Taxi Driver Online

The problem is that in Edinburgh, as in other places, while the trade try to limit the number of taxis, they are at the same time trying to make is as easy as possible for drivers to enter the trade.

As Jim said earlier:

"But Edinburgh has a shortage of drivers. So, why did the Council... institute a useless, crap college course which is a disincentive to become a cabbie."

Also, the trade and council proposed to water down the knowledge test sometime before that so that more drivers would enter the trade.

So basically it's all for the vested interests who hold plates, how much others in the trade earn doesn't matter.

CC

I f that is the case I take great issue with him on lambasting the councillors. they would appear to be doing thier job.

we cannot have it both ways.

Wharfie.

Edinburgh looks like the classic scenario whereby the number of taxis is restricted, but the plate holders will always complain (collectively) that there is a shortage of drivers - they'll take on as many drivers as will get badges, so how is that supposed to help anyone's earnings apart from the plate holders?

It's the same in places like Brighton - there's a cap on the number of plates, but not on the number of drivers, so as far as drivers' earnings are concerned the floor is determined by the market.

Indeed, I believe there have been calls in the past to have the knowledge test in Brighton watered down, which could only reduce earnings, but I doubt if those calling for this want the license quota watered down!!

This is the kind of thing I've always said to Mick, but he's always flatly denied this, saying that because in Gateshead the HC plateholders don't try to fill their cars with other drivers then restricting plate numbers does limit the number of taxis actually plying or hire at any point in time.

But I would say Gateshead is untypical.

Dusty

its good for efficiency that cars are shifted it realy is a very good think lets not knock the principle, it leads to better cars and better maintainence.

but we cross that line if we are not careful, where we begin to believe the trade exists to make us a living, well it does not.

that is something else wor mick cannot grasp

and the other thing that mick does not grasp is if we dont believe in the things he belives in its "abuse"

by the way where is he? its dangerous when hes quiet

Wharfie

Cant really understand some of the arguments on here about this one, the desperation felt by many in this trade at the very thought of a one owner/single shifted cab seems to expose the nonsense that this has become.
Firstly there are many one owner operators in Edinburgh with perfectly good vehicles, in fact often better than double shifted bangers who nobody cares about as long as the wheels are turning, where as one person who does not have to pay a huge amount for a plate will not have such a huge debt to service.
Secondly that old chestnut of public safety, more people having to work into the wee small hours and all that rubbish (Edinburgh,s clubs shut at 3am,and with 42500 students resident one would think they would have been able to suss out when there is maximum demand) what is it that people have against the wee small hours, you simply start later and finish later, people get home I make my living and have provided a public service,simple. but here,s something to chew on, due to the fact that many cabs have multiple drivers many part time weekenders have already done a days work in their full time occupation, who would you rather have drive you home?
Third on the list is this,if there had been a gradual increase in the issue of plates the PHC sector would not/ should not have grown exponentially as it has, but as with nature, where there's a vacuum something will fill it!
we are living in the 21st century, peoples expectations are growing about the services they receive and will vote with thier feet if any fail them.
The idea here seems to reflect the flawed philosophy that we are there to make money and the public will just have to put up with the vagary,s of the taxi trade, no they dont, they will search out and obtain the best most cost effective,reliable solution they can, they have that right.
The thought that someone is going to take your sweeties away is often enough to get you thinking long term which is no bad thing as this does not seem to have happened in Edinburgh at all due to the protectionism that the trade has enjoyed under the EDC.
The EDC or LRC as it was, is no stranger to this concept as it used these same principles in it's dealing with any Bus company that has dared to try and run a service in Edinburgh, one just has to think of the phoney bus wars of the Ninties and more recently it's other wee spat with first bus where an allegedly private company now Lothian buses (used to be Lothian region buses) with the council as main share holder and collecting a healthy sum each year and still having a local authority pension scheme, strange that for a private company! can and will squeeze out anything or anybody who dares to run a service for the public, whilst they themselves cut services, change routes almost monthly and start lots of night services in direct competition with, well nothing really as we seemingly cannot work that late as we are feeble minded and must be off the streets by the witching hour, by the way does this mean that the bus drivers are endangering the public as they work into the wee small hours driving those big empty buses around at speed, no I think our Council with it's beloved "arms length companys" policy are guilty of the same flawed thought patterns , it is only with the Laws passed in recent years that they have been forced to watch their step as they must work within the Law and I for one would not hesitate to take them to task as they are there to represent me not rule me.
And last but not least the current plate owners most seem fair, but look at the postings on fastblacks "the worm is turning" more drivers than cabs etc putting rentals up ,getting drivers to pay their own insurance,"these idiots"no they are the idiots!! it's a frightning thought that people can so easily fall prey to that type of rubbish from people who feel they have some god given right to make a living of someone else's back and I will never allow myself to be put in a position of serfdom to any of these clowns and mini hitlers.The T&G and all the other bleeding heart institutions, no sorry there not for me, they will still blacklist perfectly descent people(do they still have the list) for their own perverse gratification, they are twisters and perverters of the truth who will leave a trail of destruction and despair in there misguided attempt's to have us as "employees" of some friendly brothers, well friendly to them anyway, the few times I had dealings with any unions I found them to be full of people who were full of themselves, they had nothing to say and said it to loudly for my liking, and then they usually f***** up big time!!

ps I worked 8pm to 4.30 am is this dangerous?

