £££S 0800 456 1119


JULY 2013 PHTM PAGE 61


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