Letter To Editor : Uber Drivers Defecating In Residential Streets Around Heathrow.

I'm from Stanwell and before I start I just want to make it clear,  I have no interest in any war between Taxis and Private Hire.

This is purely about the parking, toileting, littering, abusive and physical intimidation, and so much more that is presently going on in Stanwell.

We the residents know why uber park here we aren't stupid. We also know they have no toilets or any other place to eat and such and we understand they are trying to make a living. However that does not make what they are doing right.

This weekend three news agency's ran story's of uber drivers acts in Stanwell, and yet just this morning I find myself chasing an uber driver from my garden.

Does nobody understand that bad press is a cancer for a company and yet the cancer is being caused by their own drivers.

Record these acts we are told, and what happens, drivers slap the phone out of your hand.

Do you think calling the police helps, the drivers just speed off.

We the residents can't just sit back and allow this to happen to us, my wife and child have had to experience so much and my dog has eaten God knows what. When you have 40 or more uber drivers in one street what does logic tell you is going to happen? 

Not a normal person in the world would say any of the above is right....

Last week an uber guy was defficating in my bush and another driver was going crazy at him. On Friday, I threw a guy from my garden and suddenly I was surrounded by 8 drivers, fortunately for me two passing drivers came and stood up for me with two more residents of course 5 against 8 is not as good as odds as 8 against 1, so the Uber guys backed down and drove off.

These are just a few examples for you, but what will happen if this keeps up? TFL will have to act as a lot of these things are crimes, people will not use uber because of what they read on the Internet and they will wonder what kind of driver they will get, and drivers will be more stressed because of the constant war with residents.

People need to wise up, as to what's going on!

If you need the toilets go to Tesco its 24hours as are three petrol stations within 2 miles not to mention the Mc Donald's restaurant.

Uber have told us they will adjust their app map so no pings will work in Stanwell. God knows why the police and Uber's licensing authority (TfL) are allowing this God only knows.

I think the vast majority of uber drivers just don't care about anything but themselves. The only thing that brings a smile to my face is when I see somebody sat there for three hours before they get a job, I wonder to myself how much money can be made like that if any.....

I reckon my house has dropped 10 grand in price because it's currently being used as a toilet.

Anyway as always, I'll look foreword to another several battles when I get home tonight and my wife can look forward to picking up shit and washing the garden so our child and dog can play in it.

Stanwell resident. 

Editorial Comment:

It must be terrible to have to go through this every day and night. We know the police and TfL are turning a blind eye to what's happening with these parked up Uber cars around Heathrow. 

However, this whole situation is being staged to gain as much bad publicity as possible. As you say, this was all over the media at the weekend and surprisingly, carried by outlets who normally won't have a bad word said about Uber.

It's being stage managed in a bid to embarrass the airport authority to provide Uber with similar facilities to the Taxi trade...feeder park, canteen and toilet amenities.

Going on the way TfL and the Met have shown no desire to go up against this multi-billion dollar company in the past, they are gambling that they will get away with this, coming up against little or no resistance.

To be honest, I don't think you will have to put up with this much longer, as I have recently received an email from a very good source, informing me that Uber are meeting with the airport authority regarding a bookings desk to be set up in Terminal3, along the line of the ones we saw last year at music festivals. A feeder park and facilities will soon follow.

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1OgLInB
via IFTTT

My Taxi Trade Experience.....by Frances Luczyc Wyhowska

It is eighteen months since I took my first tentative steps into the world of the black cab trade:  I made a call to Nick Ferrari on LBC in support of the 2014 taxi demo.  Little did I know what the next year and a half would hold in store for me.

 

During these intervening months I have tried to campaign for the trade in any way that I can, whether that is by writing articles in the trade press, hassling MPs and councils, turning up to demos or handing out leaflets on ranks.  I have observed personally the duplicity of politicians at all levels, the ineptitude of the so-called regulators at TfL and the crass behaviour of the media when it falls prey to the power of cash-rich lobbyists and vested interests.

 

But it is not all doom and gloom.  

I have been astonished by the determination and resilience of the London black cab drivers.  They, after all, are the people who are at the coalface and see day to day exactly what is going on.  They are the people who justifiably guard their Green Badge achievement jealously against the infidels’ attacks.  They are the people who take such care with the disabled, mothers with small children, the military and the elderly.

 

And this is not the half of it.  Drivers have realized through the outstanding example of the Mayfair Mob that they can empower themselves to fight back and keep their position as the world’s gold standard.  They can and do embrace new technology and have adapted it to their world rather than letting the trade be subservient to the technology itself.  New apps, Twitter, smartphones, credit cards:  all these devices can be made to boost, rather than impair, the trade.

 

The other impressive discovery I have made is the extraordinary humanity of the drivers.  I have never before come across so many selflessly generous individuals.  I am proud to have become a Vice-President of the Taxi Charity for Military Veterans, and have seen at first hand the level of giving that epitomizes this trade.  Add to that all the work done through the Poppy Cabs, the Albany Taxi Charity among many others, and the collections for a wide variety of causes that take place on a regular basis at Heathrow.  All this takes place at a time when the trade has suffered some serious financial knocks.  This goes beyond duty – it is something precious and exceptional.

