THIS MONTH’S HOT TOPIC: LICENCE SHOPPING - WHY IS IT HAPPENING?
Licence shopping is the term used when a driver, or operator, or even vehicle, shops around for the best local authority from which to get licensed.
Very important to note here, the word “best” is in the eyes of the shopper/customer/service user, not in the eyes of the seller or service provider, since all local authorities will openly say that their service is the best, the safest, and that those licensed elsewhere may not be subject to the same conditions and may not therefore be as safe!
GREATER MANCHESTER APPROACH?
We touched on this topic very briefly last month, as a result of Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) announcing its intention to ask government for stronger powers to “ban out of town vehicles from working within Manchester”. Now this was a little confusing, hence the need for an immediate response.
The confusion being that the intention was to allow “some” out of town vehicles, those licensed within Greater Manchester, to work within Manchester, but to exclude those out of town vehicles that were licensed outside of the ten GM regions, when the three-licence rule is very clear; all three licenses (operator, vehicle, and driver) must be issued by the same licensing authority, not a mixture or region as each local authority sees fit, since the three-licence rule does not fall under section 47 of the Local Government Miscellaneous Provisions Act (LGMPA) 1976, and is therefore not able to be amended to suit each council’s “local requirements”.
IS THIS TRUE? ARE DRIVERS LICENSED BY ONE AREA SAFER THAN THOSE FROM ANOTHER AREA?
In a word, no, it could not be further from the truth! All drivers, from all local authorities are subject to:
• the same public safety checks using the DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service)
• the same Group 2 medical checks in most cases, although some may insist on the applicant’s own GP, whilst others (unbelievably) do not trust the actual medical professionals, so they double check with their own occupation health services, whilst others allow professional bodies to perform these checks, as they are far more familiar with the Group 2 standards
• the same length of time they must have held a full UK driver’s licence, (most are one year, with only a very few stating three years)
• many have local area knowledge tests, so that an applicant must learn an area in which they have no intention to work in order to obtain a badge and then actually not work in the area tested! You really could not make some of this up
• many have a practical test, with questions and answers devised by people who may have never sat behind the wheel of a taxi or private hire vehicle, so may not actually know the correct answers themselves
WHAT ABOUT VEHICLE CONDITIONS?
Is a vehicle safer just because it is the colour that councils like or have chosen? No, not in the slightest, it is merely the colour the council has chosen.
Does a shorter age limit make a vehicle safer? NO, all licensed taxi and private hire vehicles are subject to the same roadworthiness tests, (although some call it a compliance test, whilst others actually issue the certificate of roadworthiness) more frequently that other road vehicles, and are subject to random spot checks, to which the private motorist is not subjected. If they pass those tests, then they are just as roadworthy as the day they were first licensed.
ASSOCIATIONS • OPERATORS • DRIVERS • VEHICLE OWNERS JOIN US TODAY - STRENGTH IN NUMBERS! 0161 280 2800
info@nphta.co.uk
14 SEPTEMBER 2022 PHTM
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