Taxi Driver Online

Restriction doesn't work. Edinburgh has proved this over many years. What we have are high plate values (up to £50K), high driver rentals (Dundee drivers wanna pay these?), higher than necessary tariffs (Dundee customers wanna pay these?) which allow PH competition to offer up to 30% discount and take our work from us (Dundee drivers want this?).

1. Plate values. Plates aren't for sale though are they. The plate is attached to a company that that holds the license. But that's by the by

2. Higher driver rentals. In your opinion. You speak of £350 per week rental yet I've never spoke to any driver that's paid close to this. Out of curiously what is your weekly rental?

3. Higher than necessary tariffs. Now you've chucked it. The number of cabs on the road doesn't dictate the tariff. Also, Edinburgh is a restricted cab market yes? Then why is Edinburgh (and I don't have exact numbers yet but it's not hard to find) why is ednburgh the 240-250 ish cheapest tariff in the UK out of around 290?

4. PH discounts. PH are giving discounts to try and accumulate work and try to compete. Not because Edinburgh taxis are restricted but because they aren't generating alot of work in the first place. And knowing PH drivers that have moved into taxi driving, many say even though it's bad at the moment, it's a helluva lot worse driving PH throughout the week. 9th shift for £60 less fuel and rental doesn't leave alot


But I know I'm a cretin/imbicile/fool etcetc and expect the usual nonsense replies

1. We've been through all of this before. The company is the plate. The company doesn't exist without the plate. Know anyone who bought a "company" without the plate?

Incorporation is the mechanism allowed by the council deliberately to allow plates to be transferred although this is expressly prohibited by Law.

The Council must fear that de-restriction will render plates truly worthless and that angry owners will try to take them to court to recover their loss - a current aggregate total of over £55 Millions. This has to be why it has engineered a situation where the Court can assume responsiblity and thereby avoid any legal suit against them.

2. I have spoken to a driver in Central who paid £350 per week. This was well documented on this forum at the time. Now it may not be an average, but it was a price paid.

3. That's the point, the number of cabs on the road should have a bearing, but it's the council who set the tariff. That's why when it was promoting the extension to a half hour service for its night buses it granted us a 15% hike. Our trade rubbed it's hands with glee as our customers took the buses, particularly to the satellite towns.

Don't we all remember Jim Muldoon saying that rather than issue more taxi licences the council should put on more buses. Quality.

As for the tariff list, who cares. What matters is what our customers think, and they're voting with their feet.

4. It's bad for us all so any problems PH are having are being shared by us all. But my PH contacts tell me that they are holding their own compared with last year. Remember you have to go behind the veneer of drivers alone whose main qualification for doing the job is an ability to whinge.

It would be wrong to say you are cretin for your post. I've no doubt you fully believe what you write.

I just wish that you would open your mind more and consider more deeply what you are articulating.

The sure thing is that the status quo has delivered our current predicament. On a driver level, we are at the brunt of the downturn, without the flexibility of have unfettered access to the tools of our trade to compete and work round that which fetters us.

We are the ones forced to work when we don't want to because the demand isn't there and the vehicle isn't available when we would need it.

We sit on ranks when it's quiet and sit at home when it's busy. This is madness.

This may be acceptable to you, not to me though. This is why things have to change.

Every dug I've ever owned spent most of its time with its nose buried up its own ars*.

But I'll take the short time necessary to educate you.

Restriction doesn't work. Edinburgh has proved this over many years. What we have are high plate values (up to £50K), high driver rentals (Dundee drivers wanna pay these?), higher than necessary tariffs (Dundee customers wanna pay these?) which allow PH competition to offer up to 30% discount and take our work from us (Dundee drivers want this?). Understand this so far?

What your confusing in Dundee is the difference between a temporary (although likely SNP inspired protracted) blip in an economy which is comprehensively fecked and a vested interest group seeking to use this as a a means to acquire the plate value and the means to charge drivers more for their rental because of the shortage being created.

Hapless Joe FitzPatrick didn't understand this. Can you?

BTW If you have any further doubt then note this. The biggest demand supply example in the UK is London. It doesn't restrict. The cabbies are making a good living. No doubt lower somewhat because of the current sh*te economy. But they're not clamouring for restriction. Why do you think this is?

Couldn't be because the high quality control standards in London invest the professionalism in the London Cabby and they realise their worth, with mini cabs picking up the scraps they leave behind?

Wake up dug. Get your nose out of your ars* and smell the coffee.

Don't be duped like the erstwhile Joe FitzPatrick.