The London Daily News has supported the black cab fraternity of the capital throughout and has been quick to defend some of the actions of the more militant cab driver organisations, but when a proposal is put on the table to limit the number of hours a driver works, so that both passenger and driver is safe, the response has been one of vitriol and rejection.
It seems that the black cab drivers are hell bent on becoming a militant group of angry men who are not prepared to sit down and actually engage calmly in a debate in London anymore. Callers during the popular late night "Big George show" on BBC London bombarded the switch board with outright contempt to place a cap on the number of hours a driver can work in a day.
So that we are clear illegal mini-cab drivers must be removed from the roads of London, but on the other hand black cab drivers must accept that if one law is passed that affects other "professional drivers" then this must also be applied to the 25,000 drivers with the "Green badge". This does not mean a restriction on men wanting to work, but it should prevent the growing percentage of irresponsible black cabbies that are driving 13-15 hours per day.
What the fractious black cab groups need to do is unite into one movement to analyse the needs of London. We need more night drivers, more flexibility from drivers to agree a blanket ban on drivers refusing fares because "its in the other direction of where I want to go". More black cab stewards need to flood London with satellite offices setup to help the public and tourists obtain a legal black cab.
Only early this morning at Kings Cross one of the staff at the London Daily News was approached by a young lady as to where to find a minicab. It transpired the lady believed that minicabs where cheaper than minicabs, this was false and was later directed to take a black cab ranked outside St Pancras station.
If black cabbies want to become militant then they will ultimately lose the support of London and face becoming a tourist attraction that employs a rump of drivers.
I would like to suggest, that if the government wants to make travel safer by Taxi or mini-cab. It should let the public know the statistics of sexual assaults carried out by the mini-cab fraternity, since it's licensing. I believe that a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check can only delve back into some drivers past history, for as long as they have been in the country!
Pedicabs should also be banned as they are deathtraps & not licensed.
I also believe the same above applies to these!
thomas The taxi
Date Added: Tuesday 18 August, 2009
We are not the same as Lorry divers, or other professional driving groups who have targets and time tables to stick rigorously to.
This mythical driver who regularly works 15 hours a day 7 days a week doesn't exist. Big George's example of a driver being able to work 36 hours non stop, is farcical, like most of his arguments.
As a trade we are unique. For many years cab drivers have split their day up in sections, split shifts, quite common in other proffesions. Although some drivers could possibly be out from home for 15-18 hours, the actual driving time would normal equate to approx 8-9 hours, by the time you factor in tea stops dinner breaks,
Lets not forget, we do not work to a clock. Take my own dinner break, I can be found in the royal oak from 2 am till 4.30 am. Now factor in the hours in a day sat on long ranks at rail termini. 15 minutes here, 45 minutes there. Do that 6 or 7 times in a day and you could spend 3 to 3.5 hours on ranks talking with colleagues. Even without the multiple breaks at tea stalls, we are already down to 9 hours.
What about the driver who does two rides from the airport, 6 hours waiting and 1 hours driving?
Our record over the past fifty years is impeccable. The amount of fatalities in Licensed Taxi Cabs over the past five years you can count on one hand. Better than any other transport operation in the world. Google accidental fatalities on buses and tubes in London, it will astound you.
This is not about safety, this is about putting more taxi's on the road by limiting the hours we can actually be out, to try to swallow up the extra unemployed that we will see after the mess that this government has made of our economy.
Their unjoined up thinking is if they limit the amount of hours a driver can spend out with a cab by one third, they can rush out 33% more drivers, approx 8,000 off the dole queue.
It is also the IRS attempting to put digital taco's in the cab to record mileage and meter readings.
If the powers that be were worried about safety they would banned rickshaw bikes.
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China "resolutely opposes" a planned trip by the Dalai Lama to Taiwan, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Thursday, hours after Taiwan's president announced the visit.
