Taxi Driver Online

One of our self employed hackney operators has sold his car which used to carry the plate and has now put the plate on an Iveco 16 seat minibus from which he has removed 8 seats. The council has tested this vehicle and it is now working the ranks. However the bus is still a licensed PCV and has an operators disc in windscreen. It is also fitted with a tachograph as befits its tatus as a PCV. The owner has a good contract for this bus and when he needs to, he puts the seats back in and it revers to being a normal minibus. When it is a taxi should it be licensed Private Light Goods and does his PCV insurance cover it for hackney work. Our licensing officer seems to think it is all in order but on the whole is very disinterested and we feel that he has licensed this vehicle just to wind the rest of us up. Has anybody any comments/advice on this matter. Thankyou.

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Unite and fight

Once a vehicle is plated as PH or Hackney it remains plated until the plates are withdrawn so therefore he can only have 8 passenger seats at any time. How can he put the plate from his old vehicle on the new vehicle? Plates have the registration number and vehicle type on them.

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Grandad,

I think this varies from area to area.

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

must take up 2 spaces on the rank, and can he charge extra on his meter for 8 passengers? if not, whats the point?....

is he on medication for this?..........


here, take 44 seats out and plate this

the roof light may take some fitting tho

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I toyed with this Idea to..but the Thought of all the extra Vosa Regulations put me right off. I used to run a 16 seat PCV as a Business, but then within a couple of years New rules Came in that Meant the Vehicle would need to be Governed Down to 100KPH per hour, Drivers would need ongoing and Periodic Retraining, the Vehicle Needing a Tachograph fitted if say your Regular School run was over 30 Km. this and the Difficulty in finding a trusted PCV driver to cover for me if I was tied up elsewhere or on holiday just added to my resolve that in this rural area it was more effort and cost than it was worth. and for the same reasons above it put me off the Idea of Dualled use between PH/PCV as it needed two lots of licensing, created Difficulties in finding a Single Insurance, Running a Big Vehicle at times with only 1 or Two passengers and Having both VOSA and the LA breathing down your neck didnt help either.

Yes ive lost a few runs but not enough to make the Justifying of such a Big vehicle worth while...the Middle road of Running an 8 seater Vehicle as a PH made much more sense and is over all more Versatile..

However...thats just in my Case and Im sure for others in other Circumstances it may be the Right thing to do...Run A 16 seater for occasional 8 seat use.

Didn't make myself very clear; the council issued a fresh plate - same licence number as he had on his car but the plate has the bus reg. on it.

When using the bus as a hackney, as it is still licensed PCV does he have to run on tacho?

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Unite and fight

If it licensed as a hackney it is always a hackney. You can't just put more seats in and then run it as PCV.

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Grandad,

A PSV vehicle is a PSV until its status is changed. You cannot just remove seats and then replace them when you want to do. If you remove seats the vehicle has to have a notifiable alteration carried out by VOSA.

A 16 seater cannot be a PSV and taxi, however an 8 seater can be licensed as both but must only carry out one type of work at any given time and cannot change duties "en route".

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you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

You could run it as a PH vehicle...it happens in this area, Im guessing your not breaking any laws if the eight seats still have only eight bums on them..the Other sixteen bums are on the PCV seats providing you have catagory D1 on your license. Vosa say its ok providing you get the special extra use added to your PCV operators Licence.


but you may as well have your Ph/HC driver sit their PCV test and save the Hassle of taking seats out..then you can take Bookings just like PH does but without the Council needing to give you a PH/HC licence....

Could you just run it as a taxi bus just send in a rout to the commissioner and as long as you do the run you should be able to keep the seats in