Taxi Driver Online

Thats a good honest statement Angel. It's nice to get recognition of hard work. When you take into account the limited production time the authors had to produce this document it makes their achievement even more remarkable.

I suppose the document will have its detractors and its supporters. You say you don't agree with it on most issues but there will be many who take an opposite view. Thats a good healthy position to start off constructive debate.

Best wishes

John Davies

So your many calls for the T&G and other who comment to admit their biases don't apply to this sites publication.

Lets say you'd replied by saying that 20% were H/C owner drivers, 20% were H/C jockies, 20% were P/H owner drivers, 20% were P/H jockies and 20% were otherwise involved, that would have clearly sufficed. However your refusal to even provide percentages only proves that everyone involved in the consultation for this report had a vested interest in deregulation.

Again, I'm not having a go at the report, I'm not saying that it doesn't raise the views and opinions of a section (or percentage) of drivers, I'm not saying that it shouldn't be considered with every other report written.

What I am saying though is that it is as bias as every other report written following the OFT's investigation, bias to the opinion of the author.

With any luck the government will consider proposals made by anyone who takes the time and effort TDO obviously did in putting forward a differing opinion, and come out with what the trade really needs and thats a new Act of Parliament for Public Transport.

B. Lucky

So the answer, is to debate the authors ins and outs, and not the content.

Some people never change.

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IDFIMH

The statement about it being prepared by working drivers was just to make it clear that it was prepared by people who knew the trade and were still involved in it 'at the coalface' - if a site was called Car Mechanic Online (say) then it might be reasonable for anyone reading anything produced by the site to assume that it wasn't actually produced by working car mechanics, so the statement was just intended to clarify the paper's origins.

As for vested interests and the like, I think it should be taken as read that anyone reading it would assume that the writers might have an interest in de-restriction. I don't personally but I can only speak for myself.

But either way, the case made in the paper is the same, and if anyone thinks that an interest in de-restiction invalidates that case then so be it.

But as mentioned yesterday, the case is for a level playing field and equal treatement, and if anyone wants to characterise those who advocate this as having a vested interest in the result then so be it, but I think most people would not characterise such an aim in terms of a 'vested interest'.

I don't know if biased is the correct word for this kind of thing Mr Angel.

Obviously everyone has an opinion on quantity controls, but I think you can only use the word 'bias' when someone holds an opinion that they shouldn't. Thus I wouldn't call the T&G biased as such, or TDO, but then again I might have a different opinion about the Select Committee, because it might be expected that they would take an impartial approach, but many would argue that they didn't.

BTW, best of luck in your new venture

Tongue in cheek perhaps, but not touchy.

The 'route source' is the website and Taxi Driver Online is the author, like (for example) an editorial in a newspaper is the newspaper's it isn't attributed to an individual author.

There's an email address for enquiries, and a forum. If anyone wants to ask questions, dispute something or ask for more detail about something then we'll try to get back to them, hopefully within 24 hours.

Good point Mr Guest, but we don't have an Acrobat document composer or whatever it's called, I thought it was quite expensive, but perhaps not.

But many Govt docs and suchlike are offered in Word format, so we're hardly alone. If anyone wants to edit it and misrepresent it then that's their problem, but the original is on the site. As others said earlier, you can easily cut and paste a .pdf document into Word, and edit it there.

We were going to produce a glossy brochure and accompanying DVD and send it to every household in the UK, but decided that that would be too costly.

But in terms of additional cost, a £2.50 packet of Tesco Value A4 paper and a black ink cartridge for the proof reading was all that was required, so presumably a .pdf document composer would have been quite expensive in comparison, and not worth the extra cost.

I think a good example, of what I believe many taxi journeymen and PH drivers think, is the bit in M&R that goes;

We would also graciously like to suggest a more immediate remedy to the problem put the numbers of every London cab license in a hat, draw out ten thousand of them, and tell the other ten thousand that they are no longer allowed to operate a taxi welcome to provincial taxi regulation, introduced virtually overnight. It would be interesting to hear the views of the London taxi trade on this!

If everyone with a plate in a restricted area, had to abide by a rule like that, I wonder how they would feel?

In fact, I know personally how they would feel.

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IDFIMH

I would like to make it clear that I was trying to be helpful here altoghough I think that comparing the document compoased via TDO can not really be compared to an official government document.

It has been stated on here that (because of some typo's it would not be a good idea to edit a new issue of the document. However, of course in the format offered anyone can edit the document and offer numerous variations.As far as I am aware it is not possible to change a pdf file back to a wrod doc. But in anycase it is much better to make it more difficult.

However, before we get into any long drawn protracted postings you may like to download a free pdf format creator that I use from http://www.acrosoftware.com/. This is added to your printer options so instead of saving as print ( as well as) just opt for the cutepdf selection instead and it will create the document for you.l

WELL HAVE A 15 DAY FREE TRIAL http://www.solidpdf.com/

I thought you couldn't convert pdf to word, until I did it last month to a dodgy dossier, that had been well sexed up.

However, usually now when government documents are able to be down-loaded, more times than not, they are also available in word.

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IDFIMH

At no point did I even suggest that the case presented was not valid, all I said was that the report was like all the others presented, and that is bias to the authors opinion.

Again you believe that by mis-quoting people you will win the argument, the report is very good, as good as any other I've read on the subject.

Still because its me I'm having a pop at it, well thats just bull$hit. But if by accusing me of berating your article it makes you feel better then carry on, but please don't mis-quote me or presume my views in an attempt to strengthen your own case.

B. Lucky

Wrong SM, absolutely wrong.

If or when your piece is openly published or submitted to government for their consideration the very first question they ask is not about the substance of the argument but the credibility of the author. In every public document everyone consulted or involved in putting the piece together is named in order to add credibility the the argument presented.

It is obvious that a considerable ammount of effort went into that piece, the arguments are well constructed, what a shame it would be to have all of that work discounted solely on the grounds the author and consultee's aren't named.

It is more likely the case that you would look for the government to presume that the report was compiled by the membership of this goup, I hope that isn't the case.

B. Lucky

It is possible to change a pdf file to word and vise versa. It is a simple task, however the file is read only and it is "assumed" it cannot be changed without leaving a digital signature. I make the emphasis on assumed.

The main reasons why pdf files are so widely used is because of several factors, such as smaller file compresion, universal compatibility with other platforms such as Mac and unix, because of its security features it is admissable in a court of law, it can be passworded and the reader you need to view the document is free. Also postcript files are easily created and maintained in pdf format.

All of the above still doesn't make it any more secure if a person just wants to copy the contents and change the text.

You have displayed a limited knowledge about pdf files, so what? For the purpose of this report word format was quite adequet, if the authors wish to have a copy in pdf format then I'll glady take the time and do it for them but seeing as how you are so concerned about the report being in pdf format perhaps you would like do it.

Best wishes

John Davies

As I said.. I was trying to be helpfull. But you seem to have a problem with that? God this forum sucks somtimes.