48 PRIVATE HIRE AND TAXI MONTHLY
RIGHT WAY... ...WRONG WAY?!
WOKINGHAM COUNCIL IS “OUT OF TOUCH ABOUT SAFETY”
Taxi drivers in Wok- ingham are banding together to form an action group to keep them safe while out working.
Cab drivers are hop- ing to form Cabwatch to help solve some of the issues between them, their customers and the council. Imran Hussein, who has been a taxi driver for nine years, has decided to take action after recent advice put forward by police and the council.
He told the Bracknell and Ascot times: “Their suggestions were things like ‘radio back to base when you set off’, but we don’t have radios in some of our cabs. That kind of advice shows how out of touch the people
who put those things together are. They haven’t got a clue what it’s like to be a taxi driver.”
The drivers plan to have a meeting with licensing officers at Wokingham Borough Council to discuss ways of working together to help them feel supported Currently, they say they feel the council is out of touch. Con- flict has arisen over travel tokens, because they were changed without driv- ers being told about it and they had to accept them without being certain they were genuine.
Mr Hussein said: “It’s all or nothing. We are trying to arrange a big meeting to dis-
cuss the kind of issues affecting driv- ers and see where we can go from here.” Mr Hussein is sug- gesting a ‘mystery shopper’ style test where officials hail cabs to see whether the drivers are charg- ing the right fares. He said some taxi drivers overcharge customers who are drunk and rude and in return, customers are abusive or refuse to pay at all.
He hopes the Cab- watch scheme will start once the planned meeting takes place.
Mr Hussein said: “We are really trying to get all the drivers on the rank together and the council to get this started.”
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ABUSED PETERBOROUGH CABBIES “TURNING VIGILANTE”
Vigilante cabbies are taking the law into their own hands to deal with abusive and violent customers and fare dodgers, a senior city councillor has claimed.
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According to Harry Newton, the head of the committee respon- sible for handing out taxi and private hire licences, a minority of drivers resort to deal- ing with crime themselves rather than call the police.
His comments come in the wake of remarks made by Judge Nicholas Cole- man, who described vigilantism as a “par- ticular problem” in Peterborough, when jailing taxi driver Imti- az Rehman for attacking a drunken yob who had van- dalised his car.
Councillor Newton said, historically, there had been cases where cabbies would sidestep the law to gang up on criminals,
and the practice was still going on. He told the Peterbor- ough Evening Telegraph: “A couple of years ago there was a particular problem where, if taxi drivers got into trouble they would not call the police, but contact all the other taxi drivers who would rush to their aid. “At meetings now, offi- cers keep telling them to contact police if there is a problem, but still they tend to do it. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen very often.” According to police, an average of ten crimes against taxi drivers are reported every month, and while the majority are complaints of fare- dodging, a few are for more serious crimes, such as assault. Some city taxi drivers, who did not want to be named, admitted some of their col- leagues would call on each other in times of trouble because they
claimed they did not get enough protection from police. P e terborough’s deputy police com- mander , Superintendent Gary Ridgway, said that a “small minority” of drivers were respon- sible for vigilantism. He said: “Taxi drivers need to be properly trained to deal with these situations, as part of the require- ments of their licences.
“I also think all taxis in Peterborough need to be fitted with CCTV. But the industry has to accept it must play its part in this by helping to provide the fund- ing.” Warning that offenders stood to lose their licences, the city coun- cil’s taxi licensing chief, Ken Gray, said: “Drivers are told they must never attempt to take the law into their own hands, even if they are unhappy with the police response.”
JANUARY 2009
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