Taxi Driver Online

The travel writers (Gill Charlton) answer.

"I see that Airport Direct has admitted that it's driver was at fault in it's letter to you by saying "This is a result of his poor judgement and not acting on the instructions he received from the office" When I telephoned the company, it said it had done all it could under it's remit as a licensed private hire operator and that the fault lay with the driver,who was self-employed and registered with the public carriage office (PCO).

A spokesman for the PCO told me: "Private Hire operators like Airport Direct have a responsibility to record details of complaints, investigate them and record the outcome. The role of the PCO is to ensure that operators comply, and to act when thet don't. When an operator fails to handle a complaint correctly, the PCO would carry out an investigation."

However the PCO does not have any powers to force an operator to provide compensation, as a private hire booking is a contract between the passenger and the OPERATOR .
Apart from complaining to the PCO about this licenced driver, you could take Airport Direct to court using the small claims procedure to sue for the the expences you incurred- although the law does not appear to be clear on this issue."

When I telephoned the company, it said it had done all it could under it's remit as a licensed private hire operator and that the fault lay with the driver,who was self-employed and registered with the public carriage office (PCO).

Most companies around here advertise themselves as being agents for the driver.... which places responsibility on the driver ... in more than one way....

And another thing.. when the companies here except bookings for airports or trains they make it quite clear to the customer to allow plenty of time.

Its simple Mr Bo.. Bloodnock, people in the capital perceive that Minicab (PH) companies are cheaper than taking a real Taxi. The truth probably could'nt be further from that.

So they book these 'airport specialist transfer' (whatever that means?) who of course charge about a tenner less than we do, or in some cases about £10 more, and this is what happens.

You get a Somalian / Bosnian / Polish / etc driver who has'nt got a clue where he's going, where the major works are, what route is best at certain times of the day, back doubles, u-turns that save another 10 mins etc, and the end result is that the punter misses his / her flight.

In short, they don't have a feckin clue where they're going.

We do.

if the customer cant work out how long it takes to get there, and relies on a 3rd party, and then traffic delays the vehicle then the operator isnt liable

The Company advised an 0830 pick-up. They are to blame.

He who takes the booking is he who is 100% responsible if that booking isn't completed satisfactory.

Clearly the booking agent/operator may take action against the driver to recoup any loss, but the customer buck stops at the operator.

from islington surely the driver would have gone across to the a40 - m40 - m25 etc etc or he could have aimed for hammersmith and used the a4, m4 etc etc, both of these journeys maximum time would have been about an hour

The taxi/PH trade are meant to be the professionals, and the punters are meant to be the amateurs.

And that's the way the courts will see it.