Taxi Driver Online

Here's an old article from an Irish newspaper that in many respects reflects some of my own views on the trade.

I think it's an excellent article that shows a much greater insight about the way the trade works than the average councillor in a restricted area, which is not bad coming from a generalist journalist who has no particular interest in the trade as far as I know.

Perhaps the main difference from the UK was that it seems that numbers were so restricted in the Irish capital that there were severe availability problems, and thus the trade become a national political issue, ie quite unlike here.

Of course, the trade is Dublin is now de-limited, but as per the article this was not so much a political choice as forced on the government after it's scheme to award an additional plate to current plate holders was struck down by the courts.

Could it happen here?

The cosy cartel of the taxi-drivers

MUCH as I'd like to join everyone else in kicking the crap out of the taxi-drivers, I'm afraid there's a bit of a con-job going on here. Truly, I have as many reasons as anyone else for putting the boot in, but I'm convinced that if you listen carefully to what's going on you'll hear a soft, rustling noise in the background. It's the sound of wool being pulled over people's eyes.

It's true that for years anyone dependent on taxis for getting around this flea-bitten capital city has been treated with contempt. There are fine, professional drivers out there, and quite a lot of them. But there are a lot of cowboys. As a group, they maintained a stranglehold on the social and business life of the city.

Drivers who didn't have a licence, so-called "cosies", were forced to pay £250 a week for the right to work. They had to pay that money to the licence owner, before earning a penny for themselves. To own a licence was to be a little baron, with the right to extract money from hard-working cosies and to harass hackney drivers. Some people owned several licences. In order to maintain this racket, the public had to be deprived of the transport we required, forcing us to queue for hours or increasingly simply to stay home rather than put ourselves through the misery of finding a way out of the city centre.

So the taxi-drivers are on strike this weekend? Really? How can we tell? The service is hardly any worse when they're off the road than it was when they were working.

There is good reason for the public anger. Yet, look around you aren't there some quare hawks lining up to kick the taxi-drivers now that they're down?

Looking at the TV news on Friday evening, there was Bertie Ahern, from Zagreb, telling us how the Government had to act. Good man, Bertie. Leadership in action. But for years Ahern tolerated the taxi rackets, knowing damn well what was going on. His Government, and its predecessors, protected the rackets (for whatever reason, and it is one of the real political mysteries of our time).

Incredibly, it dawdled, offering licence holders a second licence in a vain and time-wasting attempt to persuade them to relax their grip on the city. And the Government would still be soft-pedalling on the issue if it wasn't for the courts.

The "expert" economists are lining up to praise "deregulation". They dismiss lightly the plight of some taxi-drivers who paid huge sums for licences. Yet these are the gents who for years convinced the politicians that public transport should be starved of resources. Those policies helped create the traffic chaos and create and shore up the taxi rackets.

Every right-wing crank in the country is lining up to swing a boot at the taxi-drivers, sneering at the genuine terror of those drivers who mortgaged their houses in order to get in on the rackets.

Business types demand respect for law and order. Hold on, folks, the rackets were no secret. The taxi licences were advertised for sale, in newspapers, for £70,000 and £80,000 a shot. The banks were happy to lend money to, and to profit from, the people mortgaging their homes in order to get into the taxi rackets.

The political establishment and predominantly Fianna Fáil cosied up to the rackets. At the last general election every second taxi in my area was painted with Fianna Fáil slogans.

The PDs are strutting around, claiming to be "standing firm" behind "deregulation". They desperately need an issue with which to curry public favour, to recover the credibility they lost in the O'Flaherty scandal.

There was no "deregulation". To deregulate is to take a decision to change the way a sector is administrated. There was no political decision. A judge ruled that the rackets could not continue the dawdling, hesitant politicians had no choice.

They are still trying to look after their erstwhile taxi-driver friends, to come up with a compensation scheme, without arousing too much public anger.

The drivers are not helping their politician friends by throwing their weight around.

Instead of one kind of chaos we now have another kind of chaos.

We know that the interface between business and politics is slick with greasy money. The tribunals are now uncovering the details of events of a dozen years ago. Perhaps in years to come some inquiry will reveal what exactly was going on behind the taxi rackets. And what's going on behind the Dublin pub rackets.

In the meantime, let us not prattle about "deregulation". It's more regulation we need, not less. We need political decisions made and enforced about a transport system geared to our needs, not the needs of financial interests.

And that is not what is happening.

No one "deregulated" anything. The political establishment tolerated the taxi rackets until the rotten set-up broke down under the weight of its own corruption. No politician deserves credit for anything in this mess. They didn't lead. They stumbled. And as the taxi-drivers thrash around, seeking to prolong the existence of the rackets, the politicians have slapped a "deregulation" label on events, as though they had some idea of where they are stumbling.

Yes, kicking taxi-drivers might make us feel good. But things are a bit more complicated than some would have us believe.

by GENE KERRIGAN

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Mr Kerrigan obviously thought there was a shortage of taxis in Dublin. lol

Regards

JD

Never have truer words been said.

Just think a union, a socialist union at that, supports such a policy.

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IDFIMH

When exactly are people forced to wait for hours.

