I owe my soul to the company store...by I'm Spartacus

So goes the old song, the Paul Robeson version being the finest and most moving.

So vehicle manufacturers are teaming up with PH and Taxi apps.
all talking about driverless cars so let's deal with that first then last.

Will there be a robot to load wheelchairs, luggage or deal with those who's language skills aren't great or not exactly sure of their destination?

We can imagine what will happen to those who have had one or twenty too many Cream Sodas and who might leave a parting gift for the next punter.

Back to the present, let's see all this for what it is, nothing more than a set of finance deals to tie in drivers to a app and a manufacturer over the longest possible time, they might as well install handcuffs to fit the steering wheel and a Benzedrine drip!

Some are already offering 'Payday' loan style arrangements so the suckers who work for those outfits are effectively driving today for yesterday's money, so we have now got financial manacles on the pedals as well.

This isn't the future it's slavery and that's nothing new.

Back to driverless cars, why bother at all? 

Those beloved tax avoiding multinationals can get mugs to drive for less than the minimum wage subsidised by another set of mugs called the taxpayer who fund the tax credit and housing benefit system.

I could write to my MP but their very busy filling in expense claims for 40p, I could call Uber and complain but the landline isn't there. I could email Leon Daniels but he's busy corresponding with Jo.

AlI I do know is ' St Peter don't you call me cos' I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store'.

I'm Spartacus.

P.S 'The EU protects worker rights' .... really????

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Uber Do Not Actually Accept Bookings, But The Drivers Do... An Open Letter To Chief Licensing Officer (Head of Licensing) Sheffield From Lee Ward.

   

  

To Stephen Lonnia, Chief Licensing Officer (Head of Licensing) Sheffield

I bring to your attention several drivers that had their badges revoked and are currently going through the court process of illegally plying for hire, and no doubt afterwards for then driving without insurance. 

I am sure that you are aware that these drivers had their licenses revoked and or suspended with immediate effect due to them being classed as a danger to the public by the Sheffield Licensing Committee and therefore the licenses were revoked/suspended under section 61(2)(a) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976

I am now going to ask why, if this is the case of the drivers, have Uber not also been dealt with in the same manner for the exact same reasons?

Uber are a peer to peer company (P2P), they openly admit that they are not a transport provider. Section 3 of the Users Terms and Conditions states;

Uber UK accepts PHV Bookings acting as disclosed agent for the Transportation Provider (as principal). Such acceptance by Uber UK as agent for the Transportation Provider gives rise to a contract for the provision to you of transportation services between you and the Transportation Provider (the "Transportation Contract"). For the avoidance of doubt: Uber UK does not itself provide transportation services, and is not a Transportation Provider. Uber UK acts as intermediary between you and the Transportation Provider. You acknowledge and agree that the provision to you of transportation services by the Transportation Provider is pursuant to the Transportation Contract and that Uber UK accepts your booking as agent for the Transportation Provider, but is not a party to that contract.

For the sake of clarity, your PHV Booking will be accepted and allocated to a Transportation Provider by Uber UK as holder of the relevant operator's licence. You should be aware that the Transportation Provider to which your PHV Booking is allocated and who provides the Transportation Services may be licensed in an area other than where the booking is requested or the Transportation Services are provided.

And as I am sure you are aware that the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 Section 56(1) states that;

For the purposes of this Part of this Act every contract for the hire of a private hire vehicle licensed under this Part of this Act shall be deemed to be made with the operator who accepted the booking for that vehicle whether or not he himself provided that vehicle.

After reading the summary of Judge Sean F Dunphy in the Ontario Court of State Justice in 2015 which can be located here http://ift.tt/1TI3suO

It was very clear that a P2P service such as Uber do not actually accept the booking, but the driver does. This has been proven quite easily by myself and a friend who is an Uber driver. We drove to the outskirts of Sheffield to ensure that no other Uber driver was close by and I requested a trip from the Uber App, which I could not make because no Uber cars were available and therefore Uber could not and did not accept my booking. 

I then asked my friend to log into his Uber drivers App and make himself available for work, which he did. Sure enough I could now link myself to a driver on the Uber circuit, so I therefore requested a journey, but, I asked my friend to not accept the booking. Because he did not accept the booking the Uber App then told me to try again later, which is quite obvious that the booking was never accepted in the first place by Uber even though a driver and vehicle was in the area. 

Again, this simply proves that what Judge Dunphy identified that it is the driver who accepts the booking and not Uber or any of its servers, companies registered under its umbrella or an employee of Uber that accepts the booking as an operator of private hire vehicles is by law required to do. The driver quite clearly accepts the booking and Uber then link the P2P request of the customer with the driver. Even if the driver accepts the booking and then chooses to decline the booking, the customer is  then still without a booking being accepted because they have to try and get another driver to accept the booking by repeating the process.

This then means that every driver who accepts a booking by a user of the Uber App is actually plying for hire and as such is doing nothing legally different than the drivers who had their licenses suspended/revoked back in late 2015. 

This then therefore leads me to request that Sheffield City Council revoke the Private Hire Operators license issued to Uber on the grounds that every journey that the public think is fully legal and therefore insured is in fact no different than plying for hire which will as you are aware, cancel the Private Hire insurance of the driver who collects them and takes them to the destination unknowingly breaking the law.

Another scenario that would support this action is that if a friend of mine has an operators license and puts his phone on divert to my mobile so that I can take calls and then cover the work I would also, as a driver, be accepting the work and not him himself who is a licensed operator.

I must advise you and the Sheffield City Council that ALPHA see this matter of such a high importance to the safety of the public travelling in Sheffield that if no action is taken by yourselves by the close of business on Friday the 28th of May 2016 then we will have no option other than to take this information both locally and nationally to the the media and other bodies that will find this information relevant.

