Taxi Driver Online

Cardiff taxi drivers lose campaign for licence limit

May 6 2009 by Nathan Bevan, South Wales Echo

REQUESTS for a limitation on the number of taxi licences issued in Cardiff have been turned down.

For months, taxi drivers across Cardiff have complained that too many licences were being issued by the city council, making it difficult for drivers to find enough work.

Their concerns were heard by the council’s Public Protection Committee yesterday, but councillors decided limiting the number of licences was not in the public’s best interest.

The committee’s chairman Ed Bridges said: “We’re aware drivers struggle to find work during weekdays, but we are also conscious of a significant unmet demand at weekends, evenings and on event days.”

He added that limiting licences would lead to higher fares and the creation of a black market which would put as much as £40,000 on the value of a hackney carriage plate.

But Mathab Khan, chairman of the Cardiff Hackney Carriage Association, said he was disappointed at the decision and planned to launch a fresh application.

“Drivers are finding it difficult to survive because there’s just not enough business to warrant the 900 taxis we already have on the roads,” he said.

“Furthermore, the city isn’t big enough to cope with them all as we only have a total of 50 allocated taxi ranks as it is.

“Drivers are getting booked for parking all the time and I know the police must be just as sick of it as they are.

“Something needs to be done.”


http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/cardi ... -23552406/

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HOW MUCH !!!!!!

Make the knowledge test harder and bring in the DSA 'taxi' test.

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IDFIMH

The trouble is MR Mathab Khan, the chair of the Hackney Carriage Association is against making the test harder

The council want to bring in some BTEC exam for all new applicants - but Mr Khan was quoted in the press that he'd fight this as it would discriminate against un-educated Asian and Somali people who want to apply for a license

You couldn't make it up

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HOW MUCH !!!!!!

How many cabs does Mr Khan own?

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

I would be inclined to agree with Mr Khan.....unfortunately the BTEC and NVQ appear to be nothing more than cash cows for the leaches.

But agree with your sentiments in so far as the standard of applicants is concerned.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

This topic has been covered in the news section "So out of touch"

The truth of the matter has nothing to do with how easy or how hard that it is to get a license. The problem that we have is the "Public safety officer" who does not think that we have too many licenses and a councilor who still believes that there is unmet demand.

The PSO is so slanted towards public safety that he is ignoring the safety of drivers who will end up having no choice but to work horrendous hours- just how safe is that? We also have a councilor who states that we do not have enough taxis when we have big events (about a dozen a year if that,) but there again who does and if you did the city would be totally gridlocked for the rest of the year because of lack of work due to all the extra taxis.

Infact if he got his way and we had enough taxis to cover large events, there would be a collapse of the taxi industry in Cardiff, because it would be impossible to earn a living - so back to square one, not enough taxis.

The biggest problem that we all have is ourselves, if we could get ourselves organised like the Ethnic community then we would stand a better chance of getting things done because we know the people that we are dealing with better than they do! I say that from the experience of speaking to people who they would be kowtowing to, who would not be getting the same from me because I know how far to go.

I know that might seem a bit cocky but too many hold them in high esteem and they are bye and large not much different to us.

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

Ask him if he's going to license new bars so ppl that wait outside the current ones for 30 mins to get in and then wait another 30 mins to get served are catered for, ask him if he thinks it would be a good idea to have 50 LO's in the office, just incase at relicencing time 50 drivers walk in at the same time, ask him for another 1000 police officers because the crime rate shows that there aren't enough, ask him if Capt Jack is staying at his house to promote Cardiff, jeeezus, seems to me you need this pair of Stevie Wonder's removed asap, and finally ask him if he's prepared to introduce a min wage for cabbies and the council can make up the shortfall each day, without resorting to swearing, where the **** have these ppl come from, have they never heard of peaks and troughs, and isn't it nice to have a 50k+ pa job with expenses and have nothing better to do than to destroy others livelyhoods, it shows out a mile what the problem is, if like he says the plate would become worth 40k, *I seriously doubt that btw* all his problem is is that he isn't going to benefit from it, and has taken his ball home.

Keep chipping at them mate, become a right pain, insist that at least 50% of your fleet should have rank space, see how he reacts when you hit him with that one, all those parking meters that will need removing, best of luck, or the other way that I'm looking at is lets have a totally foreign driven cab service in this country and let the bleeders squeal about it in future.

Thanks for your input and some very good points - I can feel your anger and frustration through your post and not dissimilar to mine. The plates at their height about 3/4 years ago hit about 22/23K, today some will pay 12K ish. What he has done is to take an average because he has heard that in another part of the country they reached 80K, as ever they quote the highest parts of the country to suit but when it comes to tariff time - they quote another.

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if you cannot be yourself, then who can you be.

You are right I am annoyed, we have a 57% larger fleet thanks to the last dereg policy, that was achieved in 6 years before we appealled it and got it turned around, all 83 of the plates were WAV's and now some of them instead of being 5 seaters are now 8 seaters, so in effect what was a 100 car fleet 25 years ago is now a 238 car fleet, but effectively when you take the 7's and 8 seaters into account it's way over 300 cars in relation to pre 86 times, add in the 1000 PHC also working the city, many of them ignore their radio circuit to "help" me out half the night and it's not a rosy picture.


The worst of it is is these ppl meddle and when the break it they like in a glass shop go oops and walk away from it and leave others to try and restore it, cabbing is a unique job, it requires understanding, and ppl who sit behind desks do not have a clue about what makes it tick, it's not only the cab game that is suffering from these idiots, we have a road that is a blind bend, so now the idea in place is it's narrowed into one lane on it's tightest angle "inside line" and apparently it's reduced accidents, the true story is the £2000 a pop stainless bollards are covered in bus company livery, and I watched a BMW drive straight into one the other week, but there's no accidents and other councils have been to visit with the intention of doing it back where they are, absolutely lunatic country we have now, infested with ppl's friends doing jobs that they have no idea how to do, and smiling at all those they've caused hardship to, if I worked in a bank and had the details of all the MP's account's I'd fraud the lot of them, then knock their door and say ..... how does it feel now someone has thieved off you heh, doesn't feel good does it, we are sadly run by the Osterich brigade now ... ohh here comes a question ... head straight in the sand.