106 PRIVATE HIRE AND TAXI MONTHLY BUREAUCRACY BOWL
Well, entries for this category always go from the ridicu- lous to the ridiculous - there’s no sublime about it. It has to be a close-run thing between the Manchester cabbie, who was involved in a serious road accident in which a man died... the council prosecuted the driver for having a set of furry dice and two air fresheners in his vehicle - even though the presence of these items did not con- tribute to the cause of the accident.
The other contender has to be the cabbie in the Ren- frewshire Council area who was ordered to remove a safety sign from his vehicle advising passengers to use their seat belts - because it breached local advertising rules. Methinks these two merit a joint first prize award, n’est-ce pas?!
FEBRUARY
IT’S NOT FARE, BLASTS ANGRY CABBIE JOHN
A brassed-off cabbie who was ordered to remove a safety mes- sage from his private hire car has slammed licensing chiefs.
John Dunlop, 61, was so concerned about pas- sengers failing to belt up in the back seat he had a warning sign made up to make sure they weren't putting themselves at risk.
AUGUST
MANCHESTER DEATH-CRASH CABBIE FINED OVER FURRY DICE
A taxi driver involved in a car crash in which a man died has been fined for having two furry dice hanging from his rear view mirror. Javaid Alam was devas tated following the acci dent in which dad Wayne Kerrigan was killed. Mr Kerrigan, 28, stepped in front of his taxi in a poorly lit stretch of Rochdale Road, Collyhurst, after a night out with friends, an inquest into his death heard.
The coroner said Mr Alam, from Leven- shulme, was not to blame for the death and there was no
evidence to suggest there was anything
wrong with his driving or his car.
But the dad, a taxi driv- er for II years, has now been ordered to pay a £45 fine after being taken to court for hav- ing the dice and two air fresheners hanging in the car, even though prosecutors said they did not contribute to the cause of the acci- dent.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the dice, which had been in the car for two years, had the ‘potential’ to obstruct his view and charged him with failing to have a full view of traffic.
Mr Alam, 38, who pleaded guilty to failing to have a full view of
traffic and has no previ- ous driving convictions, told the Manchester Evening News: “To pur- sue the furry dice seems so trivial when you think what the young man’s family are going through.
“I was heartbroken when I heard he had died, but it is nothing compared to what his family must feel. “In 11 years I have never been involved in an incident in my taxi and when my car has been in for tests no one has ever told me the dice could be a prob- lem. “Paying a fine doesn't take away the fact that someone lost their life.”
But now he has been forced to get rid of the sign on the rear passenger win- dow - because it breaches advertising rules.
Disgusted John, who works out of Johnstone, hit out after he was told by Renfrewshire Council
to remove the sign that urges travellers to fasten their seat belt or face a fine.
The cabbie says the move by Renfrewshire Council to make him remove the warning is ridiculous and compromising passenger safety.
Mr Dunlop told the Pais- ley Daily Express: “They told me they have orders and have got to go by the book.
They said that if they allowed me to keep the let- ters on the window it could lead to more people doing the same. They asked what would then happen if 1,500 cars did it?
"There are so many NOVEMBER
things they should be concerning themselves with but it seems the council are only con- cerned with trivialities and not realities.” Mr Dunlop who works for Alpha Cars is licensed to pick up passengers in his blue Peugeot 406 across Renfrewshire. But he had to scrape the lettering from the win- dow or he would have been booted off the road.
Renfrewshire Council insisted their regulations are quite clear while acknowledging Mr Dun- lop's concerns for the welfare of his passen- gers.
BRIDGNORTH: CAB DRIVER FINE REKINDLES ROW OVER PARKING
Taxi and private hire car companies in Bridg- north have reacted with anger after a driver was given a parking ticket while helping a cus- tomer into a vehicle with their shopping bags. Tracey Gauden, from Colin’s Taxis, was ticket- ed by a warden while picking up the passen- ger in High Street on Friday 26 September. The incident has rekin- dled a long-standing grievance between the firms and the council and parking company, ParkRight.
The firms claim they are not able to carry out their
MAY
POT-HOLES COST COUNCILS £2M COMPENSATION AS SCOTTISH ROADS DISINTEGRATE
It is the pot-hole ver- sion of a speed trap once you've hit it, it's too late. A water-filled hole stretching across one lane of the Gallowgate in Glasgow's East End caught many drivers unaware recently - and potentially to their cost. The 6in-deep gap could become just the latest of thousands of road defects across Scot- land which have led to compensation pay-outs totalling almost £2 mil- lion over the past five years.
The pot-hole was the
worst of ten spotted by The Scotsman on a 50- yard stretch of the four-lane road beside Millroad Drive.
Nearby residents said the road was a night- mare.
Ronald Price, 80, a retired road builder, said: "It's terrible. The road is not built proper- ly, with insufficient foundations.
"The holes just get filled up temporarily - they do not make a good job of it."
Alan Learmonth, 35, an unemployed roadie, said pot-holes posed
particular problems for cyclists like himself. He said: "It's quite bad - there are a lot of bits where you need to swerve in and out to avoid pot-holes and crumbling drains near the side of the road. "However, I phoned the council about a couple of holes and they fixed them."
Glasgow City Council paid £187,000 to driv- ers whose vehicles were damaged by road defects in the five years to last April. This was the third-largest pay- out level after
Edinburgh, with almost £638,000, and Aberdeen, with nearly £197,000.
But Shetland, renowned for its well maintained roads, paid nothing.
Some figures in the sur- vey of non-trunk roads by BBC Scotland also included compensation for tripping and falls. Taxi and motoring groups said the study reflected the terrible state of Scotland's roads. Peter Spinney,
who
chairs the Association of British Drivers in
Scotland, said his car had suffered more than £1,000 of damage from a road in Bearsden in East Dunbartonshire. He said: "My last car suffered three broken half-shafts on a road there, at £350 a time. "It has taken ten years to get that road patched up. Local authorities only pay a small fraction of the pot-hole damage hi their area."
Bill Mclntosh, the gen- eral secretary of the Scottish Taxi Federa- tion, told The Scotsman: "I'm sur-
prised the compensa- tion figure is so low, because the roads are in an atrocious condi- tion.
“They are so bad that taxis should be fitted with rotor blades to lift them off the ground." Warranty Direct, an Insurer, has set up the website, www.pot-
holes.co.uk, in order to advise motorists. It said drivers should measure any pot-hole they hit, and photo- graph both it and the surrounding area, to show there were no warning signs.
business because there is nowhere in the town for them to pick up cus- tomers and when they do stop they are asked to move on by wardens. Mrs Gauden had pulled up at the bus stop out- side Tesco Express when she was asked to move on by the warden. The warden gave her the ticket when she moved the cab a few yards down the street and got out to help the shopper. Mrs Gauden told the Shropshire Star: “It’s the first time I’ve received a ticket, but we’ve had problems with picking people up for a long time
now.” She added that the firm would be con- testing the ticket.
Alan Shakespeare, owner of Bramble’s Pri- vate Hire, said: “They have got no discretion.’’ Plans to introduce more loading and unloading spaces and extra dis- abled parking spaces and taxi bays are being discussed by Shrop- shire County Council, Bridgnorth District Council and ParkRight. Shaun Sutton, of ParkRight, confirmed a ticket had been issued because the driver was in contravention of parking rules after failing to move.
JANUARY 2009
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