MISCONCEPTIONS LAID BARE F
ICTION F ACT
The Deregulation Act says that all hackney carriage and private hire driver licences must now be issued for three years.
The explanatory notes issued by Government when section 10 of the Deregulation Act was enacted states: “This section amends two sections of the Local Gov- ernment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 that deal
with the granting of licences to drive taxis and private hire vehicles and licences to operate private hire vehicles. “Subsection (2) changes the law in such a way as to establish a stan- dard duration of three years for taxi and private hire vehicle driver licences. The section specifies that a licence may be granted for a period of less than three years but only in the circumstances of an individual case, not because of a blanket policy.” The NPHTA has fielded a large number of calls and emails in recent weeks from licence holders who are over 65 years old and, whilst they understand they must have a medical every year after that age, their council will not allow them to renew their badge except at three-yearly intervals. This seems unfair and almost age-discrimina- tory really; what if the person intends to retire in a year or 18 months’ time? Why should they pay for a full three-year renewal? Surely this counts as “the circumstances of an individual case…” – as not all seniors in the district have made the same request. C’mon licensing guys, be reasonable.
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ICTION ACT
Some local councils maintain that they can test licensed vehicles as many times as they wish during the year: three, four, five times in addition to and above any section 68 roadside enforcement exercises.
Existing legislation limits the number of scheduled tests that can be carried out on taxis and PHVs. Here we go with the legalese: Section 50(1) LGMPA states: “Without prejudice to the provisions of section 68 of
this Act, the proprietor of any hackney carriage or of any private hire vehicle licensed by a district council shall present such… vehicle for inspection and testing by or on behalf of the council within such peri- od and at such place within the area of the council as they may by notice reasonably require: “Provided that a district council shall not under the provisions of this subsection require a proprietor to present the same hackney carriage or private hire vehicle for inspection and testing on more than three separate occasions during any one period of twelve months.” You’ll note that it doesn’t say “calendar year” but “any one period of twelve months”. You’ll note also that the same subsection specifies that this testing must take place “within the area of the council”; that’s another bug- bear of ours as more and more councils are contracting out vehicle testing, sometimes to facilities that are well outside the district. That also is a no-no… but that’s another day’s soap box.
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ICTION ACT
Very often neither the council nor the police will take action against bilking – fares doing a runner – as they maintain it is only a civil matter.
We ran an entire feature on this subject a couple of months ago, as it obviously raises its head more fre- quently during the festive season than at any other time. If a passenger deliberately sets out to take a taxi
or PHV journey with no intention of paying the fare, and indeed runs off at the end of the journey without paying, that is a criminal offence – it’s tantamount to fraud. The “fifty shades of grey” kick in when other circumstances are considered, such as disputes over the fare; the passenger making a part-payment; the passenger paying the fare but not paying the fouling charge, things like that. Those grey areas most often fall into the category of a civil offence, which would indeed not be acted upon by the police. However, we’d be more than made up if the police would take more notice of our drivers’ complaints against criminal offenders…
JANUARY 2019 F ICTION F ACT F ICTION F ACT
Literally hundreds of taxi licence holders have com- plained over recent years that they are paying a fortune for permits to ply for hire at their local railway station, and yet when they complain to the council
about the station management mis-managing the area (ie. bringing in private hire vehicles, not clearing private motors off the taxi ranks, etc), the council does nothing about it.
It’s all down to the status of the land on which the railway station ranks are situated. Nearly always the forecourt at the railway station is private land, owned by the railway or the management company. For that reason and that
reason alone, the licensing authority has no jurisdiction over activities or vehicle movement on that land. Indeed, the same applies to super- market car parks – which again are usually on private land.
It would appear that when a complaint is made to the local council about the conduct of a driver, the council always takes the side of the complainant and never sides with the driver, on the basis that “there’s no
smoke without fire” and the driver is often deemed not to be fit and proper, whether or not he has had a full and fair hearing either in front of Committee or in the Magistrates’ Court.
If ever there was a fistful of reasons to install a solid state CCTV system in every licensed vehicle in the country – whether by choice or mandate – then this is the main one. Notwithstanding the safety both of the
driver and passenger, the number of false accusations made against drivers: anything from inappropriate language to sexual advances, taking the wrong money, arguing over a route… the list is endless – would reduce dramatically with the presence of evidence-gathering cameras and, if necessary, sound. This is why PHTM and the National Association have banged on about CCTV for most of the past year in light of our driver safety campaign. Sure, it’s an expense.
It’s quite a large initial layout
(although you can get SSD systems now on tick… get in touch). But you won’t have to convince any licensed driver who has been victim of a false accusation and has lost his livelihood as a result, that if he’d had CCTV evidence it wouldn’t have happened.
F ICTION F ACT
Nobody does anything about the presence of a certain app-based company in our licensing district. This has dec- imated our business, and yet they are continually getting away with riding roughshod over local licensing condi-
tions, not paying UK tax, not adhering to workers’ rights, and so on.
The above ain’t fiction: it’s happening all day and every day! Again, not only the UK Government but many all over the world are examining on a daily basis the prac- tices of these types of companies, and their effect on
“bona fide” transport providers. How many more court cases can this particular company be involved in, before the tide turns in favour of our tried and trusted native firms? Never mind “how long is a piece of string”… how deep are their coffers??!
As PHTM readers will know by now, a good many of the issues exam- ined in this article have been considered, and discussed long and hard, by the Government’s Task and Finish group, resulting in the package of 34 recommendations currently being responded to by the Transport Minister, Nusrat Ghani. Because at the time of writing we don’t know the exact timetable of this response, you may find that indeed some of these issues will be taken forward and hopeful- ly resolved In Due Course (you know, that magical licensing district where everything happens and everybody writes back to you and everything is resolved. Didn’t they used to call that Utopia?!) In any event there will not be an overnight fix; these things take time. We would just hope and pray that – finally! – some serious consider- ation is given to the myriad of difficulties facing our industry in these high-tech and pressured times. Did somebody say Watch This Space?
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