18 PRIVATE HIRE AND TAXI MONTHLY continued from page 13
Why doesn’t this document ask the industry properly, and for the first time since Philip Oxley’s report on affordability, “Excuse me guys, can you afford this?” I know an awful lot of places in this country where drivers might wish to give their views. Watch this space for more on the subject.
The next option to doing nothing is that the Department for Transport could develop a package of guidance to local authorities and other stakeholders on how to go about these changes. The document says that this could include:-
• examples of good practice; and
• advice on issues like service levels, the pre- ferred makeup of the fleet to meet the needs of people with different types of disability, procurement policies, how to improve joint working with local transport providers and other local authorities and enforcement and inspections.
It goes on to say that the guidance could be applied to the private hire fleet as well as to licensed taxis. It would be publicised and made available on the internet, and kept up to date.
This is what the Government should have been doing for the last 15 years. And it should have been doing this not from a distant office in the Department for Transport headquarters; it should have been doing this on the ground, with the trade, with the disabled groups, and with the local authorities.
It strikes me that if you move forward to attain a goal which is considered by all to be desir- able, the first piece of information that you need to acquire is - What is the demand? The drivers on the ranks and at airports and railway stations, with wheelchair accessible vehicles, will give that answer in a clear and unequivocal manner: perhaps once a year. Perhaps once in two years. The demand is virtually negligible.
The one thing that I have never seen asked of disabled people anywhere else but in the wit- ness box is: How easy is it for you to get a taxi when you need one? It is significant at this particular time that the press highlighted the problems that Baroness Nicky Chapman of Leeds experienced in a wheelchair, having been refused by nine successive drivers in London. This of course was in an area where every single vehicle is wheelchair accessible.
This second section of the document, about issuing guidelines, is in my opinion the only direction to go, but we could only do this once we have LEARNED what is wanted; LEARNED whether it is affordable; LEARNED whether it is necessary; and considered all manner of things including raised pavement areas at ranks to make loading wheelchair passengers into the vehicles easier, ie. lessening the angle of the ramp.
LEARNED whether it is feasible or logical to ask drivers of 60 years and over to fall into line to push occupied wheelchairs up ramps at a risk to the health of themselves and the pas- sengers. Perhaps we should learn how many taxi drivers have public liability insurance to cover these eventualities?
And perhaps we should require drivers to learn disability awareness, equal opportunities, and even how to deploy their ramps. I have come across a lot of drivers who haven’t got a clue.
There is a lot of work to be done.
The third option is the least feasible of the lot, and that is at some stage to go to an interim specification vehicle for all, then onto this supreme specification for all, with dates being waved about like 2015 and 2025; when of course the vast majority of the rather age- bracketed taxi fleet, and drivers, will have retired.
The document certainly indicates that by 2015 your Metrocabs and Fairways will be a thing of the past. So you’ll want to put that in your diary, won’t you?
This section of the document indicates that mixed fleets are not feasible - which flies in the face of the European Ministers’ report from March 2007 which said that mixed fleets are the way to go. I think that option 2 should add that we should learn how to achieve mixed fleets; there’s an awful lot of councils out there that appear to have done so successfully, but they don’t appear to be mentioned here. I wonder why.
As I have indicated, the idea of 12 weeks to discuss matters of this importance is ludi- crous. We need to get round the country; we need to talk to the guys on the ranks. We need to get them to put forward their views. Quite a lot of them will need assistance so to do.
We need to go to the disabled groups. Enquiries so far show that a significant number of disabled groups know nothing about this consultation - which is very worrying. It may well be that their head office was on a list of consultees, but most of the major disabled groups have their offices in London, where the view of the taxi by all the disabled who live in London will be significantly different to those living in rural areas, or small towns and villages right across the country.
Each area has its own footprint. Each area has its own awareness groups, its own disabled groups; and the people in those groups are best placed to advise the local authority and the Government of what their needs are - or what their LOCAL needs are.
London is an awfully long way from London- thorpe in South Kesteven. I have only picked that place because of its name rather than any intimate knowledge as to whether there are any taxis there. According to the last Govern-
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ment statistics that I have, there are 255 hack- ney carriages in South Kesteven, and 24 private hire vehicles. This tells me that this rural area has deregulated some time ago, and I know that it is a council where the taxi fares are not mandatory; they are just advisory.
But this is one area where the introduction of all wheelchair accessible vehicles would cer- tainly, overnight, change the figures around; and if you are lucky you might end up with 24 wheelchair accessible hackney carriages there, but you would have over 200 private hire vehicles. I don’t think anybody reading this article could realistically think that anything else would happen.
Feedback from the ranks from our members in rural areas at this moment are indicating that certainly longer hours are having to be worked; but the income being generated in many places is less than half of the national mini- mum wage.
This Association will be writing to the Govern- ment demanding extra time for further consultation. Why don’t you all do the same. The 24th of April is far too early to put together a cogent and informative response; but given the chance, we will certainly be working on it.
If you have any info you wish to put in, you know where to contact the DfT. want to go that far, we will assist.
If you don’t Until next time, sayonara.
MARCH 2009
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