 

I am also very proud to have made some wonderful friends in the last eighteen months.  

Drivers often ask me why I have become involved.  The answer is simple:  it is the drivers themselves that have won my unswerving loyalty.  I truly hope that every one of you will have a better 2016.

Frances Luczyc Wyhowska

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1P7rlq1
via IFTTT

TPH Notice 02/16 - Lumiere London 2016.

                    Lumiere London 2016

The Lumiere London light festival will be taking place between Thursday 14 and Sunday 17 January 2016 this year. The event, which is expected to attract large crowds, will take place around the West End and King’s Cross which will mean some temporary road closures and temporary changes to access taxi ranks.

Road closures

To safely facilitate the event, a number of road closures will be in place to allow set-up and for the duration of the event as follows:

The following roads will be affected between Wednesday 6 January and Wednesday 20 January 2016: 

From Thursday 14 January until Sunday 17 January 2016, the following roads will be closed between 16:30 – 23:30: 

Further road closures during the event may be required and will be kept under review.

During the event access for buses and taxis will be permitted:

• Along Oxford Street from Orchard Street

• Past the southbound closure of Regent Street, at the junction with

• Mortimer Street – after this buses will need to make a right turn into Margaret Street towards Cavendish Square

However, this will be monitored throughout the event and changes maybe made to this access if any issues occur.

Taxi ranks

The following taxi ranks will be available during the event: 

Access to the above taxi ranks will be monitored throughout the event and changes maybe made if issues occur. 

Further Information

Further information about the event is available on TfL's website and on the event organiser’s website.

Helen Chapman 

General Manager

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1ZYrsfw
via IFTTT

RMT Announce Strike Dates Over Tube Cuts And Night Tube

RMT announce new strike dates over tube cuts and Night Tube

RMT confirms programme of action on London Underground over pay, Night Tube and job cuts.

Tube union RMT today confirmed that its executive has agreed to a wide ranging programme of industrial action across London Underground grades in two separate disputes over pay and night tube and the plans to bulldoze through massive cuts to station staffing numbers early next month.

On pay and night tube ALL grades called out follows

• Fleet grades not to book on for any shifts between 18.30 hours 26th January 2016 and 18.29 hours 27th January 2016. All other grades not to book on between 21.00 hours 26th January 2016 and 20.59 hours 27th January 2017
• Fleet grades not to book on for any shifts between 18.30 hours 15th February 2016 and 18.29 hours 16th February 2016. All other grades not to book on between 21.00 hours 15th February 2016 and 20.59 hours 16th February 2017
• Fleet grades not to book on for any shifts between 18.30 hours 17th February 2016 and 18.29 hours 18th February 2016. All other grades not to book on between 21.00 hours 17th February 2016 and 20.59 hours 18th February 2017

Every job matters /Fit for the future station job cuts programme

• All station staff grades to take a week of action from the imposition of the rosters and new operating model on Sunday 7th February through to Saturday 13th February – the nature of that industrial action to be confirmed in due course.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:

“RMT members are furious at the bodged introduction of the Mayor’s Night Tube plans and the fact that they have been tied in with a pay deal that has left our members dangling on a string and out of pocket since April last year. RMT supports the principle of a properly worked out Night Tube service introduced through agreement with the unions but the abject failure to work through the detail has led to a comprehensive breakdown in the negotiations and has forced us to name a programme of further industrial action. This whole situation could have been avoided if London Underground, under direction from the Mayor, had dealt with the Night Tube professionally from the off instead of resorting to ultimatums and imposition.

“RMT has fought for more jobs on the Underground to cope with the added pressures of Night Tube but those jobs must be within the framework of the existing tube operations and must offer career opportunities to the Underground’s existing staff, including existing drivers who may choose to take up the offer of reducing their hours.

“On the station staffing crisis it is absolutely crazy to be bulldozing through and imposing new rosters linked to the axing of over 800 safety-critical jobs from early next month when there is a heightened security status and when services are dangerously overcrowded across the network.  The current plans also rip up previous agreements to protect staff caught in the middle of this reorganisation. The station staff are the eyes and ears of the Underground and hacking back their numbers represents a lethal gamble with safety that RMT will continue to fight against.

“RMT remains available for talks in both disputes.”

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1SdEZyt
via IFTTT

Bus mounts pavement in Camden and crashes into supermarket

A shopkeeper told how his sister was “seconds” away from suffering serious injuries after a bus crashed into a supermarket in north London.

Police and paramedics were called to Pratt Street in Camden at 10.47am on Saturday after a Transport for London 274 bus mounted the pavement before hitting Ozdiller Food Centre.

Owner Huseyil Ozdil said his 32-year-old sister Feleknaz was helping a customer at the time of the crash and has been left traumatised.

He told the Standard his sister could have been seriously hurt after the bus hit the store near the counter where she usually sits.

But Ms Ozdil was helping a customer elsewhere in the store at the time.

He said: “Thankfully we are ok. There are no injuries but my sister has been badly shaken up by what has happened.

