JOBSWORTH JAMBOREE
COLCHESTER CABBIE FINED FOR HELPING A DISABLED SHOPPER
A taxi driver wants council officials to rethink parking rules which landed him with a ticket for helping a disabled customer into his cab. Kenneth Winfield was angry and upset to get a ticket and he thinks changes should be made so that drivers in Colchester collecting elderly or disabled cus- tomers can help them without risking a ticket. Mr Winfield, from Colchester, told the Daily Gazette: “On this occasion, I was col- lecting a customer I drop into town every Friday with her carer. I then collect them later with her weekly shop from Sainsbury’s.
“I left the cab in a load- ing bay for seven minutes and when I came back, I had a tick- et. The attendant must have seen me and if he had said something, I could have told him what I was doing. “I can’t use a disabled badge so the only option is to say I won’t pick up people other than at a rank. But if I did that, would I still be carrying out the mandate I have from the council as a taxi driver, which is to give every customer the right to be collected from where they are?” He wrote to the coun- cil asking it to cancel the ticket, but the council said it would
not do so. Richard Walker, park- ing services manager said: “It sounds as if he was just unfortunate. We would normally observe a vehicle for at least five minutes before issuing a ticket. “I have every sympathy with what he is saying, but the loading bay is literally just for that.” Mmmm.... We
have
already mentioned the Administrative Court judgement about drivers picking up or dropping off passengers on dou- ble yellow lines - and allowing time for assist- ing passengers. Surely this must extend to assisting disabled pas- sengers. Equality Act, anyone? - Ed
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Taxi drivers have been fined for dropping eld- erly women off at the door to their local cafes for their daily cuppa. Pearl Penhall gets a lift each day to Snax Cafe in Bedmin- ster’s East Street which is now closed to through vehicles. Cabbie John Shamis was given a ticket for using the street to drive the 73-year-old to the front of the cafe rather than making her walk round the corner with her zimmer frame. Pensioner Mrs Penhall told the Bristol Evening Post she couldn’t walk from the end of the road and didn’t want to give up her daily routine. The elderly lady uses the taxi company as a lifeline to get out of her flat and is well known by the drivers, who take time to help her and other elderly pas- sengers. “We’ve been bringing
elderly and disabled people down this stretch for years,” Mr Shamis said. “I was taking this young lady Pearl down and the officer wasn’t interest- ed and hit me with a £30 fine.”
Mr Shamis, from Bed- minster, is not alone. He told the Post three of his colleagues had also been fined in the past six weeks for the same thing - dropping elderly or disabled clients as close as they could to their destination.
The shopping street in Bedminster is now closed to cars, with only buses and cyclists allowed to use the road as a cut- through to avoid a detour around Malago Road.
“I said I’m not cutting through but he wasn’t interested,” Mr Shamis explained. The 25-year-old cab- bie for Club Cars said
he paid the subse- quent fine because “to appeal it would have cost more money”. “That officer should have looked and seen I had a disabled pas- senger,” he added. “It is restricted to serv- ice vehicles and buses, but as far as we’re concerned we are just servicing the community.”
A council spokesman confirmed that there is a ‘prohibition of driving order’ in force in East Street between 7am and 7pm.
“There are various side roads which would mean that a driver could drop the passen- ger very close to where they needed to go without transgressing the order,” he said. But he confirmed traffic enforcement officers have room for discre- tion.
“It would be down to individual circum- stances,” he added.
PHTM MARCH 2011
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