TAXI LAW EXPLAINED LEAN AIR AND ULTRA LOWEMISSION ZONES –
LEGAL IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TAXI & PRIVATE HIRE SECTOR EQUALITY ACT 2010
CLEAN AIR AND ULTRA LOWEMISSION ZONES
In 2015, the UK Government revealed plans to improve air quality in cities with the introduction of Clean Air Zones, some to be operational by next year. A Clean Air Zone is an area in which a local authority has brought measures into place to improve the air quality. These measures can comprise a range of actions such as charging polluting vehi- cles, including taxis and private hire vehicles, to enter such a zone or prohibit- ing certain types of vehicles all together.
More recently, Transport for London approved the creation of an Ultra Low Emission Zone in London effective from May 2019. The London zone will charge drivers a daily rate for entering the zone unless their vehicle, again including licensed vehicles, meets new, tighter exhaust emission standards.
Whilst these zones are confined to certain urban areas at the moment, Clean Air Zones are part of the Government’s wider Air Quality Plan, which aims to improve air quality and address sources of pollution. It is therefore likely that more of these zones will be implemented around the country.
The increase of Clean Air and Ultra Low Emission Zones around the country will inevitably affect the majority of private hire and taxi licence holders. In towns and cities where there are no such zones, it is likely that longer journeys undertaken by taxis and private hire vehicles (i.e. outside their own controlled district) will at some point enter such a zone.
The way Clean Air and Ultra Low Emission Zones operate may cause taxi and private hire licence holders some difficulty in rela- tion to their ability to strictly comply with certain statutory obligations that are placed upon them. The trade therefore needs to be aware of these to protect themselves fromcomplaints and potential enforcement action.
52 REFUSING FARES
The Equality Act 2010 places a number of statutory duties on drivers of licensed vehicles regarding their duties towards certain categories of people with disabil- ities.
Section 165 of the 2010 Act places the following duties on licensed drivers of designated vehicles when hired to carry a person in a wheelchair:
• to carry the passenger while in the wheelchair;
• not to make any additional charge for doing so;
• if the passenger chooses to sit in a pas- senger seat, to carry the wheelchair;
• to take such steps as are necessary to ensure that the passenger is carried in safety and reasonable comfort;
• to give the passenger such mobility assistance as is reasonably required.
The roll-out of clean air zones may see towns and cities implementing schemes where certain vehicles – including taxis and private hire vehicles - will be exclud- ed all together from entering these zones.
If then, for example, a person in a wheelchair hires a designated licensed vehicle to take them to an area where the licensed vehicle will not be able to go due to a Clean Air Zone being in place, will it be reasonable under these circumstances to refuse the fare notwithstanding the section 165 duties?
Or alternatively, will it be acceptable to take such a person to the nearest point and drop them off there? Aside from the legal difficulties that may arise, there are also practical difficulties with dropping a person with mobility difficulties off at the “nearest point” as theremay, for example, be access constraints or the passenger may find it difficult to navigate fromthere to where they want to be.
It is an offence for the driver of a licensed vehicle to unreasonably refuse a fare. In London, section 35 of the London Hack- ney Carriage Act 1831 creates an offence for doing so:
“Hackney carriages standing in any street shall be deemed to be plying for hire; and the driver thereof refusing to go with any person liable to a penalty.
Every hackney carriage which shall be found standing in any street or place, shall, unless actually hired, be deemed to be plying for hire, although such hackney carriage shall not be on any standing or place usually appropriated for the pur- pose of hackney carriages standing or plying for hire; and the driver of every such hackney carriage which shall not be actually hired shall be obliged and com- pellable to go with any person desirous of hiring such hackney carriage; and upon the hearing of any complaint against the driver of any such hackney carriage for any such refusal such driver shall be obliged to adduce evidence of having been and of being actually hired at the time of such refusal, and in case such driver shall fail to produce sufficient evidence of having been and of being so hired as aforesaid he shall forfeit level 1 on the standard scale.”
Outside London, the same requirement exists in respect of drivers of licensed hackney carriage vehicles under section 53 of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847:
“Penalty on driver for refusing to drive
A driver of a hackney carriage standing at any of the stands for hackney carriages appointed by the commissioners, or in any street, who refuses or neglects, with- out reasonable excuse, to drive such carriage to any place within the pre- scribed distance, or the distance to be appointed by any byelaw of the commis- sioners, not exceeding the prescribed distance to which he is directed to drive by the person hiring or wishing to hire such carriage, shall for every such
OCTOBER 2018
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