How come this wait is blamed ONLY at the HC sector, the same could be said about a wait for a PH vehicle.

If I wait for a HC its when the nightclubs "chuck out", this is when they are the ONLY available form of Public Transport.
PH cannot cope with demand at their peak times, I booked a PH to take me into Newcastle for the match last night to pick me up at 6:45, it turned up at 7:15, I could have got the bus and got into town quicker. I asked why it took so long "loads of the lads have taken the night off because of the match" came the reply, so much for derestricted services meeting the demands of the consumer then.

This is very much the point, no matter what kind of licence a driver drives under the level of service he provides to the consumer is dependant on what that individual driver wishes to provide.
Sussex claims that such a choice is the drivers right, and I cannot really disagree, but that choice doesn't deliver more services to the consumer and so shouldn't be claimed by those wishing to see change.

Plate premiums are wrong, I will not doubt that, but they exist and have been paid by the majority of current plateholders so should be considered by anyone claiming to represent drivers rights.

B. Lucky

Don't forget that the hackney drivers are actually PH drivers in our parlance, so it sounds even more like here

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

I can't really see what the lads having the night off to watch the match has to do with restricting taxi numbers.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Well I would certainly agree with the points I've highlighted.

As for the premiums, if someone getting a plate for zilch and selling it for £20k is wrong, what about someone like scanner who got his for £10k and will probably sell it for at least £50k or so, assuming Brighton isn't delimited by then?

Apart from very recent purchasers all the other purchasers have either seen large gains and/or have made enough in excess profits to pay off the plate.

And the most recent purchasers have just been taking a gamble surely, since the writing has been on the wall for a few years now, so why should such foolhardly people be deserving of sympathy?

I think they have just taken the risk on the assumption that arguments like GA's will win the day and they cry foul on the grounds that GA puts forward if de-limitation is mentioned, so in effect they want to gamble money and for the result to be a dead cert.

It's like betting on an old nag and crying foul when it trots in last.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

I'm just wondering how much of this non decision making is down to intimidation? Practically every council that voices an opinion to change policy has had to suffer intimidation on a large scale, normally from those people who want the council to retain quantity restrictions.

In the past we have seen such intimidation on a wide scale throughout the UK as well as Dublin.

Perhaps the Government guidance and the DDA has thrown a lifeline to those councilors who have in the past felt intimidated.

Regards

JD

You have hit the nail on the head there JD.

Its far more easier for LOs and councillors to blame the government or OFT, than to take it all themselves. The wheel-chair issue also makes it far easier to de-limit.

Shame though that not many councils have used the discrimination against non-plateholders issue.

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IDFIMH

obviously not a SCATA member then?

Captain cab

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Well its quite simple, services cannot be provided by a un-restricted sector because of the "objectives" of the provider.

Thats not all, Saturday night I cancelled a night out because the PH car I'd booked from home had apparently been (even though I was standing at my front door) and I hadn't come out, the next car they had available was 2 hours later.

Un-restricted PH cannot meet the demands of the consumer and they are not restricted by numbers, how then can it be argued that by allowing unlimited numbers both the PH and HC unmet demand will be met.

The argument offered for derestriction delivers nothing at all to the consumer, all it does deliver is a drivers right to a plate.

If people were more honest about what they wanted then the argument would be more honest, what I mean is don't hide behind an argument that the consumers are suffering and will be better served by a un-restricted market, when the unrestricted side of the trade are letting consumers down in greater numbers than the restricted HC side of the trade.

At the end of the day, appart from it getting dark, all these people want to do is get something for nothing, the reason they stay anonymous is in case they ever get what they want and have to face the people they have forced into hardship, or they realise because they work in a derestricted area the hardship their "ideals" cause, they wish to keep their identity secret and very probably agree with those struggling to their faces but come on here and berate them and their opinions.

Never mind though, when these people get another proper job they'll be away, and then the real taxidrivers who have been forced out will return to bring the trade out of the [edited by admin] again.

B. Lucky

Don't believe you, bet you were in your powder room frantically applying a last-minute bit of fast-tan

I'm still not sure what all this has to do with de-restricting taxi numbers, perhaps your address is blackballed.

You should tell Frankie to go PH, he'd make as much on Saturday alone as he makes doing a full week on the hacks



Sadly for selfish people like you, you should be aware that people's basic rights to a minimal level of treatment comes above the rights of others, that's why the likes of slavery and sending children up chimneys was abolished years ago.

But in any case, you've still not said how consumers do not benefit from de-restriction, look at the inflated fares they are paying in Brighton to raise the price of the likes of Scanner's plate by tens of thousands since he bought it.



The case we've been making is for both consumers AND drivers, and the OFT and the Govt made the case for both as well.

.

Well I haven't seen many people care about the 'hardship' of PH drivers and HC jockies caused by those self same people being afforded privileged treatment.



Wot, you don't mean 'wor M***' do you

So you the real taxi driver will return when you get it all your own way, but in the meantime you'll stay in a huff selling the fast tan.

So you're certainly not a real taxi driver, but you're not a real fast-tan man either, just in it until the taxi trade goes your way again and you'll ride back on your white horse as its saviour.

Hope you tell your clients that your just in the fast tan business until something better comes along!!

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk