Touting at Nobu 2
John Fisher is
no relation of mine, but he still
manages to get three mentions in this
month’s Call Sign – if you include this
one! In this issue, John tells DaC
drivers how he has gone from 19 years of
having a clean driving licence to
getting 12 points in under 12 months and
the possibility of a driving ban with
the loss of his only income.
However, so far as this part of the Editorial is concerned, John
has also written to Mailshot complaining
about the touts who seem to have taken
over the new Nobu restaurant in Berkeley
Street, Mayfair. It was probably the
moment they told him that he was causing
congestion by waiting for his passenger
outside the main entrance when touts
were surrounding the place, that he
snapped and wrote to Call Sign about the
Nobu situation. We in turn wrote to the
PCO and the Cab Enforcement Section at
TOCU explaining what had happened to
John. You can read their responses in
the Mailshot pages, but since the letter
went in, an officer from the CES has
called to let us know that two arrests
have now been made and a further 20 are
expected to follow. So well done John.
With all the problems he has surrounding
his driving licence, he was still
concerned about the trade…
Cab signage debate: Are
trade views splitting?
It does seem that the John Griffin
article in last month’s Call Sign has
opened up the signage debate and
possibly caused a split in trade views.
DaC Chairman Brian Rice has long held
the view that there must be no signage
whatsoever on Private Hire vehicles
other than the permitted PCO/TfL licence
disks on the front and back. RTG
Chairman Geoffrey Riesel agrees with
Brian on that, as does the LTDA’s Bob
Oddy, but I have recently heard of
others within the trade who are saying
that perhaps allowing the message that
out-of-town minicabs have had for many
years, could be useful. That message
usually reads: This is a private hire
vehicle and cannot accept street hirings.
Cab Chat Editor, Bernie May even goes so
far as to suggest that a further message
be written on the back for the benefit
of those videoing bus lanes: This is
a PH vehicle and cannot use bus lanes.
My view is that once we allow PH to plaster their vehicles, it
will have the reverse effect and the
Mayor will allow them to use bus lanes
because they will become so easily
identifiable as against ordinary cars
and at some time in the future, if he
doesn’t use their identification to
allow them to ply for hire, then he will
give them Central London ranks from
where passengers will be able to go and
hire them. And for those who |
have forgotten, during a radio phone-in
with Mayor Livingstone last year, he
told a London Private Hire driver that
his intention was to eventually allow PH
cars to use bus lanes.
Premier Group MD Martin Cox, formerly the right-hand man of
Geoffrey Riesel at Radio Taxis prior to
demutualisation, claims that having a
company name and phone number on a PH
car would make no difference to the
touting situation. Well that may be true
to some extent with the more reputable
section of the PH trade – of whom his
Premier Group certainly are - but it
would just as certainly benefit those
other newly-licensed drivers whose only
aim is to get however much passenger
work they can regardless of how they get
it.
Look around you at some of the drivers and cars that sport the PCO
/ TfL disk. Do they all encourage you to
believe that they would never do
anything dishonest? Martin Cox has too
much ‘taxi’ inside him to ever allow any
of his drivers to break any hiring
regulations, but he can’t watch everyone
all of the time.
While I can see some advantages in allowing PH to identify
themselves, there are still too many
disadvantages. I still say no…
Ubiee Powerpill
Of all the
tests that Call Sign has undertaken
using our drivers as ‘guinea pigs’, none
have come close to raising the interest
thresholds of Call Sign readers as that
involving the Ubiee Powerpill. Not every
driver had the same results regarding
fuel consumption, although all achieved
some reduction in the amount of fuel
they used – some as much as 10%.
Not all achieved an increase in performance, while others said it
was like driving a new taxi!
But what all agreed upon was that their emissions readings were
reduced dramatically, so much so that
all would probably have passed were Euro
4 to come in tomorrow! One even achieved
a reading of 0.9 – giving him a better
reading than a brand new undriven taxi!
Call Sign has established that the
Powerpill conditions the fuel
rather than work on the engine.
So it cannot harm the vehicle.
So the question must now be: Will the PCO/TfL allow taxi drivers to
use the Ubiee Powerpill to reduce
emissions, rather than
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have to spend huge
amounts on catalytic converters? How
could drivers assure the PCO that they
wouldn’t just use the pill prior to
their overhaul? We will ask the PCO and
hope to get an answer soon…
Birthday cards
Sincere thanks
to those who remembered my birthday with
a card. I think I have now taken on
board the jokes regarding my bus
"freedom" pass and not to go out in the
winter without my long johns!
I should also warn Call Sign’s resident poet, Kupkake, that he has
competition out there! We had young
Arnie Gladstone with his four-liner to
me: Roses are red, violets are blue,
there must be someone older than you!
TAXI columnist and good friend, Al
Fresco, closely rivalled that effort by
penning the following into possible
immortality: They seek him here, they
seek him there, from Brunswick House to
Finsbury Square!
Now everyone knows my personal habits! But my thanks go to
everyone who sent me the cards that
almost filled the lounge to the point
when we could only just get a view of
the TV…!
Congratulations to LTI,
but…?
At a time when
the number of Licensed Taxi drivers is
falling together with the number of
Knowledge students, LTI’s news of record
TXII sales for September is the one spot
of good news.
The LTDA may consider that its campaign of "no quicky KoL" is
succeeding, but it is causing
irreparable harm to this trade. Without
a consistent flow of those on the
Knowledge, the future of the trade will
be in jeopardy.
Everyone is entitled to their view, and Steve McNamara in TAXI
holds the view that we should worry
about now and not the future. I can’t go
along with that and I am concerned that
we are being swamped irreversibly by
minicabs. If the work wasn’t there, how
could all these PH companies keep going?
Now, with so many of them licensed, more and more prospective
passengers are considering them as a
credible alternative to us. The smaller
our numbers become, the quicker the
inevitable day will arrive that PH take
over from us.
So well done to LTI. If the PCO / TfL decide to hasten the demise
of the trade by changing the conditions
of Fitness to allow anyone to put their
so-called taxis onto the London market,
then at least LTI will have taken the
Licensed Taxi trade out with a bang…
Alan Fisher
callsignmag@aol.com |
