Another Nail In Our Coffin ? Electric Cars To Be Allowed In Bus Lanes.

Letter to Editor : Private Hire Vehicles Licensed Without Hire And Reward Insurance.

Under the 1998 Private Hire Act, all PH drivers should have the appropriate hire and reward insurance before their vehicle is passed by TfL inspectors and the PH prebooked sticker is issued.

This TfL rule relates to the Road Traffic Act 1988 which states quite clearly use of the vehicle for hire or reward.

So one would assume that all of the 93k PH drivers presented their vehicles to the TfL inspectors with the correct documentation including V5 log books, current MOT not more than 21 days old and the appropriate hire and reward insurance to comply with the regulation before the vehicle is inspected and subsequently passed as fit for purpose.

I contacted TfL’s PH inspection centre today and asked what type of insurance should I provide when presenting my PH vehicle for inspection. The response shocked me, they said “we would require a current 3rd party or a full comprehensive social, domestic and pleasure insurance policy”. I asked if they would want to see my hire and reward insurance documentation? Their reply “we never ask to see hire and reward insurance as it is of no interest to us”.

So we have 95k private hire drivers having their vehicles passed by TfL with total disregard to their own rules in the PH Act and the Road Traffic Act.

What puzzles me is how or who checks to see if PH drivers have the additional hire and reward insurance? So the police cannot check through ANPR if the driver has the correct insurance in place because ANPR does not include hire and reward.

 

What measures do TfL have of checking that the drivers’ hire and reward insurance is up to date and valid.

We know the Uboat drivers are paying between £150-250 per week for their vehicle which has social, domestic and pleasure insurance and the leasing of the vehicle is stopped at source by Uber, along with their cut, a hefty 20%. Now, if you were to add on the cost of additional appropriate hire and reward insurance, the driver/slave would have to find between £100-140 per week for this insurance.

 

Now we hear in the media that many of these drivers are encouraged to work 80 hours per week, clock up 100k miles per year, and are earning less than the minimum wage, do the numbers. If they complied with all the regulations they would be losing money. This model is not financially viable unless supported by tax credits. (See Editorial Extra below)

 

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Road Traffic Act 1988

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150 Insurance or security in respect of private use of vehicle to cover use under car-sharing arrangements.

(1)To the extent that a policy or security issued or given for the purposes of this Part of this Act—

(a)restricts the insurance of the persons insured by the policy or the operation of the security (as the case may be) to use of the vehicle for specified purposes (for example, social, domestic and pleasure purposes) of a non-commercial character, or

(b)excludes from that insurance or the operation of the security (as the case may be)—

(i)use of the vehicle for hire or reward, or

(ii)business or commercial use of the vehicle, or

(iii)use of the vehicle for specified purposes of a business or commercial character,

then, for the purposes of that policy or security so far as it relates to such liabilities as are required to be covered by a policy under section 145 of this Act, the use of a vehicle on a journey in the course of which one or more passengers are carried at separate fares shall, if the conditions specified in subsection (2) below are satisfied, be treated as falling within that restriction or as not falling within that exclusion (as the case may be).

(2)The conditions referred to in subsection (1) above are—

(a)the vehicle is not adapted to carry more than eight passengers and is not a motor cycle,

(b)the fare or aggregate of the fares paid in respect of the journey does not exceed the amount of the running costs of the vehicle for the journey (which for the purposes of this paragraph shall be taken to include an appropriate amount in respect of depreciation and general wear), and

(c)the arrangements for the payment of fares by the passenger or passengers carried at separate fares were made before the journey began.

(3)Subsections (1) and (2) above apply however the restrictions or exclusions described in subsection (1) are framed or worded.

(4)In subsections (1) and (2) above “fare” and “separate fares” have the same meaning as in section 1(4) of the M4Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981.

 

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Regards 

Tom Scullion 

Editorial Extra:

It seems that not only are TfL happy to turn a blind eye to Uber drivers not having expensive Hire and Reward insurance, we now find that the Treasury are quite happy to turn a blind eye on Private Hire drivers, subsidising their below living wage, with Taxi credits at public expense. 

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London Taxi Trade Reps In Talks with Euro Taxi Orgs In Paris, Day Before French Taxis Go On Strike.

London Taxi representatives from the UCG, LTDA and LCDC, are currently in Paris to dicuss international action with Europian Taxi orgs, ahead of tomorrow's planned Taxi strike by Parisian Taxi drivers. 