Can't you sleep then Whafy, unless you know Mick's where abouts.

This trade cannot live without customers, it cannot live without drivers, however it can live and thrive without leeches.

If a driver pay an owner £150 a week, then that's £7,500 a year. Now please anyone tell me they can't buy, insure and run their own vehicles for that.

Some may choose not to, that's fair enough, they can journey/shift with someone who can.

But lets give everyone a choice to make, without paying tens of thousands to people who got their plates for nothing.

Mr Guest you have hit the nail, right on the head.

Owners thinking they are doing a huge favour, to those who are giving them hundreds of pounds a week. And then the have the f****** nerve to say there are not enough of them, to be sucked dry.

Is it no wonder that the PH trade in your manor has vastly increased, when some drivers of taxis are treated this way.

Thankfully the worm is turning, the leeches will lose power, and in my humble opinion, they can go and f*** themselves.

not realy, I always like to know Mick and Nige are safely in bed before I go

as for the piece on edingburgh Andy, I found it very hard to read,

but the council up there must have been puppets for so long the taxi owners seem to tthink they have a god given right to cut the cloth to thier own needs!

i JUST DONNA UNDERSTAND IT?

WHARFIE

Wharfie

If you ever wake up then you have a lot of coffee to smell.

Let's be quite clear about this.

The job of the Council, any Council, is to license taxis, set tariffs and ensure public safety. Anything else is entirely optional, dependent upon what individual taxi trades allow them to get away with. It is down to each licence holder, in common with every other type of licence holder - window cleaners, publicans, door stewards, jewellry sellers etc - how that service is delivered, based around their own commercial circumstances.

How has our lot gone beyond this?

A dress code - we're not employed by the Council, why should they tell us what to wear?

A training course (which is just plain crap - ask for details and I'll tell you).

Telling us that if a customer decides not to pay then we should allow him to walk away. Lock him in the cab and take him to a cop shop and we will be liable for charges of abduction. CABforce put a stop to this nonsense.

We had a Council Solicitor, who was defending a case aginst the Airport demanding the addition of an extra seven taxi licences, being told by a Sheriff thet he was unprepared and his case was incompetent.

Our Council has just withdrawn Fairway vehicles, despite the fact that they are still able to licensed anywhere else in our nation. Unreasonable!

Our Council has used taxi budget money to express their own opinions.

Our Council has licensed an advertising system which has a screen located just 2 inches from a drivers head. This could cause tumours. The screen could cause epilepsy in passengers, or a migraine. By being easily visible by other road users, it cause a disrtraction to them. The screen image could reflect around the taxi windows on a dark night, distracting the driver and placing the passengers at risk. There's lots more concerns. How do we know this? We don't. But neither does the Council. Yet, they ignored public safety concerns and licensed it anyway. We say that a proper health and safety check should have been carried out, prior to licensing the system. The fact that it hasn't, causes us to ask why? What vested interests allowed the process to be cut short?

It's a requirement of legislation in Scotland that any conditions attached to licences need to be "reasonable". In the past no one has ever questioned this simple premise. Consequently, the Council have run rampant over the trade. Not now. This has stopped. CABforce has ensured that.

But, we still have to deal with all the nonsense perpetrated on the trade by the previous discredited taxi liaison group, which was subverted by vested interests.

Guys, and guyesses, taxi trades generally have allowed themselves to be dictated to by local authorities. Remember, the significant investments in the trade - the long hours, the £30K vehicles, the £25K plates, the grief from punters - is not made by them. So, why does the various trade elements allow Councils to dictate to them? Which other business, even those licensed by local authorites, would allow this to happen?

There's a lot of coffee to be smelt here.

We've just produced FairerView III. Anyone who wants a copy can email secretary@cabforce.org. A copy will be mailed to you. Let's know what you think, even if you disagree. We're trying to learn. We're trying to make our trade better - for our owners, drivers and the travelling public.

Remember, without satisfied customers, we are nothing.

regards

Jim Taylor

I think part of the problem is a highly dis-united trade.

Since 1976, and to a degree 1985, the trade down in England has spent the vast majority of it's time, energy and money fighting one another over the plates/quotas issue.

If this particular avenue of strife was no-more in the whole of the country, not just the 60%+ at present, then we could do what you seem to have done in Edingburgh.

Alas some drivers and their unions can't see any further than the end of their noses. But one day they will have too.

hang on a minute Jim,

you cannot get away with this behaviour!

you give evidence its answered then you give a lot more dubious evidence!

your council has on every decision to obey the ;law, and yes in Scotland, England And wales they have to be reasonable ( remember I said in my piece they have to give reasonrd judgements)


so whiff your coffee then consider, are my council being reasonable?

if not go to court like all other trades do!

stop whimpering get it done but before you do, get advice beccause believe me your council are under no duty to ensure you make a living that is a fact.

