There have been rumours that the Board has changed the booking-in rules for E14C, this is totally untrue. When we first took on the Morgan Stanley account, the rules for ranking were set out. The first two ranks outside the MS building and Cabot Hall were made physical ranks for Dial-a-Cab. You are only allowed to book onto E14C if you are physically on one of these 2 ranks and if there are any other DaC taxis in front of you, they should be allowed to book in before you attempt to do so.
These rules have never been changed, but we have had drivers deciding on their own to extend the allowed book-in places. We have previously turned a blind eye as it was not causing a problem and taxis were on the other ranks directly behind those that we had allocated as official.
It was only after we returned from the Millennium festive period and the work was rather slack that drivers decided they wanted to revert back to the original rules. Why was this? Because by that time drivers had extended the booking in zone to as far away as Billingsgate and City Airport!
Gentlemen, the rules are there; if you decide to bend them and another driver puts you on complaint, I can only interpret the rules as they are written.
The only time I would allow rules to be broken is late at night when there may be a number of drunks who could possibly cause trouble, waiting for cabs at the rank. In that situation I would say keep your light off and as you get to within 100 yards of the rank, if there are no taxis in front of you, then book into E14C. If there is work in E14C you will be offered a job immediately, then you can drive straight past the rank up to the DaC marshal.
The marshal will be able to see from his screen the time that you accepted the journey to the time that you arrived at his point, it should only be a matter of 45 seconds to a minute.
I am saying that we would turn a blind eye, that is because we consider our driver's safety as paramount.
Well Done, Girls
On Saturday February 12th at the Tower Hotel, two of the young
ladies from the Call Centre held the dinner-dance that they had organised.
The reason for the function was to raise money for the charity
Dial-a-Dream, a charity that realises the dreams of children who are
terminally ill or suffering with a life-threatening disease.
Many of the staff and drivers of Dial-a-Cab attended and were
treated to an evening of music and fun including special guest star Paul
Tully (Y40) singing and playing his guitar. Will this man's talents never
end! He was also the driver who won the poetry competition!
To Samantha Livermore and Lucy Ziepe, a big Thank You for
helping to raise what they hope will be £1000 to help these sick children
say "LET ME LIVE ANOTHER DAY..."
Do We Care?
I hope we do care, as it is our clients who put food on our
tables
and the money in our pockets. Just when we believe this is the case, we
get problems that crop up that should never happen and which cost the
Society money.
Case one was a driver (and I will not embarrass him or the client by
giving names) who took a delivery on a very cold night down to the richer
side of Surrey. Firstly, he could not find the address but finally got
there with the help of the local taxi driver and a publican. On arrival at
the house, he drove up the driveway and deposited the parcel in the porch
area as instructed.
Now the ground was a beautiful shade of white in the path of
the headlights, so he decided to continue driving around to where he
thought the exit gate was located (wrong guess!). On reaching that point,
he found there was no exit so he decided to back up and turn around (wrong
again!). On completing this manoeuvre, he felt his steering getting
heavier. Was it due to the cold? Another wrong guess! He then decided to
drive back-up to the entrance, but the wheels were slipping so he pushed
his foot on the accelerator harder (wrong again!).
He now found that his back wheels had sunk and he needed a
tow, so called the local taxi who came and tried to pull him out. Finding
it rather difficult, he decided to rev the engine a little harder (whoops,
wrong thing to do). With the car going back and forwards, they eventually
got out.
The next morning our client awoke, opened his curtains and
looked out to his perfectly designed front lawn only to find that a
Dial-a-Cab driver had turned it into a scene from War Games!
Case two involved the driver who picked up a delivery, took
it to the destination and handed it over to the recipient. Some time later
the client phoned to say that not all of the delivery had been deposited.
A hasty call was made to the driver who assured us that it had all been
delivered.
As the delivery was of a very important nature and all parts had to
be delivered, this caused the sender - who had left London and was now in
Europe - to rush to the airport and book a flight back. On his arrival
back in London, he was rushing back to his office when our driver decided
to look again in his taxi and, yes, you've guessed it, there was the other
part of the delivery on the floor!
These tales may sound humorous, but we aim to project
ourselves as the professionals, but after reading these tales, would you
think we were?
Thankfully, these are only two jobs out of the 8000 or so
jobs a day we cover, but even so, two more jobs that we needed to be
covered perfectly.
Taxi Insurance
A subscriber phoned me recently to alert drivers of a clause in
his
In the small print, it allows him to have another driver take his cab out on his insurance, unless the driver is under 25 or over 65. If the driver is not in the stated age group, then he or she has to be a named driver, this then allows the insurance company to ask further searching questions. Then they may impose restrictions and possibly ask for an extra premium. This could then inhibit any driver from taking on a safe, steady, reliable journeyman if he is over 65.
Talk of London
A great number of our drivers (over 200) have attended the free
nights given by Danny the Promotions Manager at the Talk of London. The
reason for these nights out were for drivers to see at first hand the
value for money that clients get when visiting this establishment.
He also pays the drivers £7.50 per person for every client
introduced for a night out, but how many of our drivers have assisted him?
Not one! Some of our drivers, though, have gone there with a party and
paid for the privilege.
As this is the only cabaret/restaurant in the West End, why
are we not supporting it? I hope it is not giving the impression we are
all take and no give.
On Friday February 11th, Danny put on his latest production
with soul singer Vic Bynoe and Sarah Lee Hunting plus 6 young leggy
dancers. They take you through an excellent 90-minute cabaret with music
covering a time span from 1930 to the present day. If you add this to the
three-course meal and dancing following the cabaret, it gives you a great
night out for £37.50.
If you would like me to try and get you more free or reduced
price tickets from any of contacts that I have built up, you must help me
by supporting these venues.
Liveried Taxis
We have now passed the cut-off date of 31st December 1999 for
drivers who still have liveried taxis - a proposition which was passed at
the1997 AGM, yet we still have drivers who think that they can abuse the
rule by waiting until the time I catch them before stripping the offending
adverts off.
We have already sent out three complaint forms to drivers who
have ignored this rule and as they have no defence, it is more than
certain that they are looking to be expelled. Don't put yourself in that
position.
A Correction for Mark White
I do not usually retaliate if a person makes a mistake -
deliberately or not - but as Mark White hates to be misquoted, I must
point out to him that in his last letter in Call Sign, he seems to want to
mislead subscribers by misquoting what I had written in the July 1999 Call
Sign.
I did not mention minicab at all in the article and I would
never advocate using minicabs to do any form of taxi work.
Unless Mark wanted to try and blacken my character with untruths?
Tom Whitbread
