Taxi Driver Online

‘private’ taxi blitz
Nov 6 2007 by Luke Traynor, Liverpool Echo

A TAXI blitz across Liverpool has landed nine private hire cabbies in court.

They will appear before magistrates accused of illegally picking up passengers.

In operation Otis over the past two weekends plain-clothes police and council officials targeted taxi drivers who carry passengers without a booking.

Eight private hire vehicles were seized and nine drivers reported for breaching passenger pick-up rules and insurance offences.

Five of the drivers were from Sefton, two from Wirral and one from Knowsley and Liverpool.

They will appear before magistrates and could permanently lose their licence.

Private hire cabs can only be pre-booked as stipulated by all private hire insurance.

The operation also targeted private cars found parked on taxi ranks.

Officers seized 36 private cars pulled up on taxi stands and gave 108 tickets for obstruction.

Chairman of the taxi licensing committee Cllr Malcolm Kelly said: “Some of the private hire vehicles are not just causing congestion by parking illegally, but could also obstruct ambulances, fire engines and other emergency vehicles.

“Taxis operating legitimately are an important part of our transport system. Thousands of people rely on them at night, specially at weekends, and they must be able to operate properly in the right areas.

“People who get into an unlicensed vehicle, and private hire cars plying for hire are unlicensed, could be putting themselves at risk.”

luketraynor@liverpoolecho.co.uk
Are they doing this to justify ,Shafting Ph. nice timeing!.How many DELTA LADS

I might be able to shed some light on that...

In recent correspondence between Delta and Liverpool City Council (LCC) in respect of their recently sought legal amendment, the LCC leader tried to justify the action by playing the old 'we're overrun with illegal plying for hire and that's all we seek to solve' card. Delta suggested that the case for unlawful plying for hire was being grossly overstated so to set the record straight they asked LCC officers for the total number of Sefton lads done in the past 12 months so they could compare it with their legitimate bookings. LCC's Principal licensing officer confirmed 28 incidents of unlawful plying for hire by Sefton drivers in Liverpool and 4 by Liverpool private hire drivers in Liverpool. This compared with 6,206,700 legitimate bookings carried out by Delta in the same 12 months, and Delta is only one of 39 Sefton operators. But wait, it gets better...

After forwarding these figures to countless officers, councillors, MPs, business leaders, Merseytravel, Mersey Partnership, Business Forums, Chambers of Commerce etc, on BOTH sides of the Liverpool/Sefton boundary, Delta asked for the 28 to be publicly named so that they could carry out their own disciplinary action. The names however were not forthcoming. When Delta pressed the point with the principal licensing officer's boss, the head of licensing, the names eventually came back but the 28 had magically dropped to 12. Of the 12 however, seven of them had been prosecuted over 12 months ago, resulting in a revised figure of 5 to compare with the millions of genuine jobs. Ironically the Liverpool licensed driver offences were revised upwards to 6, which makes it even more curious as to why LCC would seek an amendment compelling Sefton lads to leave their area when Livepool lads were bigger offenders!!! After an unreserved apology was made by the red-faced officer for supplying bogus figures it's not surprising there's a witch hunt underway.

The ironic thing is, Delta is absolutely dead against illegal plying for hire. If drivers can make their money without a radio then why would they want to pay £80 a week to the firm? Delta don't allow Hackney Drivers on their circuit so the last thing they want is a private hire lad impersonating a hackney. We're are so hell bent on making sure our drivers maintain exclusive attention to radio work we have a pretty effective three strike policy for convicted pirates...
1st offence - 24 hr suspension
2nd offence - 3 month suspension
3rd offence - lifetime ban

If it wasn't for Liverpool's taxi drivers paying for LCC officers to patrol the streets, Delta would have to employ their own undercover agents to route out the pirates. As it is the current witch hunt is doing all their policing for them... what a result!

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

I must admit, if your figures are correct then what you say makes very interesting reading? However just because the detection rate of Liverpool enforcement officers is abysmal it doesn't mean to say that wholesale illegal plying for hire does not take place? Manchester has a similar detection rate to Liverpool and I can assure you that not only has illegal plying for hire reached epidemic proportions, it is also blatant.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

Its nice to see, that you see, the implications , of what some of these legal admendments will mean.
Something that seems, to have gone over the G M B s head . If not Terry would ranting, so much they would be takeing him away, in a straight jacket.
Why Hacks, who take telephone bookings are not up in arms. Is a mystery . Perhaps they under estimate, the power, the Minds have.


You have JD and TDO for exposeing this conspiracy .

I agree entirely with your observation but consider this, will any of the Taxi trade magazines bring the facts out into the open, I doubt it? Two of them were party to these meetings so you would expect in the interest of the Taxi trade as a whole that they owed the trade an obligation to report and expose any proposals that will have a profound effect on their future working practices? These magazines have in the past been quick to slate announcements that could adversely effect the trade but there is a deadly silence from all of them over this issue. These Editors no doubt want to keep these talks secret from the Taxi trade as a whole but thanks to TDO the cat is fully out of the proverbial bag.

