Frank Lay wrote:
"You might as well argue that it's not the responsibility of the state to featherbed taxi proprietors, but you don't. If you think having a cap on taxi numbers is simply to featherbed taxi owners, you are very mistaken.
But that's precisely what is happening. Of course a large part of this is because the council has a parallel vested interest, it owns the bus company.
Isn't it outrageous that this is the only case in the market where one business gets to control its competition?
Frank Lay wrote:
It is more about stopping the chaos that oversupply causes like overflowing ranks and racing to fares.
Which proves you do not understand the free market mechanism of supply and demand. When supply increases beyond demand, then sensible people get out of the market and equilibrium between supply and demand is maintained.
The problem currently is that owners sitting on a plate value refuse to leave the market. Which is why the cap needs to be removed for the market to function properly.
The job of government should be to make this process as simple aas possible. I have long proposed that licences should be allowed to be mothballed so that re-entry when market conditions improve is as easy as possible, no hassle, no extra fees to be paid.
In this way the market mechanism would function perfectly.
Frank Lay wrote:
There also would be the need for more council staff to deal with an enlarged fleet.
So what. bigger fleet, more licences, more fees to pay for the increase in staff.
There is an argument which says that in a recession it is madness not to open up the trade.
More taxis means more vehicles and more employment in the car industry. More administration staff in the council. More servicing staff for vehicles. And more employment for drivers.
All in all it makes real sense to open up the trade now just for the employment benefits that accrue at a time when the pressure on unemployment is fierce, and the need for increased benefit payments which compounds the national budget deficit.
Frank Lay wrote:
It also means that the council can make calculations on what is a fair meter rate. Difficult to do with an unstable fleet size.
This is just inane bollo cks. The tariff is set from an algorithm based on the costs of an owner running the vehicle and the average swage a driver can expect for doing so.
Frank, YOU should know this already.
Frank Lay wrote:
The cap on numbers is only a part of the regulations which are more designed to protect the public rather than taxi drivers.
But the regulations aren't protecting the public, they are only protected vested interests.
At least two lassies assaulted proves this. Do we have to wait for a third Frank? Or a fourth? More lassies being harmed just so that your vested interest can be protected.
Frank Lay wrote:
I don't pretend the current system is perfect, but it is better than no cap at all.
So you admit its failing, but still you put your own interests first. Your daughter Frank. Your daughter?
Frank Lay wrote:
The first thing that would happen if the cap was removed, would be that ecph would start replacing skodas with taxis, and taxis operating at reduced fares. A recipe for chaos.
A recipe for market forces Frank. If its not ECPH it will be someone else. It could be any of the big three.
As for tariffs, then a switch to taxis, with higher running costs, would preclude such discounting. Let me tell you now, the current reduced tariff may not last forever. It is being used to gain market share. ECPH are in the business, not of growing the market, but only their share of it. At all of our expense.
However, what the cap will allow them to do, because they are not capped, is to respond to increases in market growth long before the taxi trade is even out of the traps because it has to lag behind while a survey is done.
By the time the data is harvested, ECPGH will have responded by adding another 50 cars. This is their business plan.
ECPH and PH gets bigger, it dominates the market, given to them by a trade so inured in protecting plate values it refuses to grow its own sector.
We're all going to be working for Woodburn and Gibson boys. get used to the idea.
Frank Lay wrote:
The regulatiions have to strike a reasonable balance for the trade and public, It may not please you personally but that is not the intention.
The regulations are failing the public. Proof of this is herding punters onto marshaled ranks, and forcing them to walk the streets. Encouraging them to seek alternative transport like PH, buses, night buses, lifts from strangers and unlicensed vehicles posing as hire vehicles.
The trade is giving away our work while the politicians are playing politics with women's lives.
Let's hope I'm wrong, eh? Let's pray that a female does not end up dead because Edinburgh restricts taxis.
What I do know is that if any of mine ever fell because of this licence restriction, then someone would be getting gutted as a result. End of.
The warnings were there. The warnings were clear. The warnings were ignored.
YOU Frank, are equally culpable. Because YOUR greed and stupidity is prolonging the eventual day of pain. YOU are preventing our trade from maturing into one where everyone has an equal chance to earn a reasonable livelihood.
You Frank. It's down to YOU.
That didn't last long. Sad tvvat.
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