Taxi Driver Online

Maybe a risk assesment is required for every fare you do?

jimbo wrote:
Maybe a risk assesment is required for every fare you do?



Not if the initial risk assessment covers all the relevant factors. You can download the criteria from the HSE website. It does not have to be case specific only in general terms. Once you have submitted your assessment the relevant bodies are not even entitled to question your methods or findings as long as you have followed the correct procedures as laid down by HSE.

There may well be differences between each job but certain factors are constant like most customers being over 6 stone in weight, thus presenting a high risk to the driver.

Like I said before, it’s your choice.

So you do a risk assessment for a wheelchair bound person, but not one for 5 drunks?

Do we operate selective risk assessments now then?

We'll do one for fares we like and another for fares that involve getting off our fat backsides.

A risk assessment should cover all aspects not just the ones we dont want to do.

Captain Cab

Ihave refused a few people in wheelchairs,mainly for being too heavy to push up the ramp! its not that i dont want to help them but why should i put myself at risk of injury in doing so?

Yes, there are few WAVs in my manor, but a fair few MPVs and minibus-type vehicles etc.

Thus the elderly and infirm often have a problem getting in, and the drivers have no problem passing them back to a saloon if they're just going round the corner, but I suspect many would lift them in to the vehicle if they're going 20 miles

Same here TDO,

the point about the risk assessment, whilst I tend to agree with it, it only covers one aspect of the job.

Captain Cab

Don't talk Sh**

Do you think it unreasonable to expect the same rights and consideration as a council employee?

I know for a fact a council employee would not be allowed to shove anyone into the back of a taxi nor would their insurance cover an employee for doing so.

Moral condemnation is a hell of a tool to use to get someone to do a job.

Yes, some probably would take a wheelchair if it was going some considerable distance. And yes, some would not want to do the job if it was just going around the corner.

But should anyone be faced with making the choice?

A Job is a job after all, if I’m confronted with a choice it’s my choice. I decide. I don’t apologise. No excuses and no explanations. If I am insured and the vehicle is up to the job the punter in the wheelchair is just another punter. He and I both have our dignity intact.

BTW I don’t feel bad about not feeling bad.

If the council had got it right this conversation would not be happening. It becomes my responsibility after they have done the job they are elected to do.

Tell me Captain have you been a willing victim all of your life? Does it feel good to be such a good guy? If I handed you a walking stick would you walk with a limp?

Get my point

You seem to forget, I am actually an employer.

Right around my Garage and Offices are the various Health and Safety at work acts, manual handling regulations, electricity at work acts, they all apply to the self employed.

You have selected one particular bit of a taxi drivers job, not the whole picture.

What I said was the wheelchair part is fine, so what about the risks associated to changing a wheel, or carrying five drunks, or handling oils, or lifting cases? Or dont you do all that in Edinburgh?

Why the selective risk?

Captain Cab

It’s a question of choice and the risk associated with choice. The choice being yours and yours alone, no apologies, no excuses and no explanations to anyone other than having your concerns openly and fairly investigated at your request.

If I feel I am putting my self at risk with no recourse in the event of an accident that’s my “choice”.

Changing wheels, picking up drunks or handling chemical substances is my “choice” subject to my working conditions and the protection afforded me by H&S legislation.

Adequate training, suitable vehicles types, proper risk assessment and the appropriate insurance cover should be afforded to me by whoever requires me to do the job. And yes this includes you as an employer and the council.

The whole point of H&S is not to compromise anyone's safety it’s a proactive measure rather than reactive or after the fact.

When people order you or imply you have to do something without fear of being held responsible or make you feel there will be real or imaginary consequences for not carrying their request it is not your “choice” it is in-fact "Control". And more often than not to your detriment.

Captain wrote:

"The question being, who pays me when I'm off on the sick"?

You tell me who pays?

I can tell you who won't, starting with the council and ending with the insurance company.

If you injure the punter or don't carry out the correct risk assessment there is every likely-hood you will be the one who gets sued.

Acceptable risk?

Not under these conditions.

Of course some of us carry insurance, personal injury insurance

Captain Cab

so thats what my public liability insurance is for then

Captain Cab