Organisers are predicting massive support from their taxi drivers and they say that tempers may be as frayed as they were during last year's strikes, which saw blockades of roads, fisticuffs with non-strikers and vehicles set on fire.

Trade unions and employers' groups have come together to protest at the spread of companies putting non-professional drivers in touch with customers, claiming that measures already enacted by the government are often flouted or inoperable.

The Constitutional Council have banned UberPop, the US giant's low-cost service, and new measures are planned in future.

But taxi firms say that reservations have fallen 20 per cent and 30 per cent fewer cabs are hailed in the street, although business has also been hit by the drop in tourism after the November Paris attacks.

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NYC's Yellow Cab App, Great Way To Avoid Uber's Surge Pricing

Last weekend, I found myself in a familiar situation: It was after midnight, I was far from my apartment, and I wanted to go home and go to sleep.

I was in an area of Brooklyn where I couldn't just walk outside and hail a cab, so I opened Lyft to try to get a ride home. But demand for cars was off the charts, so "Primetime" pricing was in effect, meaning prices were exorbitantly high.

I opened Uber, and it was surging to nearly twice the normal rate.

I thought I'd have to suck it up and pay a ridiculous amount of money to get home. But a friend I was with suggested I try the app Way2Ride, which I'd never heard of until then.

So I downloaded it, signed up, and got home by paying a normal cab fair. No surge pricing.

And because of Way2Ride, I don't think I'll ever pay for surge pricing again.

After you download the app, you'll have to create an account and enter your payment information.

Way2Ride is basically the traditional taxi industry's answer to Uber and Lyft — it's a way to hail taxis and then pay for the ride through your smartphone. 

There's currently no fee for using the app, so you just pay the cab's metered fair.

For now, it's only available in New York, but the service is coming to major cities in the US early next year. There are 14,000 New York cabs that work with Way2Ride.

The app is made by Verifone, the company that makes the payment technology and video screens you see in many taxis.

The app uses your phone's GPS to find you, but you can also type in your address. There are 23 cabs around me!

Like other ride hailing apps, you can use the app to let the driver know if you forgot something in the car.

The Way2Ride app is by no means as well-designed as Uber or Lyft, and the service isn't as fancy, but it gets the job done!

And if you're looking for a ride home, that's all that's important.

You can download Way2Ride for iOS and Android.

Source TechInsider.io

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Uber scraps flat rate fares to London airports

Uber has announced that it will stop offering flat rates to customers travelling to London airports.

The private hire company previously offered a series of set fares for trips to Heathrow and Gatwick.

Rates to Heathrow started at just £30 for a journey from west London, while passengers could travel to Gatwick from south east London for £50.

In an email to customers Uber said: "Flat rate fares between London airports and central London will no longer apply — instead, fares will be calculated using Uber's time and distance rates — just as they are for normal Uber trips.

"Whether you're heading off on a business trip or coming back from holiday, you can always get a fare estimate in–app to see how much your ride will cost."

The email also warned that airport pick-ups will incur an additional surcharge to cover minimum parking costs.

Several customers took to social media to voice their disappointment at the news.

Jon Tarsey tweeted: "Very disappointed that Uber are moving to calculated airport fares - the flat rates were one less thing to worry about when travelling." 

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AGAIN....WE'VE ALL BEEN STITCHED UP : TfL's Card Payment Recommendations.

On Friday, representatives from the Licensed Taxi trade groups plus carefully selected trade Orgs (UTG) were invited to a meeting with TfL. At the meeting they were told how TfL intended to mandate "Card Payments In Taxis". 

Below are the recommendations.

TfL will implement after they have recieved the rubber stamp from the TfL board on "Demo Day", the 3rd of December.

Although the paper (released on the 21st) carries the headline "this paper will be considered in public", again this statement has been made under TfLs own warped sense of interpretation. The consultation is over, that it.

The LCDC have previously made a statement, via Twitter, that TfL do not negotiate. When these recommendations are approved by the board, and have no doubt they will be,  the system below WILL be implemented.

This paper will be considered in public 

1 Summary

1. 1.1  The purpose of this paper is to update the Committee on mandating card payment acceptance in taxis.

2. 1.2  This matter was discussed at Surface Transport Panel at its meeting on 22 October 2015.