“The bus collided with the front of the shop where the counter is and that is normally where she sits.

“If she wasn’t helping a customer at the time then it’s possible she would have been seriously injured. Ten seconds could have been the difference.

“Everyone is trying to calm her down but she might need to go to hospital.”

“I wasn’t here at the time but this wasn’t just a bump. Luckily no pedestrians were outside on the pavement at the time.”

Police confirmed no injuries have been reported and road closures are in place following the collision.

Tony Akers, TfL’s Head of Bus Operations, said: “At 11am today (9 January), a route 274 single deck bus, operated by Metroline, was involved in a collision with a shop front along Pratt Street NW1.

“No one was seriously injured in the incident. Police attended the scene. There will be a full investigation into the incident.”

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1UFm2Cw
via IFTTT

Minister hints at further block to taxi access law, 20 years after MPs approved it

A government minister has told peers that it is “not necessary” for all taxis to be accessible to wheelchair-users.

Transport minister Andrew Jones said that such a policy would mean having to replace thousands of taxis across the country.

Click link to watch debate: >But members of the Equality Act 2010 and disability committee< told the minister that powers to force all taxis to be wheelchair-accessible had been passed by parliament 20 years ago through the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, but had not been implemented by successive governments.

The Labour peer Lord Foster asked what evidence the government had for its claim that introducing these measures would be a “burden” on the industry, and how it balanced this against the burden caused to disabled people by an inaccessible taxi service.

Jones said that about 56 per cent of taxis in England and Wales were wheelchair-accessible, and so he was “not sure the problem actually exists”.

He said: “I don’t think we need to have every single taxi to be wheelchair-accessible. We need to have a significant number that are wheelchair-accessible so that people who require them can access them.”

He said the burden on the industry would be the cost of replacing the 35,500 non-wheelchair-accessible taxis, when a new London taxi cost about £40,000.

But he pointed to another measure from the DDA 1995, which would force taxi-drivers to provide assistance to disabled people, and had also not been implemented.

He said he was “supportive” of this principle and that his department was hoping to make a decision on the measure “very shortly”.

But Lord Foster questioned his claim that the lack of accessible taxis was not a problem.

He said: “I am very surprised to hear that you don’t think the problem exists, because all the evidence we have had in front of our committee suggests that this is one of the biggest problems that disabled people have.”

And Baroness Deech, who chairs the committee, said: “It has been the will of parliament for 20 years that taxis be accessible. How many more decades is this going to take?”

When told that 100 per cent of London taxis were accessible, Jones admitted this meant that the proportion of accessible taxis was far lower in some parts of the country than 56 per cent, and in rural areas was just 13 per cent.

Baroness Deech said: “Unless you bring those regulations into force on a rolling basis, taxi-drivers will never get the cars that are big enough to take wheelchairs. The will of parliament should be carried out.”

Baroness Brinton, the disabled president of the Liberal Democrats, said a survey in Watford had shown that under 20 per cent of its taxis were accessible, and a very small percentage of those were wheelchair-accessible, with an even smaller percentage accessible to electric wheelchairs.

She asked if the government could make it compulsory for any wheelchair-accessible taxi to use one ramp, rather than two, as only those with one ramp were accessible to users of electric wheelchairs.

She said: “Many taxi-drivers hide behind the accessibility label and can’t deliver. It’s very easy to sort out, given the price of ramps these days.”

Jones said that was a “very fair point” and that he was “extremely happy to take that forward” with his department.

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1PVEjMK
via IFTTT

Boris Johnson: 'officials are drawing up plans to pedestrianise Oxford Street'

London transport bosses are drawing up proposals to ban traffic from Oxford Street.

Clearing vehicles off the street is among the options on the table to “improve the environment for pedestrians”, the Mayor of London has confirmed.

It comes four months ahead of the mayoral election in which all the major candidates have backed the idea of pedestrianising the shopping hub, which records some of the worst pollution levels in the country. 

Boris Johnson has previously told business owners he would consider banning buses and cars from parts of Oxford Street but ruled out full pedestrianisation.

But now Mr Johnson has written to Lib Dem London Assembly Member Stephen Knight confirming Transport for London and Westminster City Council were “examining a range of options for improving the environment for pedestrians on Oxford Street”.

These options include “reducing traffic, widening footways, reducing and relocating bus stops and pedestrianisation.”

But any move to ban cars, buses and taxis from Oxford Street would need to go through public consultation first, the Mayor added.

Mr Knight said: “If Oxford Street and the West End is to remain a world class retail centre if must become a much safer and pleasant place to visit, and that must mean moving towards permanent pedestrianisation.”

Labour mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan and Tory Zac Goldsmith have both backed the pedestrianisation of the street, as have Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dems) and Sian Berry (Green).

Mr Knight lodged a petition with City Hall in November calling for traffic to be removed from Oxford Street and replace public transport with a “zero emission shuttle bus”.

The West End Partnership Board will consider the proposals this year, Mr Johnson added.

from Taxi Leaks http://ift.tt/1MYpdQ3
via IFTTT