Taxi Driver Online

I think there are a load of drivers that are taken in by the doom and scare mongers out there i.e. the NTA/T&G down here and the STF up there.

They are told that taxi quotas is the only thing keeping them going, and if the council de-limited they would be out of work i.e. complete and utter crap.

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IDFIMH

I agree, but deristriction is'nt really what this is all about, it's about these "scavengers" trying to line their grubby pockets at the expense of others, by their own admission they have no interest in operating a cab and given their record it probably would not be advisable for them too invest a single penny on one, the numbSKULL has been bleating on about non existant problems with wheelchair passengers for so long now even he now believes that cabbies are being injured at some enormous rate everyday when the absolute opposite is the truth.
They asked the question "WHY" does the council not just issue the 32 plates and leave eveything as it is, earlier on this forum, the fact of the matter is that the council could see exactly what these scavengers were up too and I hope that if they are forced to go along with this, they go full steam ahead for deristriction, but there is one thing for sure, the scavengers wont be rushing to get a plate because that was never their intention.

What I have said all along is quite simple I will do whatever the situation dictates at the time. If that means there is a good value left in the Licence plates, I might sell, then again if I want to drive my taxi and lose the value in the plate at a later date to the PHC then so be it.


Buying a taxi by way of a closed auction were Jimmy Neilson of ITS sits there and tells me what I have to bid and the prospect of paying in excess of £45,000 for the privilege goes far beyond the pale. Who would pay this kind of money when the PHC are eating you alive and profits are falling is beyond me. (Except realcabforce of course)


This is a classic case of pay £45,000 like the rest of us and ignore the PHC eating into your work or at least for the time being and everything in the garden is rosy. Just do what all the dumplings in the trade want you to do and become one of them. I will tell the guys to withdraw their applications and pay £45,000 down at ITS for the privilege of owning a job.

I can’t think why I never thought of this before?


RealCabforce, I have seen the light I will convert to you ideology of paying £45,000 for a licence plate and £32,000 for a taxi. I will work for the bank and John Patons & sons for the next 5 years hoping that the council won’t de-restrict. I will pick up wheelchairs while I am not insured for any injury even though the council or the cab companies won’t cover me to do the job. Not only that, I will throw away the Jacobs Report and all the information I have gleaned from the council about the increase in PHC and the incompetent way they run the city and the trade.

What have I done, the shame of it, I will pay my penance to the trade and the council by kissing every one of you on the arse to make it up to you. I am rushing round to ITS right now to put in a bid for a taxi.


You have won RealCabforce I should have seen this all along I want to be one of you brother.

Happy now?

From Jim Taylor to the Evening News Paper Edinburgh

20 July 2005

Sir/Madam



Your report, “Battle for city taxis goes to court” raises a number of issues (News, July 20).

The current taxi licensing regulations were laid down in the early 1980s, before the freeing of markets from many restrictive practices.

Taxi licence plates currently trade in a "grey" market for around £40,000 while a new issue from the council is £700. Which other council licence is allowed to attract the same premium? Wouldn’t there be uproar if other licence holders had to pay so heavily for their licence, so why should taxi operators?

The personal public carriage market is divided in two. Taxis are restricted in numbers, private hire are not. London does not restrict taxi operator licences - so why do we here in Edinburgh?

Taxis require a cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive study to be conducted in order to respond to the needs of the market for expansion. Private hire responds immediately just by adding more licence plates. They’re currently doing so by 15 – 25 each month. The taxi trade is being slaughtered.

Private hire’s flexibility allows them to meet increased demand before taxis are even “out of the starting blocks”. So, when new taxi licences are finally introduced, it is into a market where demand is already largely being satisfied by the competition.

As private hire grows ever stronger, taxi drivers, with their hands tied behind their back, struggle to keep up – proven by the extra hours many now need to work just to stand still.

Felt to be part of an owner’s retirement pension, it’s clearly in the interest of existing owners for licence plate prices to be hiked as high as possible, despite it adding enormously to the higher fares passengers are forced to pay. And this is facilitated by the appalling way the market for taxi licences is manipulated and traded.

Apart from a few private deals, the bulk of plate transfers are conducted by an intermediary who takes a cut from both buyer and seller, payment changing hands through a holding account. Buyer doesn’t meet seller, or know at the point of transfer who it is. There’s no way to ensure the price paid is that received or whether the price is being talked up by the commission earning middleman who is “making” the market.