Wharfie

Problem is Jim, you forget to mention the biggest council interference and vested interest issue of the lot, namely the plate cartel maintained by the former for the latter.

If this sort of thing was done by private sector firms it could conceviably attract a jail sentence under the Enterprise Act. So why should the vested interests in the taxi trade and local authorities get away with it??

And if you're worried about illegalities by the council, what about these corporate licenses??

As for college courses and suchlike, if it's crap then I agree with you, but your main worry seemed to be that it would cause less drivers to enter the trade - the course per se didn't seem to be the main worry>

I agree with dress codes and the like - the problem with taxi markets is that you don't have to compete in the conventional sense - you queue up and get the fare at the set price, whatever the vehicle or driver is like - if the market was like most others then there would be no need to set fares or regulate at all, but it isn't - presumably your council felt the need to implement the code because the scruffs in the trade were taking advantage of this??

Ditto advertising - I wouldn't get into a cab if I was going to have adverts rammed down my throat, so I agree with you irrespective of the health and safety aspects.

You're correct, there will be a lot of coffee smelling going on in the next few years, but I would add a whole host of other issues to your list, some of which I don't think you will agree with.

Dusty

warfie said
"your council has on every decision to obey the ;law, and yes in Scotland, England And wales they have to be reasonable ( remember I said in my piece they have to give reasonrd judgements)"

Sorry warfie the council here are a law unto themselves does not matter wether it's great big ugly wheelie bins in a world heritage site or a congestion charge that nobody wants they dictate to the citizens without any real or meaningful consultation, they have been there for twenty years and like they say in the states "something stinks in city hall" thing is they can keep enough people sweet with their tales of economic miracles and the like, to keep on being re-elected.
You just have to look at the road system in Edinburgh (and I use the word system lightly) to see what they have got away with,Dr Begg!! does his damage and then dissapears down south somewhere to take up a position as one of tonys cronys and inflict his peculiar brand of traffic managment on the whole nation. Road surfaces that recently won the award of most potholed roads in britain while lavishly spending on installing humps bumps, bollards and chicanes (even in cul-de-sacs where the residents did not want them??) while ignoring the real issue's, na their a joke.

well its the place our local bankers wanted to be, after hundreds of years and with 1 in 7 people here having accounts they moved their HQ there

I do regularly pick people up from your area and take them to thier workplace here ( nearly all new managers come from edinburgh_)

so there we are, you think your council are crap and they are winning jobs from here! they must be doing something right!

Wharfie

Dusty

A cartel being operated by cabbies? Not at all.

We have no gripe with the issue of new licences per se. But the council, according to the legislation, are duty bound to satisfy themselves that there is significant unmet demand.

The benefit to them is that if they maintain a reasonable business equilibrium in the trade, then that trade can afford to buy the shiny new taxis they like so much. Too many taxis, poor business level, and all you get are bangers in the fleet.

We don't have that here in Edinburgh.

The exercise to establish that there was significant unmet demand to justify the addition of new plates was a farce. It was conducted during August, when Edinburgh was bristling with tourists visiting the festival. This is a peak time, there's bound to be unmet demand at peak times. But establishing the fleet level based on this means that the rest of the year we're all sitting about taxi ranks.

Of course, then the council introduced a half hour frequency all night bus service, then fares were hike 15%, then the economy slowed to a standstill, then house prices in Edinburgh went through the roof sucking disposable income from out our customers pockets then ......

You can sing the praises of the free market, suggesting that if plate numbers were not controlled, then somehow the whole service would be better. Take a look at Dublin to see what your vision of the future would be.

As for the college course, I believe that we should be encouraging skill development. But it should be on a voluntary basis, with incentives to learn and improve.

Our Council's college course was introduced by a vested interest. It was a money making scam dressed up as public concern. The modules all lasted only three hours and cost £50 plus vat each.

First Aid : You could only learn enough to make you potentially dangerous to a third party. No one is insured as things stand to protect them financially in the event things went wrong.

Vehicle maintenance : Would any owner of a £30K vehicle want an inexperienced driver poking around under his bonnet. Unbelievably, one instructor had the wheels off the vehicle and proceeded to show how brake pads could be changed, "just in case they needed to be on a weekend shift".

Customer relations : If you don't understand how to relate to customers then you are clearly in the wrong job. If you need instruction, you don't need the council forcing it down your hroat.

Anger Management : It was reported that one slip of a girl on the course was advised that if she felt anger and tension dealing with a passenger she should get out of her vehicle and do stretching exercises while rubbing her ear lobes. Try doing that in one of our sink estates. You'd be mugged and your bag nicked. Seems to cause anger rather than alleviate it doesn't it?

This is all tosh. The modules have been discredited. Remember an extra £250 + vat to become a cabbie. None of this nonsense to be a private hire driver.

Edinburgh was the only Council to make this mandatory, even then they did it on the sly without telling the trade first. We think they've misinterpreted the law differently from everyone else.

It's all right saying take them to court. If we had a few ten grands lying around we would be delighted to deal with issues in this way. But we don't.

But don't be shy. Send any donations to us and we'll get on the case.

Jim Taylor