Taxi Driver Online

Brighton & Hove City Council Item no. on agenda

Meeting: Licensing Committee

Date: 20th April 2006

Report of: Assistant Director, Public Safety

Subject: Multi Agency Hackney Carriage / Private Hire Vehicle and Driver Checks. “Operation Cabbie”

Ward Affected: All

1. Purpose of the report

1.1 To report on “Operation Cabbie” a multi agency exercise to carrying out spot checks of hackney carriage / private hire vehicles and drivers on the 9th March 2006.

2. Recommendation

2.1 That Committee confirm their support for further multi agency operations of a similar nature.

3. Information/Background

3.1 “Operation Cabbie” a multi agency exercise consisting of officers from Vehicle & Operator Services Agency (VOSA), Department for Works and Pensions (DWP), Revenue and Customs, Benefit Investigations, Immigration, Police, and Hackney Carriage Officers took place on the 9th March 2006.

3.2 Seventy Five vehicles (approximately 8% of all licensed hackney carriage / private hire vehicles) and their drivers were inspected during the exercise. As a result of vehicle inspections by VOSA 8 vehicles were served with prohibition orders preventing the vehicles from working until defects had been corrected. Seven of the vehicles were allowed to return to work the same day having had defects repaired. One vehicle was prevented from leaving the inspection site until made road worthy. Any vehicle prohibited by VOSA is required to undergo an MOT within 7 days. The majority of prohibition orders were for defective tyres and lights.

3.3 Officers from the Hackney Carriage Office issued 8 suspension notices 6 of which were lifted the same day. Suspensions were given for fire extinguishers, headlights and bodywork damage.

3.4 Following the exercise Officers form DWP are investigating 2 drivers for benefit fraud and Officers from Benefit Investigations are investigating 3 drivers for suspected benefit fraud.

3.5 Revenue and Customs who were checking fuel found no contraventions as did Officers from Immigration.


4 Consultation

The matter has been discussed at the Council’s Hackney Carriage and
Private Hire Consultation Forum

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IDFIMH

Probably all PH. No Fire extinguisher is hardly crime of the century, is it?

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Former taxi driver

Spot checks on taxis in Operation Cabbie

MOST taxis in Brighton have been given a clean bill of health after a spot check operation.

Brighton and Hove City Council carried out its first set of random taxi checks to try to catch any unsafe or unroadworthy cabs.

Out of 75 taxis picked during the one-day Operation Cabbie, 16 were found to have minor faults and were temporarily taken off the road. But most were back working again later the same day.

Councillor Jeane Lepper, chairman of Brighton and Hove City Council's licensing committee, said: "Taxi drivers in the city take a pride in their job. We expected the checks to show most vehicles are in a good condition and we are pleased this has proved to be the case.

"The response from the taxi trade has been excellent - they felt it was a positive move and look forward to us carrying out another operation in future."

The council's taxi licensing team carried out the checks with the help of the police and the Government's Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA).

VOSA pulled eight vehicles off the road for faults like worn tyres or faulty lights. The licensing team temporarily stopped another eight cabs from working for failing to meet licensing requirements like having a fire extinguisher or needing bodywork repairs.

The council keeps tight control over the number of taxis operating in the city. Its system of managed growth allows licence numbers to increase by five a year.

John Oram, manager of Streamline Cabs, welcomed the idea of spot checks. He said: "I think it's a good thing for the trade that they're doing spot checks. It stops people running around in vehicles that are not roadworthy. We don't have lots of unlicensed minicabs in the city because the council was probably the first local authority to license private hire vehicles. They were issued with proper vehicle licenses. I think Brighton and Hove's probably pretty much a leader in this."

All taxis in the city undergo rigorous testing once a year and additional spot checks can be carried out.

Damien Norman, Brighton and Hove's Taxi Driver of the Year, said: "The figures sound excellent. We have a high standard of vehicles in the city, with the tests we have to do each year. They're pretty rigorous."

A report on Operation Cabbie will be made to the council's licensing committee on April 20. It will recommend more spot checks in the future.

i see on the liars scanner is saying how good this is etc.
doesnt say that his firm put it out on there dataheads that the council were checking.
fit and proper. your aving a laff.

You have to wonder why his firm was so desperate to keep their iffy cars out of the council/police/vosa/inland revenue's way.

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IDFIMH

This isn't from the Argus surely?

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

Perhaps its about time Brighton caught up with the majority of the UK who test their vehicles at leat twice a year, excepting london of course.



You are invited on TDO Mr Norman to tell us how rigourous your tests are?

Regards

JD

Indeed if they were so rigorous then one has to wonder why 21% of the cabs stopped failed and were taken off the road.

And doesn't the report on B&H's site mention that five drivers are being investigated for benefit fraud?

And one wonders how many iffy drivers went home following advice to do so by one of the operators.

Perverting the course of justice is one discription of events.

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IDFIMH

Well I assume the article is referring to HCs and PH generically as taxis? Thus we can't tell nothing about which 'side' the rogue cars were on, but it's a good example of an LA using the term in a way that much of the HC trade (such as in Edinburgh) get a bit animated about.

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

In view of the councillor's positive spin on the spot checks, I had assumed that this was an attempt to link this matter with restricted numbers, but in fact the council's press release doesn't mention quotas and the above was presumably inserted by the Argus on its own volition.

But any allusion between this and restricted numbers is surely wrong, as I've argued frequently in the past. Is B&H's PH fleet worse than the HC motors, for example, and if not then surely the link is spurious? And if it is, then why not mention this in the article?

But the article doesn't differentiate HCs and PHs, so why raise the matter of taxi quotas?

Or am I in fact wrong and only taxis/HCs were stopped?

Argus article:
http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2006/4/14/209873.html

B&H Council press release:
http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.c ... t=c1155265

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

So PH in Brighton must have been licensed around the mid-60s or earlier?

Perhaps that's of historical interest, but I can't really see a link between that and the amount of unlicesensed minicabs currently operating.

But at least it's some evidence that quality is best fostered by direct regulation rather than the spurious link with restricted numbers.

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

im 99% certain most of the cars stopped where taxis.
cant understand why they didnt stop any ph.
maybe they will go for them next time.

as for the quality between taxis and ph.
they do the same test each year.
so they should be the same.
possibly ph are better because they dont have journeymen driving them in the main not giving a toss.

So Mr Oram's spiel about PH is even less relevant than I outlined above.

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

In Brighton there is no distinguishable features between most hackney carriage and private hire vehicles, except for colour, taxi sign and perhaps a meter?

According to the DfT back in 2004 Brighton had 479 taxis, which consisted of 57 purpose built 28 mpv's and 394 saloons? It would appear there is not a lot of difference in saloon and private hire numbers when you consider there were only 429 private hire saloons back in 2004.

JD

when he was working full time on the ranks he wasnt a bad lad.
but since he went into the office he has gone bonging mad.