Ask me if GMB members in Manchester have been informed by the reps who attended these meetings about the Talks and if they have been given a breakdown of proposals or access to minutes? Answer equals NO.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

A little dickie bird told me of a recent (on-going) situation in the North West, where a hackney carriage driver picked up illegally outside of his area. The driver was caught by the local licensing team.

Now that's not an uncommon incidence from either side of the trade, but what makes this interesting is that the driver concerned has been suspended until the next licensing committee meeting in 5/6 weeks time.

Due to the Road Safety Act 2006 he can't appeal and work in the meantime.

Now is that really what the section in the act was meant for?

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IDFIMH

Illegal plying for hire is a nationwide problem and is a difficult thing to resolve because the amount of resources neccessary to deal effectively with the problem would be unjustifiable. What is probably needed is a regional team of specialists funded by central government dealing with this and illegal taxis but that wouldn't be very likely because it isn't a big votewinner

I'm sure Liverpool's latest unmet demand survey will perhaps make even more interesting reading for you then. In the past Liverpool City Council specifically instructed their survey agents NOT to consult with Delta as part of their investigations into Liverpool's taxi provision, kind of like three monkeys with hands clapped over eyes, ears and mouth... 'hear no Delta, see no Delta, speak no Delta!'

This time however they consented to Mouchelle Parkman survey consultants sending their agent to Delta's office to audit and interprete our data. Our reporting software enables us to conduct sophisticated global analysis of tens of millions of taxi bookings. Whilst originally designed to aid in the development of more effective company strategies the data is invaluable to anyone trying to thoroughly investigate Liverpool taxi provision as a whole. Delta's open-door policy is nothing new, over the last ten years we have entertained taxi leaders from around the world, offering tours and presentations to the likes of Glasgow TOA, Birmingham TOA, TaxiBlu the Milan Hackney giants and quite a few Dublin-based operations.

You can only imagine how excited the consultants were to be let loose on our reporting package. For example, over one sample week of 129,307 bookings they were able to confirm that the quietest 22 hours all landed between 1am and 6am at a time when Delta operated their lowest fares and LCC Hackney drivers were on their high tariff 2. The 9 busiest hours of the whole week were Friday and Saturday evening before 11pm. Funnily enough during these peak demand hours the hacks operate their lowest tariff 1 whilst Delta operate their highest red card rate, resulting in extra Delta boys and girls logging on when they're needed. Our fare structure is scientifically designed to encourage drivers to come out when they're needed and go home when they're not. I'm guessing Liverpool's hackney fare structure is a dyed in the wool tradition that no one has thought to question.

Probably the most interesting thing LCC will soon learn is the fact that Delta facilitate more journeys than the combined pre-bookings of every Liverpool-licensed hackney and private hire operation put together. As such a cornerstone of Liverpool's public transport infrastructure imagine the fallout if Delta were one day tossed aside by a local authority's misguided response to trade union pressure. How would the police cope with thousands of revellers left stranded in the city? How would the businesses cope when their staff and customers struggled to get to their premises? How would the Liverpool hackney fleet operators react to the hundreds of emergency issue plates flooding their market? How would the roads cope with the people who used to use a Delta now taking their own car into town? These are the questions officers should have presented to their committees for consideration, not 'What's the best way we can protect the commercial interests of our local licence fee payers from those damned efficient Sefton bunch.'

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

Did you get to meet Mr Millarship. I think he only got the survey, because I M O he is a professional, no demand finder .
The fact he is consulting you is stange , but rest assured all the data he gets , will go straight in the bin.

You dont want unrestricted hackney, numbers in Liverpool . Restricted hackney numbers, is helping you thrive . Helping Mr Millarship is a no brainer from your point of veiw.

I know one thing , if it was not Delta , Hackney rents in Liverpool would be a lot higher.
streetcars

Perhaps i am being unfare to Mr Millarship, i hope he proves me wrong.

I suppose you've just made Mr Millerships job a whole lot easier because all he has to write in his report is that there is no unmet, or latent demand, because its all being taken up by Delta? lol

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

If it wasn't for the sefton p/h working all over Liverpool Areas there would be more work for the Liverpool p/h.

A lot of pricing / debating is going on about the Liverpool Hackneys but remember we still have the p/h in Liverpool.The p/h in Liverpool must struggle to earn a decent living when drivers who pay their fees,settle etc to operators outside of liverpool take all their work.

I think it quite possible that any private hire firm no matter where it is licensed or what it is called, would respond with the words legitimate competition.

I don't think it is entirely correct to assume that the general public no matter where they might be, belong to you? In fact as a member of the general public myself, I would most certainly take offence at anyone suggesting I belong to them. Therefore I think your terminology in respect of the Liverpool public is perhpas incorrect?

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

all 'their' work ???? !!!! Since when did drivers OWN work, they have to earn it with good service and value for money. Delta are just filling the void...

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Don't knock it, 'til you try it....

These minutes have now been produced in Electronic format by TDO for easy download and trasnportability.

http://taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=89288

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.