Is there any wonder then that there has been an inexplicable, consistent rise in prices despite many readily apparent short term market fluctuations which should have affected value?

Isn’t it long overdue for such restrictive practices to be outlawed and the taxi market to enjoy the same freedom of trade and opportunity enjoyed by other commercial sectors? Also, for the playing field between black cabs and private hire to be levelled?

Private hire are essentially doing the same job as taxis. As such, in the public interest, shouldn’t they be subject to the same requirements of passing the topographical test, satisfying the same medical requirements and background checks, and subject to the same skills development programme etc.?

Finally, how can it be, in Scotland’s capital city where the council continually tells us the local economy is burgeoning, the new Parliament is known to have stimulated more demand for taxi services and where private hire is inexorably rising in number, that the taxi sector is the only one where the market isn’t increasing and necessitating a restriction of supply?



It just doesn’t stack up, does it?



Yours

Jim Taylor

I do understand where you are coming from, and some on here will have a tad of sympathy with that point.

My view is that all the time that drivers (and for that matter councils) do nothing, then nothing will ever change. In short they will assume that everything is just fine nad dandy, when maybe it isn't.

So when someone stands up and fights for what the believe and want, then the powers that be might just fathom out that all is not just fine and dandy.

Without a doubt if the Dundee Taxi Company had not done a similar thing, then Dundee would still now be restricted. Dundee Taxi Company didn't do what they did for the love of the trade, they did it for the love of themselves.

But their actions led to many ordinary drivers getting plates, and many lasy bas****s owners, who just lived on the fruits of others, to lose out.

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IDFIMH

My word of the day 'stooshie'.

http://business.scotsman.com/management ... 1661962005

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IDFIMH

Who the feck is Jim Stanton?

What a pile of [edited by admin]!

Just Someone else that has it all wrong!! , according to YOU that is

Skull: Tell me something is it just me or are there a lot of pricks out there that don’t understand their own arguments.
Realcabforce Correct, It is just you and your associate pricks who fail to understand your own arguments and the consequences of your actions.

Skull: They are told that taxi quotas is the only thing keeping them going, and if the council de-limited they would be out of work i.e. complete and utter crap.
Realcabforce Correct that is utter crap. What YOU propose will reduce their earnings even more, possibly to the extent that the job becomes worthless and the drivers that you intend to [edited by admin] on become bankrupt.

Skull: What I have said all along is quite simple I will do whatever the situation dictates at the time. If that means there is a good value left in the Licence plates, I might sell, then again if I want to drive my taxi and lose the value in the plate at a later date to the PHC then so be it.
Realcabforce So instead of being dictated to by the council, YOU want to be the dictator.

Skull: Buying a taxi by way of a closed auction were Jimmy Neilson of ITS sits there and tells me what I have to bid and the prospect of paying in excess of £45,000 for the privilege goes far beyond the pale. Who would pay this kind of money when the PHC are eating you alive and profits are falling is beyond me. (Except realcabforce of course)
Realcabforce I agree totally, but until drivers savvy up and realise that they do not have to use ITS, Neilson and Greehalgh will live like the leeches they are. Oh and btw I did not buy any plate - so you got that one wrong again.

Skull: This is a classic case of pay £45,000 like the rest of us and ignore the PHC eating into your work or at least for the time being and everything in the garden is rosy. Just do what all the dumplings in the trade want you to do and become one of them. I will tell the guys to withdraw their applications and pay £45,000 down at ITS for the privilege of owning a job.
Realcabforce This is typical of your inability to understand any argument and the full consequences of your actions. "There's more than one way to skin a cat!"

Skull: I can’t think why I never thought of this before?
Realcabforce Perhaps you find the thought process a little difficult?

Skull: RealCabforce, I have seen the light I will convert to you ideology of paying £45,000 for a licence plate and £32,000 for a taxi. I will work for the bank and John Patons & sons for the next 5 years hoping that the council won’t de-restrict. I will pick up wheelchairs while I am not insured for any injury even though the council or the cab companies won’t cover me to do the job. Not only that, I will throw away the Jacobs Report and all the information I have gleaned from the council about the increase in PHC and the incompetent way they run the city and the trade.
Realcabforce Why? Whatever happened to being realistic?

