Taxi Driver Online

Source = Evening Telegraph

Drivers walk out of taxi meeting

Members of the Dundee Taxi Association stormed out of an ill-tempered meeting with Dundee City Council’s taxi liaison committee today.

Taxi Association chairman Graeme Stephen led the walkout and then warned that future direct action by taxi drivers is now inevitable.

Last week, around 100 taxi drivers, angry at what they claimed was Dundee City Council’s preferential treatment of a private hire company, took part in a rolling roadblock designed to bring the city’s traffic to a halt.

Mr Stephen said today nobody on the committee, which is chaired by Lord Provost John Letford, was prepared to listen to their concerns and, instead, set the agenda without consulting Taxi Association members.

“We thought we were going to be able to speak about the items on the agenda but when we got there they were more concerned about the image of Dundee and talking about all of the good points about it,” he said.

“They said they had an agenda to give to us but it was just four pages of their answers to things.

“We were asked if we wanted 20 or 30 minutes to read through it but we weren’t allowed to discuss anything on it.

“We went to discuss the agenda, not be given the council’s answers to it.”

Mr Stephen said taxi drivers would continue to protest until the city council takes the time to listen to their concerns.

“They’re dragging their feet. Why not just sit round the table and go through the agenda point by point with us?” he said.

He also warned that taxi drivers are prepared to take direct action in the future.

“There definitely will be more protests at some point,” said Mr Stephen.

“There is another meeting at The Dee Club next Tuesday — it’s up to the drivers to decide. They’re irate, and there were a lot of people in the City Square today,” he added.

A spokesman for Dundee City Council said the meeting continued after the walkout.

Dundee’s Licensing Convener John Letford said, “It is clear that sections of the taxi trade in Dundee are hell bent on causing disruption and opposition for the sake of it.

“Our attempts to have a positive dialogue have been repeatedly flung back in our faces by a small number of individuals who are not representative of sensible opinion.

“Faced with total intransigence and concerns that the real facts are not reaching the majority of drivers, a letter will be sent to each taxi licence holder and each taxi driver.

“This fully covers all 13 issues that were raised with us, from the use of advertising logos to the location of taxi ranks.

“We have answered their concerns in detail, and said from day one there is a forum for discussing issues, a forum that the trade itself helped set up.

“It is clear they are not prepared to listen to reason and I am bitterly disappointed that it has reached this stage. Our objective is to maintain safe and efficient taxi services in Dundee.

That is what the travelling public expects and deserves.

“As a licensing authority we have a legal duty to ensure that the trade operates within licensing conditions.

“I want to make it quite clear that we apply the rules without fear or favour right across all sections of the taxi and private hire trade in Dundee.”

Well surely that wouldn't have taken much more than a minute or two.

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IDFIMH

IMO you never walk out of a meeting until you have got what you want, or have driven the other side mad.

If it's the latter then the next meeting you have got a great chance of getting the former.

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IDFIMH

http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/outpu ... 408t0.shtm

the council are conerned the assocation is not giving us the real facts and is sending out a letter to every driver,

203020 also had an ad in tonights paper about their half price fares, a bit of a coincidence it landed on the same day as the meeting

Any firm that offers half price fares deserves nothing other than failure.

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IDFIMH

The half price fares were imposed on the drivers, they had no choice in the matter, it seems 203020 have a wee vendetta going, as for council they are useless and clueless, Letford shouldn't even be Provost he got in through the backdoor.

two recent developements

203020 after advice from their legal team have officialy withdrawn their court applications for 71 hack plates, dave youngs statement read (we are going back to what we are best at private hire)

the council handed out letters to all taxi drivers and ops stating their replys to the thirteen issues that were handed to them by the dta etc,
they also put up the info on their website,
the link at the bottom takes you to the 13 issues

http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/dundeecity ... hp?id=1380

I guess they were told they could have as many plates as they like, as long as they are WAVs.

Hence the PH way forward, but not at half price if they want to keep drivers.

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IDFIMH

http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/taxiliaisonmeeting/

Can't believe they don't use the Scottish version of the CRB.

For whatever reason.

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IDFIMH

As this is still has not been decided by the Scottish executive, why are potential owners being forced to buy a WAV.
Ministers in Europe have already stated that there must be a mixture of saloons and wav to give maximum access to the disabled, and its up the the owner what type of vehicle he buys
All vehicles meet with European standards,
A legal challenge me thinks

I hope someone from the Edinburgh PH trade reads this;

This is entirely in accordance with SDD Circular 6/1983 which provides that "the Secretary of State regards basic advertisements that a vehicle is a taxi or private hire car - such as displays of the name of the firm and its telephone number - as generally being in the public interest, because it permits ready identification".

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IDFIMH

Remind me why it is legal to up driver's licenses in Scotland to meet the costs of new LOs, but not in England?

THERE ARE CONCERNS ABOUT BADGE COSTS INCREASES

The Trade reps had requested that an additional Cabs Enforcement Officer be appointed. It was agreed that this would be looked into and the Trade were advised that there would be cost implications to the Trade as the Council had a legal duty to recover its costs.

At a meeting of the Taxi Liaison Group on 24 August 2006 the Trade reps were advised of the costs and given options as to how they could be recovered.

At the suggestion of the Trade, it was agreed that taxi operators' licences be increased by £25 and drivers by £50. This was subsequently approved by the Licensing Committee on 7 September 2006.

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IDFIMH

So de-limitation has led to a 10% increase in cars over three years.

And I bet 100% of those are ex PH.

Of the 559 taxis, 191 are accessible. Prior to the policy change in 2003 only six out of 507 taxis were accessible.

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IDFIMH

I saw the story in the paper last night, but it seemed like a bit of a non-story - presumably when they took on the private hire plates a few weeks ago they had at that point given up the fight for the taxi plates. The way it was originally reported was that when they applied to the court they were able to keep the plates taxi plates they had until the court decided whether they could keep them.

But then I think they must have been told by their lawyers that they had little chance of keeping the taxi plates, so then they got the PH ones. The report yesterday just said that they'd told the court that they'd come to an agreement with the council, so basically the court didn't have to decide the issue, and it also said that the terms of the agreement between the council and the company wouldn't be made public.

Not even under the freedom of information law.

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Grandad,