Taxi Driver Online

At the moment the hackney plates in plymouth are being sold for 20k - 45k after the dereg survey, the problem with this is that cabbing is not a job its a trade. As with all trades it needs new faces every year, drivers come and go, but the true Cab driver sticks with it, through thick and thin. (most of the time thin !) Most drivers start off as Private hire, and as they realise what back stabbing, feeding and lies fly around the office, the true Cabbie goes to Hackney as a lot of you will have done yourself, as indeed did I. Well the problem is in Plymouth, that the plates are snapped up by Garages, Farmers and generally anyone with a lot of cash to spare. This leads to A lot of cabs on the road which are plagued with problems such as brake failer, steering failer and other potentially life threatening faults. All they care about is the rent money each week which can be anywhere between 150 - 283.50 a week. Being off the road with these cabs sometimes during the week and most likey friday or a saturday, the young driver cant afford to buy a cab because that rent has still got to be paid. Our trade is dying in Plymouth, cabs double banked on a daily basis no parking space on ranks, so they que on roundabouts and other dangerous places, well all i can say is we all have a badge with a number, so why not issue either a private hire plate or hackney plate with that badge, still keeping the limit of 350 ish plated hackneys, and force out the business of renting cabs and give the trade back to the right full owner the cab drivers, and keep our cabs in mint order.

I was going to de;lete some of the above but hav'n't
I have done this job for along time now, I can't be a true cabby cos I don't stick it out, thick or thin, I do not class it as a trade, not now, just a means to an end [ my thoughts ] why, you ask, well the punters are getting more and more scummy, treat you like sh*t and seem to have no respect, in reality you are doing them a favour in getting them where they want to go, some think they own the vehicle when they get in and you the driver are a thick b@st@rd
I class it more like driving a cattle truck, but at least in a cattle truck the animals are well behaved

Back stabbers, yes we also have them as well in the HC trade, lots of them

The HC trade is crap because of the invention of the mobile phone, Its all going PH, the HC's get the left overs or the can't be bothered lot

a lot of our plates are now being bought up by well known traders in the area, a 60 year old established auto repair shop has just bought 2 plates, a skip hire firm bought 3 plates, a farm estate bought 2 plates, an Insurance Broker bought 2 plates, a Bicycle shop bought 2 plates, do they know something I don't know, just heard a rumour a York plate has sold for 48 grand without vehicle.

finaly no cab if you are the rental driver should be driven with any known fault, it's you that gets done not the vehicle owner, just park it up and tell em to get it fixed or move on

If your paying 280 quid a week to rent its time you went to the bank as it will be cheaper to loan the money to buy a plate than pay rent, work it out

Sorry missed this out on the last one

These firms do not have the spare cash, they just know how to have accesss to it

Young drivers have a life infront of them, you can afford if you want to go down this road of owning a cab plate you do not have to rent one if you have made arrangements for the loan to buy one, the motto is, if you can afford that amount of money to pay out for rental, why pay the owners, pay the bank instead and the plates your's at the end

Problem is it could well turn out to be worth nothing.

A lot of drivers probably can't raise the funds to buy a plate anyway - the banks need security, and this is generally a house, so you would have to have a bit of equity in your property - ie it's worth a good bit more than the mortgage you have on it.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

the same story is repeated all over the UK in restricted zones like plymouths. people with the money are buying up all the plates to rent out to those who actually want to do the driving.

in an ideal world if someone stopped driving they should hand back there free plate, however the daft rules and regs we have has given them a false value. meaning those who want to drive end up paying a fortune for a plate and end up putting it on a clapped out pile of junk.

most often it is the HC driver owners themselves who want to keep the status quo and keep the limits in place, however as we have seen here, janner is a HC licenced driver, but is paying an arm and a leg in rent for something that someone else got for free and what he wants for free. and why shouldn't he? at least then the money that he is giving away to a greedy plate owner he could use to but a new TX with.

a mate of mine has got 6 plates valued now at about 270,000.
if he bought a house for that he would get about 2,000 a month.
form those plates he gets over 10,000 a month.
so to people who think dereg isnt going to happen its a license to print money.
maybe a good gamble 10 yeaqrs ago.
but not now.

you got no mates.......

anyone who is getting 10 grand a month is a mate of mine.

some idiot gives him £400 a week?

he has at least two drivers on each car giving him a min of 225 a week.
on some of the cars he has 3 drivers.

more ammo for the pro-delimiters in that area.

Are we seriously expected to believe that your "mate" pulls in £385 a week per plate? (YOUR MATHS NOT MINE) That must be mondays takings go to the plate Baron then.

why not ring up one of the brighton firms
747474
202020
204060
205205
and ask how much to rent a plate.
i bet you anything they will say £180-220 days
£200-250 nights a week.
so really i was being conservative with my estimnates.
he actually takes more than £385 a week.

The figures sound feasible. How much do you think he should charge for a day and night track in Brighton? And How much do they charge in your area of Lincoln?

Regards

JD

There are no, not one, (Zero) rented plates in Lincoln. not any, no none at all. No plate barons here. rare as unicorns, in fact. 97% owner driver, the remainder, (1) on a wage, and happy, I understand.