MOBILE PHONES - A NEW PROCEDURAL RULE?

In the May issue of Call Sign, I made a special point about the use of mobile phones being used whilst drivers were on a data despatched journey. Well drivers have either failed to read the article or chosen to ignore it. That is why I have had another batch of complaints from clients regarding their disgust at our drivers using mobile phones whilst transporting them across London.
   Maybe I need to highlight the different points to make them stick in your minds before our client data base diminishes so low that we are all scratching around the streets for cash work.
1. It is the height of bad manners when a client is paying for a licensed taxi, for the driver to be conducting personal business over his mobile.
2. The chances of a driver having an accident are far higher if his concentration is not fully on his driving.
   There are now more drivers on complaint for using their mobile phones whilst a client is in the back. I cannot relate the disgust that some drivers are showing towards our clients as those drivers are now subject to a complaints hearing.
   You must remember that our prestigious clients use licensed taxis to carry their most important employees; this is because they value these staff as being vital to their company operations. These clients think we are the professionals, yet these mobile phone-using idiot drivers show us to be on a par to minicab drivers.

New Procedural Rule
The Board need to protect our work for the majority of our well mannered, smartly dressed drivers with their clean taxis, so it has been decided that as not all drivers seem capable of acting as sensible self-employed businessmen and women, we will have to put in another procedural rule to protect both our clients and the work that they give us. We hold their allegiance to us in the highest esteem.
   The new rule will be worded something like: Drivers must not use a mobile phone whilst having a data despatch client in his / her taxi.
I have been accosted by the Editor of this magazine who says that drivers needs to have their phone to receive possible urgent or life threatening messages. I know if I was travelling down the motorway at 70mph, I would not like to take any message that would shock me and maybe cause an accident. You can always let the call go into your answer phone and collect the call as soon as you drop off. When we were on voice dispatch, no dispatcher would pass any message that would scare a driver until he had pulled into the kerb and stopped.
   If this article sounds rather harsh that's because it is meant to be. It will answer some of the drivers who have been bombarding Board Members with the question where has the work gone. It hasn't all gone, but because much of the street work has gone, more drivers are fighting for credit work. That is the reason for this article - to make sure we retain the work that we have at present.
   So please ladies and gentlemen, do not use your mobile phones whilst you have a client in the back of your taxi. Otherwise the Board will be forced to pursue the new rule with drivers facing complaints.

Tom Whitbread
DaC Complaints Dept 

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