Taxi Drivers Get TfL To Admit Uber Are Acting Illegally. Blue Touch Paper Lit, Next Comes The Fireworks.

On Monday, a mixed group of Taxi drivers from Dads Defending Daughters and also trade reps from the LCDC, met at a prearranged location just off the M25. Their mission was to drive into Brighton and make themselves available for job offers from online Taxi apps. 

The main Brighton Taxi association had been informed and agreed to join with the action. This wasn't to be a predatory take on regular Brighton licensed Taxi work, the aim was to show Uber -who have been using London licensed vehicles and London licensed drivers- are working illegally in disregard of the Hackney Carriage acts and the Private Hire act of 1998.

   

The procession of Taxis, paraded outside Brighton and Hove's Town Hall were drivers on London Taxi apps, switched on and made themselves available for hire.

To most drivers amazement, job offers came through... and some were accepted. 

Screen shots were then sent to TfL to seek conformation on whether any laws/regulations was being contravened. 

Then TfL TPH dropped his little bomb shell

Now perhaps TfL TPH could explain why TfL registered Ubers are allowed to wait for App work, in a high street car park in Reigate and Banstead.

 

Extra Comment from Dads Defending Daughters' Lenny Etheridge: 

I believe the UCG's proposed demo is a direct response to Brighton.

All this Human Rights tosh about magazines on show, is deflecting from the most significant move against TfL (and Uber) in five years!

I am of the opinion, most drivers don't understand the significance of Monday's action.

On Monday, the Dads Defending Daughters along with the LCDC, lit the blue touch paper... but the fireworks are only just about to start. 

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U.S. card firm Vantiv clinches $10 billion deal to buy Worldpay

Stop the fake taxis: warning as hundreds sign-up to illegal cab services on Facebook

YOUNGSTERS have been warned not to accept lifts from strangers after it emerged that hundreds of people had signed up an illegal taxi service on a social networking website.

The Daily Echo has been made aware of two Facebook groups offering lifts around Bournemouth and Poole.

The groups, one of which has more than 2,000 members, encourage people to offer lifts and helps those looking for transport get in touch with drivers.

Members are able to post in the group either offering or asking for a lift at certain times. All the details are then finalised through private messages.

Messages insinuate a fee would need to be paid, although there is no mention of money changing hands in either of the groups' descriptions.

Some of the messages include, "doing lifts for £3 to most areas", "anyone needing lifts cheap?!££", "doing lifts all night ££", "lift in 20 minutes from Cameo?" and "bored so doing lifts".

Offering lifts is not a crime in itself, but becomes so when the driver asks for a fee above petrol costs.

Dorset Police and both Bournemouth and Poole councils have been made aware of the groups - but it is up to the local authorities to prosecute should any of the users be found to be operating illegally.

Peter Haikin, head of regulatory services for Bournemouth and Poole councils, said: "Anyone acting as a taxi operator or driving a taxi without a licence is in breach of the law and could face prosecution, with fines of up to £2,500.

"We are aware of both Facebook groups and are investigating to ascertain whether any users are operating illegally.

"If they are, we will take action to prevent further operations, which would include requesting Facebook to have the groups closed down.

"In the interests of safety and security, we would advise people not to use unlicensed taxis.”

Former Borough of Poole licensing committee chair Cllr Judy Butt has expressed her concerns about the groups and has warned that it is not just illegal but that people could be compromising their safety.

Cllr Butt added: "Unlike taxis these drivers are not regulated, not insured and have not been through the strict checks that those who have taxi licences have to go through.

"It remains to be seen what the intention is but there are definitely some concerns.

"I wouldn't want my children getting into a car with strangers that was unlicensed."

A Dorset Police spokesman added: "Our advice would be get a bus or licensed taxi and you’ll get home safely. Trust in what you know, not who you don’t."

Concerns about 'fake taxis' have been highlighted recently since a woman was allegedly sexually assaulted in Southampton after she got into a car believing it was a taxi

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Council Scraps Plan To Force All St Albans Taxis To Become Fully Electric As Drivers Condemn Plan

Proposals to force all taxis registered in St Albans to be fully electric within five years have been scrapped after they were condemned by cab drivers. 

Between March and June this year, St Albans district council (SADC) consulted approximately 1,000 drivers on the plans to write off petrol or diesel cars in licencing regulation. 

Existing taxi drivers would have five years from January 1 2018 to convert to a suitable model - in a voluntary trial conducted by 17 cabbies between March 2015 and October 2016, carbon emissions dropped by 29 tonnes and £17,100 was saved in fuel costs. 

Seventy-five per cent of drivers in the trial said they would use an electric car but all those who participated wanted more charging points - there is only one on Adelaide Street which is dedicated to taxis.

There were 136 responses to the consultation, with about a quarter of comments concerning the price of electric cars and about another quarter on the constraints on battery life. 

Some others noted competition from Uber drivers not constrained by the same rules and on the limited options for electric cars, many of which are potentially not big enough for wheelchairs. 

The consultation concluded that although St Albans residents were in favour of the proposal, taxi drivers were not. 

SADC’s licensing and regulatory committee have now decided not to make the eco-friendly cars compulsory, but to incentivise cabbies to make the switch with a licensing discount for electric cars.

Chair of the committee, Cllr Richard Curthoys, said the idea has not been completely scrapped but he is focussing on installing new charging points before the proposal is revisited: “The main thing is we need to do is get the infrastructure in place [before it is made compulsory], once we have that we have start to look at changing it. 

“Obviously it would be so unfair to say ‘you have got to go electric’, and when taxi drivers ask ‘where are we going to charge?’, to say, ‘it’s not our problem’.

