Taxi Driver Online

Second piece this week from my part of the country (I haven't even posted the other one yet ) where I've had to go for lie down after reading it

I do exaggerate, but where to start with this?

Not sure if it's entirely coincidental that Fife is just across the River Tay so maybe what's being going on on this side of the water is now being taken on board in Dundee.

But the 50% pass rate here does put into perspective that Fife councillors have for years been jumping up and down about pass rates in East Fife well into the 90%s. As compared to the 99/100% pass rates in other Fife zones

But read on and it then becomes clear that it's not just about spot checks, but on ramp random checks

(Or at least I think that's what it's about, but even that's not entirely clear from the piece.)

So to be honest I doubt it's anything particularly to write home about as regards taxi licensing in the round.

Except, of course, the councillor huffing and puffing, and the effective trade demonisation via the press. And the solution is for drivers to check tyre pressures and oil levels etc every day

Could easily rattle up a couple of thousand words on this, but for the sake of my sanity...


Dundee councillors back tougher taxi checks amid ‘concerning’ high test failure rate

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/54 ... lure-rate/

A council report has revealed half of the city's taxi fleet regularly fail the annual inspection.

Dundee taxi drivers must carry out stricter checks on their vehicles after it was revealed half of the city’s fleet regularly fail their annual inspection.

Dundee City Council’s (DCC) corporate fleet tests over 600 taxis each year at its Marchbanks workshop.

This involves qualified MOT mechanics enforcing DCC’s taxi vehicle test of fitness,
incorporating the DVSA vehicle roadworthy guidance and the city’s taxi licensing regulations.

However, concerns were raised earlier this week after a report revealed that for “many years” licensed taxis have registered a 50% failure rate on the annual test.

This, the report noted, was a “concerning high level of failure”.

For comparison, just 13% of the taxi fleet in Angus regularly fail the annual test. In Fife, the failure rate is 5%.

The report further detailed that last year, a pilot project was set up by the local authority and Police Scotland to address the issues around the city’s taxis roadworthiness.

The project introduced random roadside vehicle testing. Over 50% of the taxis tested subsequently failed.

Another ‘roadside operation’ was then conducted last month which involved police stopping random taxis on the city’s ranks and escorting them to the council’s garage.

There, two qualified council mechanics tested the vehicles with support from
licensing and Police Scotland officers.

During the operation, which took place between 4pm and 7pm on February 7, a total of 20 taxis were inspected. Of these, 12 failed the test.

Their licence plates were subsequently removed and placed out of service until the failures were rectified and inspected at Marchbanks.

Further roadside testing was then carried out on March 6 to gain a bigger sample size. During this, 44 taxis were inspected – 21 of which failed.

Taxi drivers to carry out daily checks

The report went before a meeting of Dundee City Council’s licensing board earlier this week.

During the meeting, councillors discussed possible measures which could be taken to tackle the issue.

Officers recommended that all drivers complete a daily checklist to ensure their vehicles are in working order before starting their shift.

This includes checking tyre pressure, brakes, the vehicle’s oil levels and steering.

However, representatives from Dundee’s taxi trade appealed against the increased vehicle checks.

Chris Elder, who represents taxi drivers through Unite the Union, said: “The way to really crack down on this is that any operator that’s got multiple things wrong with their vehicle on a regular occurrence should be on three-monthly tests.

“This used to happen years ago. It did have an effect and it will get the numbers down.”

RMT representative Graeme Stephen added: “A driver should not be getting involved with brake/clutch fluid or oil as they are very hazardous and contaminated fluids.

“We recommend that you refuse this checklist as it’s just a lot of nonsense.”

Taxi failure ‘not acceptable’

Labour councillor George McIrvine called for a deferral on a decision and asked for an “urgent meeting” to be held with the taxi liaison group for further discussions.

However, councillors subsequently approved the proposals for increased checks, with five voting in favour and four against.

Committee convener Stewart Hunter said: “For a number of years now, 50% of our taxis are failing their tests. That is not acceptable.

“We’ve had drivers in front of the committee where something has happened to their vehicle while they’ve had passengers.

“Thankfully nothing serious has happened but that could happen next time.

“This is also about protecting drivers as well. I think this is a sensible way to move forward.”

So that's the framing in the strapline. Combined with the headline, and first few paragraphs, you'd think the 50% rate is about the *annual* inspections. But the rest of the piece reads like it's actually about the on-ramp spotchecks.

But who knows? Presumably it's all in the official papers, but to the average reader of the article...


The Fife comparison is bollocks, for a start. That must be an average across all of Fife, as opposed to the 80% or so pass rate in the East zone in recent years, as opposed to maybe 95% or so in the other zones.

And no way the Fife failure rate is for on ramp spot checks

Anyway, yet another document I'm going to have to look for, and then plan to kick up a huge official stink about.

But then do absolutely nothing

To be fair, the article maybe is accurate as regards it all, and maybe the *annual* inspection fail/pass rate is 50%, and the stopcheck rates as presented just happen to be at around the same rate.

At least, that's what seems to be stated in the official papers, but there's no detail reported as regards the annual test stats, although quite a lot of detail about the spotchecks.

And which in fact make even us in East Fife look like angels

But spent ages looking for this on the council's website.

Before realising the Courier had usefully provided a link to the agenda paper in the article

It's roughly the second half of the paper linked to here.

The proposed checklist is quite interesting - if the car is double-shifted then only the first driver has to do the checks.

Which includes checking clutch fluid levels, and stuff like that

Aye, I mean a driver starting a 6am shift in January, it's pitch black, blowing a blizzard and there's several inches of snow on the ground, and he's going to check clutch fluid levels?

And the part-time night driver has just left the car to sit overnight, perhaps with a self-evident fault, and the absentee plateholder is who-knows-where... (Been there, done that in Dundee.)

And not clear if all that's before or after charging their compulsory EV at a charging point and risking being battered senseless...

It would be funny if it wasn't quite so serious

(Note for pedants - at least an EV wouldn't require a clutch fluid check. I think )

If 50% regularly fail, i.e., more than once a year, that effectively equates to the whole fleet failing every year.

Which doesn't happen there or anywhere.

_________________
IDFIMH

Previously I've pointed out that historically Kirkcaldy has one of the UK's worst MoT failure rates. To that extent, the historical 99/100% taxi pass rates just don't ring true.

Dundee is also one of those MoT failure 'hotspots' in the UK. So, to that extent, the taxi stuff above is consistent with that.

But, in my opinion at least, merely underlines that the Kirkcaldy taxi pass rates are BS

According to this, in both Kirkcaldy and Dundee the MoT pass rates are only around 60%

This graphic is a tad misleading, because it only shows part of the y-axis. But shows that Kirkcaldy and Dundee are significantly the worst for MoTs in the UK by a good margin

By contrast, the best areas in the UK for MoT fail rates are roughly between 15-20% in terms of fail rates.



I won't display this graphic, because it's maybe a bit misleading comparing it to the one above. But a bit odd that all the best areas are in London or at least the South East of England. Not really what I'd expect

https://www.cartakeback.com/wp-content/ ... ot-691.jpg

(Should point out that those figures are from 2019, so a bit out of date. On the other hand, that was when Kirkcaldy was getting the nearly perfect taxi pass rates. They're not quite so good now - only 95% or so )