Call Sign February 2000

WE WANT CALL SIGN - FROM NEW ZEALAND...!
At the start of the last century, the taxi industry (if it could be called that then) was powered by 746 Watt biological energy units and relied mostly on casual hires initiated on the street. Since then we have enthusiastically adopted new technologies: First came motorcars, then telephones, two way radios, computers and computer despatch, now global positioning and so on. No doubt there is more change on the way and at a faster rate. One thing will never change however. The taxi industry is a 'people business'. Drivers and passengers are confined in a limited space for however long the journey takes and the goodwill and reputation of the taxi company can be ruined or enhanced in the space of a few minutes. And it is not just the reputation of the Company that is at risk, the whole industry suffers when customers feel aggrieved. Similarly, the industry suffers when poor driving causes problems for other road users. The public is anonymous but taxi drivers display their industry badges. It is not taxi driver Fred X who failed to give way but those *&$#@(&%)!!! taxi drivers. No amount of technology can alter this fact. The Third Millennium will bring changes, some beneficial - others maybe not, but none of us should ever forget that it is the customers that enable you to pay the rent, feed the kids and perhaps have a bit left over.
The President, Council and Executive of the New Zealand Taxi Federation wish all drivers at Dial-a-Cab in London, their customers, staff and families well for the year 2000 AD and beyond.
I have recently read your Call Sign magazine site - congratulations! The NZ Taxi Federation will soon have a similar publication on its site at http://www.taxinet.org.nz and it is already worth a visit. I will include your site in our links page if you will do the same for us. I wish everyone in your organisation a great holiday break and a momentous millennium.
George Tyler
Member Benefits Negotiator
N Z Taxi Federation Inc ... via email

Similar greetings to all our friends in New Zealand. A reciprocal agreement is now in operation and you can link to DaC and Call Sign via the New Zealand Taxi Federation site at http://www.taxinet.org.nz ...Ed

AN EXCELLENT JUDGE?
My name is Lincoln Hoad and I'm a taxi driver in Cairns North Old Australia. I would like to invite you to view my newsletter which I started writing twelve months ago and started posting to the web three months ago. After looking at your site and reading your articles, I can see that you would be an excellent judge of my writing skills and your comments would in fact prove invaluable to me. If you could please find the time to view my web page at http://www.ledanet.com/~cabby/ and e-mail me with your comments, it would be greatly appreciated.
I would also like to wish you and all your fellow cabbies over there in the UK a prosperous New Year.
Lincoln Hoad
Cairns, Australia via email

OUR EDITOR THE CROSS-DRESSER!
Have you considered that all those different identities that you assume - you know, the cross-dresser Pamela Whatsitsface, Mr X etc, may not be healthy and that your belief that I'm "driving you nuts" has more to do with schizophrenic paranoia? Maybe it's something to do with thinking that you're the eighth Board member - or is it delusions of grandeur?!! Well, Napoleon, despite the fact that my opinion is different to yours, it doesn't make yours right and I understood that the purpose of Call Sign was as a forum for shareholders in order to communicate with each other. Or are you telling me that the democratic right to freedom of speech doesn't exist in your world? Perhaps I'll just plead the fifth from now on!
Is it not fact that an article 'The Progress of Dial-a-Cab' was used in order to promote the cause of PLC prior to one of the most important votes in the

Society's history, that was written under the assumption that certain recommendations had been complied with when they had not been as was clarified by the Chairman at a later date? Fact or fiction? Forgive me for being suspicious and questioning certain people's motives, but unfortunately it boils down to a question of trust and having seen a small group of shareholders sit on a report that they themselves commissioned, but didn't like, might have something to do with it! Allied to over forty propositions that have been put forward over the same time period, aimed at improving the same group's 'executive lifestyles' with holiday pay and insurance schemes (none of which benefited members), should we not be concerned when the same people wish to take control of the Society. Particularly in the light of Mr Whitbread's comments with regard to replacing licensed taxi drivers with minicab drivers?
I would have welcomed the fact that you chose to 'flick' through the Ascough Report had it not been for the fact that your motive was just a cheap propaganda exercise aimed at trying to belittle my view. The Report deserves better. However, your chosen quote of: "The BoM is currently operating in an unhealthy political climate, founded on the potential ability of a minority of shareholders to revoke sound commercial decisions which are unpalatable in the short term to individual share-holders" is given greater accuracy when you consider that it is in fact a group of shareholders on the Board holding the Society to ransom!!!
As for your question of making new rules to stop Board members occupying full-time positions within the Society, please show me where it says that they should? (However, I accept the challenge - watch this space!).
If you want a prime example of 'jobs for the boys' look no further than Keith Cain's appointment as Call Centre Manager for which he has neither qualifications or experience. However, do you suddenly expect "turkeys to vote for Xmas?" You've more chance of getting a gobble from a Board member...!!!
Mark White (B86)