2 Recommendation

2.1 The Committee is asked to note the paper and recommend that the Board agrees in respect of taxis:

(a) the following changes to come into effect on 2 April 2016:

(i) to remove the existing surcharge of up to 10 per cent of the fare payable or £1, whichever is greater, that passengers currently pay when paying by debit or credit card (a card);

(ii) mandate a maximum card payment transaction fee to drivers of 3 per cent of the total sum payable for TfL approved card payment devices. This will be included in the TfL guidelines for electronic payment devices; and

(iii)the minimum taxi fare (flagfall) to be increased by 20 pence from £2.40 to £2.60 per trip to compensate taxi drivers for costs associated with accepting card payments;

(b) the following changes to come into effect on 3 October 2016:

(i) to mandate card acceptance in all taxis and as, a minimum, devices should accept Chip and PIN, contactless and magnetic swipe payments;

(ii) to mandate acceptance of VISA and Mastercard payments as a minimum but drivers may also choose to accept other cards, such as American Express and Diners Club;

(iii)to mandate that card payment devices will be required to be fixed in the passenger compartment of the taxi so passengers stay in control of their card details at all times. [This could be fixed

 equipment or handheld devices affixed to a cradle, approved by TfL to ensure passenger safety. Web payment devices, such as Hailo’s new payment solution are also to be permitted to co-exist alongside fixed equipment so drivers can offer hirers choice of payment methods]; and

(iv)to approve clear signage, visible from outside the vehicle, to make clear that all taxis now accept card payments. [This will be linked with a marketing campaign by TfL to make clear all taxis accept card payments]; and

(c) to investigate the feasibility of the following change coming into effect from April 2018:

(i) to mandate that all card payment devices are linked to the taximeter, noting that the industry needs to work towards standard solutions that integrate card payment devices with the taximeter.

Below is a link to the whole release. 

>CLICK HERE<

Please read and take note that in a number of topics, TfL took more notice of "supposed potential Taxi users", than they did from actual users and licensed Taxi drivers.

It appears as with every TfL consultation we've been involved in, we've been stitched up AGAIN.

Again the second biggest trade org were excluded from the meeting.

And again this whole issue stinks of collusion. 

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A40 Cash Cow Speed Trap Nets £100,000 A Month

The new average speed cameras on the A40, are raking in almost £100,000 per month from drivers on one of the capital’s busiest roads.

The “cheat-proof” traps have been placed at 32 sites on an11-mile stretch of the A40.

At present, they are catching almost 1,000 motorists a month. They've been deemed so successful, there are now plans to widen the scheme, despite angry claims that the cameras are simply “cash cow” for the Treasury. Road usering campaigners say the public were not adequately informed in advance.

The new system was activated at the end of October between the Polish War Memorial and the Westway flyover. The previously fixed speed cameras on seven sites, have now been removed.

By measuring average rates of travel, the new system prevents speeders evading detection by braking as they approach a camera.

'Cheat proof': The traps have been placed at 32 sites on an 11-mile stretch of the A40

A total of 958 offenders were caught in the first month after the devices went live.

Speeders are fined £100 and given at least three penalty points on their licence, depending on how fast they are clocked.

Transport for London said the cameras — which it is extending to the A2, A316 and A406 North Circular Road later this year — would cut deaths and serious injuries.

But it faced accusations of failing to give sufficient warning of the cameras’ presence amid suspicions they are a revenue-raiser for the Treasury, which receives proceeds from fines.

London Assembly member Murad Qureshi,  who raised concerns with Mayor Boris Johnson when the cameras were first proposed, told the Standard: “It does appear to be a cash-cow for the authorities — and done without much public notification.

“It’s not obvious the change has been made at all. I’ve no problem about getting drivers to kill their speed but this has been done behind their backs without telling them what is happening.”

Barrie Segal, who runs the parking tickets website AppealNow.com, said: “I hate speeders and if this scheme reduces road deaths that is very welcome — but if it’s done cynically to raise funds I would be rather concerned.”

A Freedom of Information request by the Evening Standard to the Metropolitan Police revealed that 1,303 “notices of intended prosecution” were issued between October 26 and December 30, including the 958 in November. 

Drivers were clocked at up to 90mph. The A40 has 40mph and 50mph speed limits. The elevated Westway section between North Wharf Road and Bramley Road attracted most fines — 305 over the first two months.

Average-speed cameras were introduced in London on the A13 in 2010 and halved road deaths or serious injuries in the subsequent 18 months.

Average-speed cameras will go live on the North Circular between Hanger Lane and Bounds Green Road and on the A316 between the M3 and Hogarth roundabout in “early summer”, then on the A2 from the Blackwall tunnel  to the Black Prince interchange in “late September”.

Source : Standard news FB.

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