Few people take pleasure
in saying I told you so - myself included -
and on reading a recent article confirming
the emergence of Blueback, an all singing
all dancing million pound backed private
hire company, my mind is drawn back 5 years
or so and before, to a period when I carped
on and on about the need to change or else
the money men would take over our business.
My only surprise is its slowness in coming…
As is
usual when I voice opinions which affect the
sensitivity of those who believe in doing
nothing to improve the trade’s image,
preferring instead in keeping the status quo
including the freedom to dress, act and
speak like jerks, I am lambasted in the
letters page of this magazine, receive
abusive phone calls and offensive e-mails
accusing me of talking out of my backside.
Occasionally I wish I was, but in this
particular instance I wasn’t, because I
was talking from personal experience of
events taking place at that time. The two
examples in question happened within months
of each other and whilst I was initially
flattered I also felt a certain alarm at the
future of our trade.
I was
sitting at my desk early one morning when I
received a telephone call from a total
stranger requesting I join him and a
colleague for lunch. No further details were
forthcoming other than a vehicle would
arrive at midday to collect me. At 12:30 I
was informed I had a visitor, when I arrived
down in our reception there was an
immaculately dressed chauffeur waiting to
escort me to a plush new Rolls Royce with
instructions to take me to a restaurant in
Mayfair. As I settled into the comfortable
white leather seating, I couldn’t help but
think of all the crazy rumours circulating
around our Society had I been spotted! On
arrival at the restaurant, I was greeted by
a two serious looking men who after brief
introductions insisted I first enjoy a
sumptuous lunch and excellent wine before
embarking on the reasons for the meeting,
something I did without any further
prompting. Small talk accompanied an
excellent meal and I awaited with interest
to hear what they had to say, together I
might add with a slight feeling of amusement
at the thought that they had perhaps picked
up and entertained the wrong guy!
They
spoke without interruption for around half
an hour during which time they told me
everything about myself including my
previous experience at running my own
business, my years in the cab trade and my
role on the Board in sales marketing etc
etc. I was impressed and by now intrigued.
They then explained the purpose of the
meeting. It transpired that they represented
a consortium that had at their disposal in
excess of £30million that they were
considering investing in the cab trade.
Their objective was to purchase 500 new
Mercedes, 500 new Hackney Carriage Taxis (unplated)
and two dozen six-seater vehicles. The
drivers of these vehicles, it was envisaged,
would be smartly dressed green badge holders
and the services offered would be more or
less on a par with what is now being offered
by Blueback. That is choice of booking
methods, SMS or automated phone notification
on arrival, standardised fares facilitated
by mapping technology, reduced waiting times
facilitated by GPS technology, no-hassle
payment systems, corporate and personal
accounts, directions facilitated by GPS
driven satellite navigation systems linked
to the in-car data computer, refrigerators
stocked with cold drinks for passengers,
continually upgraded in-car entertainment
and services, air conditioned cars,
newspapers, mobile phone charges etc, etc.
Their aim, with the assistance of yours
truly, was to target every blue chip company
in Central London plus a 10,000 database of
smaller taxi users, which they assumed
(correctly) that I had at my disposal. Their
offer to me personally included
directorships, equity, salary and bonuses
etc. I’ll not go into detail, except to
say that it was substantially more than the
£11 an hour I was earning as a DaC Board
member. I was, of course, flattered and
extremely confident that I could make the
venture a success.
I
naturally asked for time to make a decision
– two weeks in fact and the reason I asked
for that amount of time was because it was
now two weeks away from our AGM. Needless to
say the contents of that meeting captivated
my mind continuously for several days
afterwards and the irony is no matter how
lucrative the offer was compared to the
pathetic money I was being paid at DaC, plus
the aggravation, animosity, lack of
appreciation, back stabbing and the
politics, I felt a strange unease about a)
defecting from the licensed trade to the
unlicensed b) the probable damage to
a company that I had given blood and sweat
to and c) creating a precedent for
others to follow. I eventually decided to
await the outcome of the elections to the
Board and if I was voted off, to reconsider
the situation again. I was re-elected and
after considerable thought, informed them
that I was not interested.
Three
months or so later I was approached once
again, this time by another consortium with
a similar offer. Again I rejected it.
It isn’t
difficult to understand the attraction to
the moneymen when you consider the yearly
collective turnover of the three main
circuits alone being in the region of approx
£160 million. Circuits which have plodded
on for years in a semi-professional manner,
controlled in the main by drivers who have
absolutely no interest whatsoever in their
trade outside of that little cocoon where
with one hand they turn on the meter, whilst
with the other they collect the fare.
What,
those whose offers I rejected must have
wondered, would the radio taxi trade be
worth if it was run in the manner of the big
conglomerates?