If I say so myself, Mark, that is a rather clever letter. The problem is that it is also extremely repetitive with most of it having been said at least twice by you on these pages - and some even more. But as I said, I admire your nerve (?) in saying to me: "...despite the fact that my opinion is different to yours, it doesn't make yours right." Why? Because in the January issue I said almost the same thing to you with: "You must understand one thing Mark, there is no law (that I know of) that says everyone must agree with Mark White."
Then in your previous letters, you criticised me for not reading the Ascough

Report so I ploughed through it wasting several hours because as I suspected, having been written in 1992, it reflected that time period. Yet now you still criticise me and call me a cross-dresser! I could easily get offended Mark! Oh, and by the way, I don't write the column by Pamela Whatever, neither have I ever written it but I do become a cross dresser when trying to put socks on while standing up! And no Mark, I have no visions of becoming the eighth Board member (by the way, who is the seventh?). I'm happy doing what I do, thanks, and if I didn't do it, I would just revert to being a driver.
I think that your comment regarding Keith Cain is even below your usual standards of insulting anyone who disagrees with you. How did you gain experience of being a cab driver? How did Brian Rice gain experience of being a Chairman, how did I get experience in editing -- after all, I had never done it before? The important factor is that unlike some of his predecessors, his term has been ultra successful with good surpluses being made. Would you rather he had experience and captained the Call Centre through heavy losses like some earlier incumbents? Or would you like to call back some of those who were involved when

heavy losses were made? And Mark, I have left your last sentence in on the assumption that I misunderstand the meaning and that you aren't saying what some might imagine you are saying...Ed

MARK'S NOT ALWAYS WHITE ON THE NIGHT
As we enter a new year, could you please do me a favour and make a new year's resolution. Could you please stop publishing the demented ramblings of Mark White (B86) who seems to be so obsessed with Roger Ascough that I fear for his sanity. Our company has never been so successful yet still he goes on about a report commissioned when things were very different and surely no longer relevant. If Mr White and the like were to put as much effort into promoting Dial-a-Cab as they do in trying to undermine our achievements, perhaps we would all benefit. And don't forget, this was a man who wanted to sit on the Board.
Happy New Year Mark, but as you seem to be so far behind the rest us, it's still 1994 and only 6 years to go to the Millennium! Oh yes - and give my regards to Mr Ascough...
Paul Jenner (L19) ... via email

AND AGAIN...
I have been a taxi driver for 13 years and joined Dial-a-Cab in the middle of 1998. That move to DaC was the best thing I have ever done in all my years as a taxi driver and I have nothing but praise for all the hard work that our BoM, Call Centre and office staff put in on a daily basis to assist in the smooth running of our circuit. Being an avid reader of Call Sign, I see a lot of good things that other drivers put in your magazine but I am always amazed at the constant running-down of DaC by Mr Mark White who seems to appear in Call Sign more than anyone else. Having myself been unhappy on a previous radio circuit for various reasons, I packed up and left. So my question to Mr White is that if Dial-a-Cab is so bad, why are you still here...?
S.Brown (D67)

CONGRATS FROM OURFOUNDER CHAIRMAN
Many thanks for my usual copy of Call Sign. I must congratulate you on the presentation of your Millennium 'special' issue, it was real history. I was delighted to see the 'flashback' items and every one of them made excellent reading. I was glad and indeed honoured to be part of it. I hope that this year will be a good one for you Alan, for the exciting Call Sign magazine and especially for Dial-a-Cab.
Bonnie Martyn
ODRTS Founder Chairman

Thanks Bonnie and to all those drivers who told me how much they enjoyed the special Millennium issue...Ed

CHRISTMAS BONUS
Question: What did Santa bring you for Christmas?
Answer: Santa didn't bring me a Christmas bonus this year.
Question: Why not?
Answer: I don't know! He must have forgotten all the good boys and girls this year!
Happy New Year!
D.F.Hughes (A73)

If it makes you feel any better, I missed out as well ending two jobs short. However, the coverage over the holiday period as described in Keith Cain's article means that like it or not, the strategy of encouraging low credit-doers to try to cash in and help the coverage must have worked because we seem to have a lot of delighted clients...Ed

MAURICE (MO) MOSS
On the 10th of December, my brother Maurice (Mo) Moss was cremated at the Kensal Green Cemetery in West London. He had lost his life in a diving accident off the Brighton coast last June and his body was recovered near Selsey in November.
On behalf of my family, I would like to thank all his friends and coleagues in the taxi trade for making it such a memorable day. He was a much-loved man and the attendance at his funeral was both outstanding and very moving.
Thank you all...
W.Moss
Beddington, Surrey