“The taxi drivers saw this as some kind of attack on them and no how many times we said ‘it’s a consultation’, they thought we weren’t listening, but we were listening.”

He described pollution in the city centre as a “problem” that he would like to tackle while in office.

Source : The Herts Advertiser

This was the Twitter pole carried out amongst London Cabbies : 

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Come here, There's More....it gets worse.... By Jim Thomas

Although TfLTPH have still refused to answer my question about which legislated regulation gives their COs the power to remove a news paper from a Taxi...

Even after being asked 35 times (so far but ongoing) ....They couldn't answer quick enough when drivers reported this sign, which has had appeared over the weekend on Marshgate Lane at the Olympic Stadium.

So we complained to TfL. 

This time, they were extremley quick to respond over the signage, (which allegedly gives the game away) at the Olympic Stadium. 

If this is not a TfL sign, then as its giving directions to an Uber rank (only Black Cabs can legally form a rank) then it should be removed as the signage is illegal....unlike the Taxi news paper headline. 

And so, back to that old chestnut :

It was reported earlier on Twitter, TfL compliance officers were taking the numbers of Taxis with the Taxi newspaper on the back window shelf. 

So I sent this complaint to TfL via their Twitter account.

It has been bought to our attention that your compliance officers are taking details of Taxis who have the Taxi news paper in their vehicle.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, your officers need an authorisation document called a RIPA. 

If they don't have one, drivers have the right to take their details and report them to the police under the Act.

We await their reply. In the unlikely event that they do....we will post on Taxi Leaks alongside the breaking news that Hell has frozen over.

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GMB HOLDS BRIGHTON TAXI DEMO TO CALL ON TRANSPARENCY FROM UBER

GMB Union calls on Uber to let the public know how their app stays on the right side of the law – people have a right to know.

GMB, the union for private hire and taxi drivers, working with the London Cab Drivers Club (LCDC) has organised a demonstration today (Monday 7 August) calling on Uber to provide greater transparency.

Around 20 London taxis will descend on Brighton city centre to challenge the workings of the ride-sharing app.

The demonstration will take place at 13:00 at Hove Town Hall, Norton Rd, Hove BN3 3BQ

The workings of Uber have been shrouded in mystery - with the San Francisco-based company refusing to fully reveal how it functions.

At a Trade Forum meeting last week, Mr Fred Jones of Uber would not discuss how the app functions.

Meanwhile reps from Streamline Taxis, City Cabs and Radio Cabs were fully willing to discuss their apps and booking systems.

Uber uses private hire cars (not Hackney Carriages) and such private hire cars are not allowed to be ‘hailed’ in the street. This is what the law states.

The Uber app connects the customer to the driver which is effectively a street hail.

Apps used by other cab companies in the city have do not use ‘direct hailing’ and any customer ordering via those apps have their bookings properly booked into their systems first and correctly recorded on their systems and only then dispatches the job to the nearest appropriate car.

Steve Garelick, GMB Private Hire Drivers' Branch, said:

“Taxis are descending on Brighton to call on Uber to reveal how their app works under the bonnet.

“The company seems to think they can carry on as they wish, without proving that they operate within the boundaries of the law.

“Only Hackney Carriages are allowed to ‘ply for hire’ on the street – but to all intents and purposes that is what the Uber app allows users to do.

“We call on Uber to let the public know how their app stays on the right side of the law – people have a right to know.”

Andrew Peters, Secretary of the GMB Brighton & Hove Taxi Section said:

“We have questioned the council and Uber on how the Uber app works but this remains a mystery and we are looking forward to what the Demo can do in calling to examine exactly how that app works and we welcome the support of the London Metropolitan Taxi Trade”

Grant Davies, London Cab Drivers Club, said:

"The fact that licensing officers are unable to use enforcement causes damage to local trade, as we have seen in London.

"This cannot go unchallenged."

ENDS

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TfL Have Revoked 42 Operator Licenses So Far This Year. Guess Which One Is Not On The List?

TfL have always come under fire over their alleged unsavoury relationship they have with the ride-share app Uber.

This week has seen TfL employees, in an act of censorship, openly removing news papers from a Taxi. The newspaper's headlines and inside story, informing the public of an Uber Driver who was sentenced to 12 years in jail for raping a passenger after cutting away her underwear with a knife. 

The employers said the headline on the front page of Taxi newspaper, was "misleading". 

It has now been alleged that TfL have been purging Uber's competitors at an unprecedented rate (42 since the beginning of 2017). 

Reasons given for the revocations of operators licences in TFL's own words are:

• Company ceased trading.

• Failing a compliance inspection(s)

• Failing to meet the fit and proper Pearson criteria.

With Uber....

• Failing to provide a landline from the time of initial licence request, up till the time TfL changed to regulation to favour Uber.

• Operating knowingly from unlicensed premises in N1, which also had no planning permission from Islington council

• Had drivers operating with no insurance, some with fictitious ( in the words of TFL's Leon Daniels) on-off insurance

• An unprecedented number of road traffic accidents

• An unprecedented number of driver related passenger serious sexual assaults including rapes, which have escalated last year by 50% to one a week

• Fake medical checks, 

...surely it would be fair to say Uber would snugly fit into two of the above categories for the location of operators license. 

We've also heard this week that while TfL have refused to meet with Taxi trade orgs over the last eight months, arrangements were made by TfL management to meet with Uber on a quarterly basis.

This whole situation regarding the unsavoury partnership between TfL needs to be investigated as soon as possible 

WE NEED A PUBLIC INQUIRY AND WE NEED IT NOW.

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