Those
that have been on our circuit as long as I
have, will remember me writing very
contentious articles about the need for our
drivers to be more |
pro-active in the promoting of
their circuit, to show interest, to make a
little effort, to have the occasional shave
and a change of shirt at least once a week!
Is it any wonder I
was so unpopular from those articles I wrote
in Call Sign and why to this day I am still
resented for them? What these people could
never understand, or even tried to understand,
was how hard one has to work to open new
accounts - only to see them lost because of
the stupid behaviour of a few drivers. For
example, how do you think I felt when several
months after having worked like mad to get a
very lucrative new client, I was called to
their office to be told the account was to be
closed because of an embarrassing incident
which had occurred the previous night…
That incident took place
on a dark winter evening when several of the
account’s female staff were working late in
the ground floor office. It was raining very
heavily. The two front double glass doors were
locked for security reasons. Suddenly there
was a loud banging on the door. One of the
women looked through the door at what appeared
to be a tramp dressed in a torn trilby hat,
scarf, an old greasy coat down to his ankles
and shoes with the soles coming adrift. She
waved him away. The man then continued to bang
on the door but this time more violently. The
women, now a little concerned, called a
colleague and together in a loud voice told
him to go away or else they would call the
police, to which the man then got down on his
hands and knees on the soaking wet pavement to
the letter box which was on the bottom part of
the door and screamed through the letter box:
"Open the effin’ door you stupid cow, I’m
from Dial-a-Cab! They hurriedly made out a
note and pushed it out to the driver telling
him that the booking had been cancelled. The
following morning the account was closed. Just
one man and one incident, resulting in one
lost account…
Had this
been an isolated incident I could have
accepted it, but it wasn’t and neither was
it confined to just our circuit, because our
two competitors could tell you equally
harrowing stories.
In all the
years I have been selling our services, I have
never yet fully understood why so many in the
cab trade whinge and moan about unlicensed
minicabs, when their own actions are the very
reasons the minicab trade has been able to
flourish and will continue to do so. Now,
though, with official licensing status and an
even more professional manner.
Several
years ago after suffering yet another
embarrassing weekend at the Taxi Driver of the
Year Show, I voiced my concerns about a future
when minicabs would eventually gain
recognition and envisaged their very first
show as putting ours to shame. I wasn’t
wrong, but did it make any difference? Did the
organisers of our TDYS go and see how it
should be done and perhaps use the experience
to inject some life into our own show? No,
instead they slagged me off for having the
temerity to criticise - which again showed
further examples of this endemic attitude
within the Taxi trade and this dogged
resistance against change. In fact, one only
has to look at the steady decline of the TDYS
to see a mirror image of what is happening to
our trade as a whole and more importantly, the
reasons why.
For heavens
sake, the emergence of how many more companies
such as Blueback must there be before every
owner of a green badge wakes up? How many
thousands of smartly branded private hire cars
swamping the streets of London must there be
before our trade reaches a point of no return?
‘Branded’ they will be, make no mistake
and after branding and the sight of these
vehicles becoming as recognisable as a London
bus, how long will it be before they are
allowed to ply for hire off the street? There
will be no excuse in saying you were unaware
of the dangers, because through Call Sign
you receive more up-to-the-minute information
of what’s going on in the trade than any
other group of cabmen, particularly from the
Chairman, Brian Rice and the meetings he has
with the governing bodies.
The Price of Nice…
I’m not a particular fan of the antics of
the LCDC, but at least their leader Alan
Fleming and his group have balls in showing
the strength of their convictions. It’s just
a pity they cannot be a little more articulate
in front of the media and not dress as though
they were a bunch of hippies. Whether dressing
like someone on the breadline is a ploy to
support their argument when on a
demonstration, I don’t know, but I think the
public or authorities for that matter, are as
naïve as in years gone by when
destitute-looking cloth cap and muffler cabmen
were pushing open topped horse-drawn hackney
carriages.
Being
presentable is not costly; in fact the cost of
clothing is probably the only commodity that
has gone backwards over the years. I can
remember as a young man before I made my own
clothes, paying for a suit on monthly
instalments because the price was equivalent
to several month’s salary. Today you can by
a quality suit from an average days earnings
and as for shirts and trousers, they can be
bought for the cost of a decent meal.
To prove
this point, several weeks ago I was getting
ready for work. I had no meetings arranged so
all I needed to do was dress relatively smart
for the office. On selecting a shirt from my
wardrobe, I noticed a new black one that I
hadn’t seen before, so I thought I’d be a
bit adventurous and wear a black shirt with
a
white tie, a light dog-tooth jacket |
and black trousers. All I
needed was a pair of white shoes and I would
have looked like Marlon Brando in Guys and
Dolls! Anyway, I thought I looked quite smart
and so did several of our staff.
