THE FUTURE OF ERIC
Here’s another scenario: Eric is 78 years old. He suffers from dementia, but still lives alone because the social care machine is not as well oiled as the p2p apps’ mighty marketing machine... His friendly neighbours check up on him periodically, and his son and daughter- in-law visit him most days. Recently, on occasion, he has taken to wandering off, becoming confused and forgetting how to get home. He is seen by a neighbour getting into a licensed private hire vehicle with a door sign advertising a locally well-known and reputable operator. The neighbour gets in touch with the operator immediately, the police and social services are called. Eric is brought home safely, and a decision is subsequently made, with the agreement of his son, to put him in a suitable care home.
Now imagine Eric getting into the same private hire vehicle with the same operator but no signage advertising the company, thanks to DfT ‘guidance.’ Through the front window, the neighbour does not see the private hire licence plate attached to the rear bumper. Eric is just seen getting into a silver car...
I think you get the idea: vehicle signage advertising the operator acts clearly in the interests of public safety. If a passenger has booked a journey in advance, but the battery on their phone has since died, or maybe they have lost their phone, they can still identify the operator with whom they booked from the signage. If there is more than one vehicle booked from the same firm by different people at a particular venue, the passenger only has to ask, “Are you for Lisa Smith?” The driver can only say yes or no. If the answer is yes, they can point to the booking name on their data screen.
VEHICLE AGE LIMITS
In an ideal world, drivers and vehicle proprietors would buy brand-new vehicles and replace them every three to four years. Unfortunately, we do not live in such a world, so we need to find some kind of compromise or middle ground between brand-spanking new, and knackered old sheds with no age limit at all at the other extreme. You can guess which the DfT opted for in its ‘guidance.’
Yep, sheds it is! Except they won’t really be sheds because the driver will have a four-page check sheet to complete every single working day as part of a walk-
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around inspection which will likely take around 20 minutes. Every single working day! Folks, that’s 1,252 pieces of paper and 105 hours per year, assuming a six- day working week. If the driver was paid minimum wage (which they won’t be), it would cost £1,189 per vehicle, just to look at it, not to actually fix anything.
As I cautioned in response to the consultation, com- pliance with this requirement is going to be very low. Perhaps the DfT should have recommended that every driver purchase a set of ramps to crawl underneath and have a look (for signs of dry rot and woodworm) instead of just doing laps of the vehicle.
The only way that the vehicle is not going to be likely to break down on the way to the airport is to ensure that it is serviced and checked according to the manufact- urer’s recommended schedules, is reasonably new, and isn’t French... (I jest, having lived in France in my youth).
Tyres need to be checked every few days, but keep a closer eye on that one tyre with less than 3 mm of tread. Bulbs wouldn’t need regular checking if the car wasn’t so old and they were all LEDs. Dip the oil and check the water. If either are leaking, get them fixed!
If it is a question of encouraging drivers to buy greener vehicles, age limits can be differentiated. For example, in Cannock Chase, hybrids or electric vehicles can be up to 7 years old upon being licensed for the first time. For ICE-only vehicles, it is 3.5 years until 2026, when all vehicles new to licensing are expected to be hybrid, electric, or hydrogen if available.
Age limits can vary from one area to another, reflecting the local economy and what the trade can comfortably accommodate there. If, instead, councils want to introduce specific vehicle standards on a piecemeal basis, they are going to have to commit to spending a lot of time keeping abreast with technological advances in automotive design. If they do introduce a new vehicle stipulation, this is going to cause friction with the local trade.
Emissions are not the only consideration. There are safety features too. For example, autonomous emer- gency braking was first introduced over ten years ago. It would cause the vehicle to stop automatically in order to avoid colliding with another. The latest gener- ation of this technology can also detect pedestrians, day and night, as well as cyclists in the daytime only.
JULY 2024 PHTM
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