Please respond to this email as soon as possible and not like previous emails that I have sent to yourself. 

Yours

Lee Ward

ALPHA Chairman

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Unless The Taxi Trade Ditches The Engagement Policy And Unites Fully, It Hasn't Got A Hope Of Surviving...by Jim Thomas

Our trade is like this baby seal, floating on thin ice, in an ocean full of Orcas, closing in for the kill.

Any defence mechanism we've had, has been stripped away by the bureaucracy and red tape of the engagement policy. Half our trade orgs have and still are capitulating to the whims and wants of TfL, while excluding all other representative groups.

They call themselves the United Trade Group, but they are far from united. They meet regularly with TfL but there are no minutes of the meetings, because they are frightened of rocking the boat, incase they themselves become excluded.

In this present climate, with the trade on the floor and the large lady warming her vocal cords, you would have thought the trade would be falling over itself to become more united than ever and yet the reverse is true.

Ask any of the three constituent members of the UTG if they would support a push to remove the engagement policy and you get the same tired answer, that is not their call, it's TfL.  

And yet the LTDA have emailed all their members explaining why the engagement policy should stay in place. 

'For many years TfL has, understandably (in Steve McNamara's opinion), required trade groups to be able to justify that they have a membership of at least 5% of drivers, in order to be fully recognised and engage with TfL at a senior and mayoral level -a condition that only the LTDA meet- The theory (who's theory Steve, yours and Bob's?)being that without a minimum membership criteria (about 1200 drivers out of the 25,000 total), or a background of long established trade representation -both the RMT taxi branch and UNited Cabbies Group have been established over seven years and the Suburban coalition for much longer - it would be impossible to limit meeting attendances to a practicable and workable level.' 

Is Steve McNamara assuming that two members from six orgs/unions couldn't carry out a practicable and workable meeting?

I myself have been in TfL RedRout Forum meetings at TfL with over 24 delegates from 8-9 different groups and enjoyed extremely practicable and workable meetings. Come on Steve surely you can do better than that old chestnut!

"The Engagement Policy" has fragmented the trade, currently only the LTDA, LCDC and Unite are officially recognised. Steve McNamara holds this up as a major achievement?

But then there's the insurmountable hurdle of the one little word.....Kudos. 

If it's not their own idea, they won't be backing it!

If their not their glory, then they will steal it!

So why are they doing this: 

• Why can't they see beyond the insults of the past?

• Why can't they draw a line in the sand and step over it, leaving what's passed in the past?

• Why can't they step forward for the benifit of the whole trade?

Until the orgs get their act together, forget the insults, throw out the engagement policy and truly unite....we don't stand a chance....just like this baby seal, eventually the ice will melt. 

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The History Of The Black Cab

Source: Car Keys

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Sean Paul Day, An Interview With Francis Wyhowska

  LONDON TAXI RADIO INTERVIEWS EPISODE 51

In this episode Sean Paul Day interviews friend of the Taxi trade, Francis Wyhowska.

 

Francis is a big supporter of the London taxi Trade and regularly attends demos and hits and has just returned from the London Taxi Drivers Benevolent Associations trip to Ypres

Email: admin@londontaxiradio.co.uk
Tel: 020 8144 8294
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London Taxi Radio is an New Digital Media initiative incorporating an online radio station, podcasts, Youtube channel, photographs and video footage.

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Toyota Hails Ride With Uber

Carmakers Toyota and Volkswagen have struck separate partnerships with rideshare companies Uber and Gett. 

The Japanese company will invest an unspecified amount in Uber and offer new leasing options for its drivers. 

Toyota said the two companies would share also knowledge and speed up their research efforts in areas such as driverless cars. 

Toyota said that as patterns of car usage continued to change, it wanted the collaboration to be about more than simply providing vehicles but to also collaborate on technology such as in-car apps.

Gett chief executive Shahar Waiser also stressed that the partnership with VW would involve technology and innovation. 

VW said: "The ride-hailing market represents the greatest market potential in on-demand mobility, while creating the technological platform for developing tomorrow's mobility business models."

Uber's deal with Toyota follows Apple's $1bn investment in Chinese ride-hailing service Didi Chuxing. That has been regarded in some quarters as a political move by the US technology giant to bolster its presence in the crucial Chinese market. 

Apple is also believed to be developing a car.

In March, General Motors invested $500m in US Uber rival Lyft to help develop an on-demand network of self-driving cars. 

The partnership will also create a joint car rental service for drivers to increase the number of vehicles available through Lyft

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Uber accuse Taxis Of Overcharging Wheelchair Customers And Announce Their LandLine Exemption By TfL.

Uber, lying to the public.

In their announcement earlier this month uber state quite falsely, that two thirds of Wheelchair users have been unfairly over charged by Taxis and private hire. 

As we know, in respect of Taxis, wheelchair users pay the same fare as everyone else. But then let's not forget the Ubergate tapes that have shown this company is being coached by TfL Managing Director Leon (turn on off insurance, Yes they have a land line) Daniels.

This below has been taken from Uber's website.

Existing accessible private hire vehicles often require booking hours – and sometimes days – in advance and Scope’s 2015 Extra Cost Commission reported research from the Department of Transport showing that almost two thirds of wheelchair users have been unfairly overcharged in a taxi or private hire vehicle.

Notice again, the inference that Uber do not do pre bookings. (The subject of the first Ubergate email scandal)

A document has recently appeared on Twitter, showing that TfL have given Uber an exemption from the requirement of having a landline. 

Uber say they have been granted an exemption as having a landline for bookings would prejudice the interest of a third party.????

It appears that this company can do what ever they like and that the PHV act of 1998 doesn't apply to them as in TfL's eyes, they are in a category all on their own. 

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