When I got
home that evening, my partner Sue was in
hysterics when she saw me. She said that I
wasn’t supposed to wear that shirt for work,
it was for wearing around the house! She told
me that she’d seen it in Primart for £4 and
thought it worth buying. So there is a prime
example of how cheap it is to dress and why
there is absolutely no excuse to dress like a
schlock when driving a cab…
Tabling the end of an Era
Onto a less controversial note, on arrival at
the office one recent morning I was greeted
with a sight that immediately filled me with a
feeling of sadness and melancholy at thoughts
of times past. Piled high in the hallway
outside of my office, was the sad sight of the
broken remains of our boardroom table; 12’Х
4’ of vintage mahogany destined for the
knackers yard! It was well that I was alone
with my memories, to have the privacy of
shedding a little tear for the loss of
something that I had such fondness for! I
tried hard against all odds to prevent it
going, to be replaced probably by some modern
glass monstrosity, but failed and so as a last
farewell, I couldn’t resist at having one
last look and found myself searching the
surface of its remaining pieces for evidence
of the scars left from my thumping and banging
that I regularly used as my way of getting
over a point at Board meetings. They weren’t
difficult to find of course, the digs,
scratches. splits and splinters, they were all
over the place and in part I suppose, a cause
for its eventual demise. I have not a clue how
old the table was, I imagine if Aubrey Siteman
is reading this little bit of nonsense, he
could enlighten us as, from what I’m told,
it took pride of place in the Board room at
Shirland Road. And talking of Aubrey and this
revered piece of furniture, I’m reminded
also of those past who I shared it with; some
sadly who are no longer with us such as Phil
Messias, Frank Duncan, Colin O’Brien, Marie
White, Johnny Saunders and Harry Kaufman, in
addition to a host of others who I assume are
alive and well such as Aubrey of course. Then
there was Trevor Clarke (Sec) Kenny Burns,
Peter Coare, Alun Roberts, Steve Sanders,
Bobby Coy, Gordon Poluck, David Clegg, Mervyn
Stewart, Paul Thomas and Cecil Selwyn. Now
many of you may mock my expressing such
sentiments about a piece of old furniture, but
in the 50th year of Dial-a-Cab’s
history, these little landmarks are part of
where it all started.
Strange Looks
There have been more than the normal occasions
of late where members of our circuit have been
spotted driving their cabs without door logos.
I myself have encountered quite a number of
instances recently where I’ve seen cabs with
our equipment on-board, but with either no
door logos at all or one missing. Now I am
aware that if a door has been damaged and has
just come out of the repair shop, there is
going to be a period of time before a
replacement logo is fitted. But unfortunately,
if it isn’t done straight away there is a
chance it could be reported by another driver
who thinks the culprit is avoiding paying the
higher rate of subscriptions and the ensuing
result can be an annoying letter from Mr
Whitbread, which many innocent drivers might
find a little displeasing! On occasions when I
have been out in my car and spotted our taxis
without logos, I’ve made every effort to
drive up alongside the offending cab and
through my window, attempt to draw the matter
to the attention of the driver. Unfortunately,
since our AGM’s no longer attracts the vast
numbers of drivers as in days past, it means
that Board members faces are not so familiar -
especially to many of the newer drivers - so I’m
not always recognised. That is especially so
from the driving seat of a car and the
subsequent result is I’m often met with a
rather strange quizzical look, sometimes
followed by unprintable mutterings and
accompanied by hand actions emulating the
rolling of dice!
The
consequences of the above often result in an
extremely irate driver bending the ears of
Nuala or Val in Drivers Services or a Board
member and complaining at having received
their pay sheets with a deduction at the
higher rate of subscription. So please, to
those that genuinely find themselves minus a
door logo for whatever reason, get one fixed
as soon as you can.
So finally
once again, returning to my opening comments,
the fate of the trade and in particular the
future of Dial-a-Cab is solely in your hands.
The Board could spend millions of pounds
promoting our services, we could be on every
billboard in London, on the centre page of
every national newspaper, have regular spots
on TV and get flyers sent out by the boat
load, but it would be an absolute waste of
money if not supported by you, the members. As
individuals with the freedom to do as you
wish, only you can make the individual choice.
Only you can decide to improve the way you
present yourself. Only you can accept there is
a need to change. Only you can put that change
into practice and once done become
recognisable as a team player, a player who is
proud of their profession, proud of Dial-a-Cab
and proud of being part of a collective body
of men determined to achieve the recognition
their trade deserves. All it needs is a little
applied effort. The public are not stupid. All
they want is value for money and to feel their
custom is appreciated. Give them that and the
likes of Blueback and their ilk will struggle
to compete.
Finally and with true sincerity, may I take
this opportunity of wishing all of you and
your families a merry Christmas and a healthy,
prosperous New Year. |