Skull: What have I done, the shame of it, I will pay my penance to the trade and the council by kissing every one of you on the arse to make it up to you.
Realcabforce One wonders about your sexuality at times - the amount of times you bring up the subject of kissing arses, it must be a fetish?

Skull: You have won RealCabforce I should have seen this all along I want to be one of you brother.
Realcabforce Bad news is that your not welcome in the REAL world where REAL people debate REAL issues without REAL pricks making REAL fools of themselves!

Just in case you haven’t noticed RealCabforce/RealCabforceforum you are the one in the minority on this site and the crap that you spout has been debated all before. You have contributed nothing to this forum other than your despair of a situation you have no control over.


I think everyone recognises your puerile hysterical rant and the fear and anxiety that go with it. Dare I say it, you sound like someone that is just about to lose everything?



What makes it worse is that you’re confusing me with someone who cares; there is nothing that would give me more satisfaction than seeing how you cut it in the real world. Do me a favour, when your pathetic fearful little world is crashing about your ears phone me up, I would like to come and watch.


Now here’s the bad news, security in life is mostly a superstition it does not exist and you are going to find this out the hard way. You see RealCabforce the difference between you and me is that I have been through the meat grinder of life on more than one occasion and each time I come back stronger. I read your posts and somehow I get the feeling you are just not going to make it. You’re bleating and blaming amounts to the fear and panic of someone who has never seen the dark side and returned. Trust me when I say this, I look forward to putting you there and if you ever manage to stop blaming everyone for your own shortcomings you just might thank me for the experience.


Have fun!

Skull,

it seems you do not give a [edited by admin] about the owners who have recently forked out upto £40,000 for a plate. What happens if the trade derestricts and these guys cannot afford to repay the loans they have secured against there house etc.

do you care, no do you hell. you just want to secure yourself a plate with the hope that the council do not derestict taxi numbers, then after one year you can happily sell your plate for a nice little profit.

a business man you are not. you may think of yourself as a business man, but all owners do is pay a couple of bills and keep the taxi maintained, not exactly the high power business man that, is it.

if you get your plates, i hope the council do derestict numbers and i hope you have fun driving your taxis...........

Gary

Deegang, Deegang someone who cares, your problem is that you are no different than me. You don’t give a [edited by admin] about the other owners either all you care about is yourself and spare me the high moral bleat of desperation.

If you are daft enough to pay a plate premium of over £40,000 when your profits are falling then you deserve everything you have got coming. Five years ago the plate value was around £20,000-£25,000 now profits are going down the PHC have more than double and yet the plate value is going up and you think people who might want their own taxi should pay this kind of money. I don’t see many of you so called owners selling your plates for the value they had 5 years ago. It must be great talking to all of your little friends and blowing about the value in your plate, and what a great investment you made buying yourself a job. The truth is Jimmy Neilson (ITS) is lining you chumps up one after another and for what, he must be [edited by admin] himself and if you jump into the financial precipice I should follow. I don’t think so.

No Deegang, the situation you and others find yourself in is that of your own making.

Your answer to all this is that you would like others to spend this kind of money just so you and realcabforce and the like can sleep easy in your beds at night. Or at least till you have paid off your plate or until the PHC have increased in such number that there is nothing much left to debate anyway.

The truth is, this is about the debt that some have got themselves into and the need to believe they have got it right. Well here’s the bad news no one said life would be a bowl of cherries.


This comes down to two things Jimmy Neilson (ITS) hiking up the plate value and you chumps paying it.


If you want to attribute blame to anyone look in the mirror and grow up a little.

if its like this before the judgement.
then i look forward to the posts after its been given.

just to let you know i do not own a plate, and yes i do agree that £40k plus is a bit pricey for the privillege of owning your own plate (which as it says on the plate "belongs to the city of edinburgh council").

I do think however that the council have created this mess by letting plates be transferred and sold in this fashion. Why not takes the plates back when drivers give up the game and issue them to the next person on the waiting list.

Deresticing may not be the anwser, I have just finished my Saturday nightshift and it was the poorest one in a long time. Wait until the taxi numbers treble, then we will see the earnings fall.........