Taxi Driver Online

Taxis accuse private hire cars of dirty tricks

Car wars in Bedford are seeing private hire drivers turn to the dark side and break the rules to steal trade from the competition.

That is the claim from taxi or hackney carriage operators, who can be flagged down in the street and are allowed to wait in ranks for business.

They say some private hire or minicab firms – which should only accept customers who have pre-booked – are playing dirty to pick up trade in the High Street without prior arrangement.

Hackney driver-proprietor Gurdeep Dosanjh said: "It's a problem on Saturday night and Friday night from about 9pm. The private hire drivers might have jobs to drop off in the High Street but then people are getting into their vehicles without booking and being ripped off because they are not getting a set fare and are not covered by insurance.

"It is being allowed to happen just so the High Street can be cleared."
Mr Dosanjh presented a petition calling for a clampdown on the alleged abuses by some private hire drivers to the borough council last Wednesday.

He said there were also instances of drivers with no local authority licence posing as private hire drivers. The two problems combined had pushed takings for Bedford's fleet of 54 hackney carriages down by 40 per cent over the last two years, Mr Dosanjh added.

He said: "We are asking for the High Street lay-bys to be made nighttime taxi ranks so we can be closer to the public."

But private hire operator Lewis Williams claimed that proposal would be a disaster. It would mean only the hackney drivers could use the lay-bys and deny pick-up and drop-off points to the much larger private hire sector of 400 vehicles.

Mr Williams said: "That would be a disaster for everyone. Fifty-odd hackney vehicles could not keep up with clearing the town centre efficiently – they need private hire to do that as well.

"If the hackney drivers want to pick up in the High Street they can just cruise down it and get a flag-down.

"Both sides of the trade want to ensure anyone who has come into Bedford has a safe and secure journey home in a properly licensed vehicle. That's the main point at issue."

A borough council spokesman said: "We have asked the hackney carriage drivers to provide us with details of persistent offenders but as yet no evidence has been brought to our attention.

"However, as part of our Txt:Safe scheme we are highlighting private hire vehicles are not authorised to pick up passengers ad hoc in the street.

"We are currently not in a position to consider using the High Street loading bays for taxi ranks as new night-time only taxi ranks have just been introduced in St Paul's Square, Mill Street and St Peter's Street.
"We have to monitor their usage to see if there is a need for more part-time taxi ranks in the town centre."

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IDFIMH

That gives us an idea of how much work the taxi trade has lost since 1976.
When you have 10 times as many ph as taxis, then they have lost the plot and the trade.