You will read elsewhere in this issue
about the Met Police random security check
on a Dial-a-Cab taxi, which came across
something that caused the Chief Inspector of
Operations, Chris Rose (the operational lead
for the Metropolitan Police Cab enforcement
team) to issue a warning to this Society
about. It involved the possibility of legal
action that could arise out of giving our
drivers advanced warnings of where police
speed-checks are being carried out.
When the taxi was pulled over,
the two officers carrying out the security
check noticed on the driver's terminal a
message stating: "Warning, speed trap
Regents Park." This terminal message
was reported to Chris Rose, who then checked
the files to find out whether indeed their
had been a radar speed gun set up in Regents
Park that day. The answer was yes...
Chief Inspector Rose then wrote
a letter to Tom Whitbread in which he
explained that the use of DaC equipment in
this way could amount to an offence of
'Obstructing the police in the execution of
their duty'.
He went on to add that "...Whilst
I understand you wish to look after your
drivers, I do not consider that a radio
circuit of your standing should condone
speeding vehicles, whether licensed taxis or
not. I would be grateful if you would
examine your operation in this area and
ensure that such messages are carefully
considered before being sent out."
Keith Cain, who is in charge of
the Call Centre, told Call Sign that he has
no choice other than to make sure that no
further messages of this type go out to
drivers.
In the meantime, Tom Whitbread
has invited Chris Rose to tour DaC and to
see our operations at first hand. If
accepted, Call Sign hopes to be there and to
ask CIO Rose exactly why, if the police are
so against giving warnings of this type,
they paint their speed cameras bright
yellow...?
Stevie Boy's Back...?
So Steve Norris is standing once
again as the Conservative Mayoral candidate
for London, selected via a postal ballot no
less - but let's not go into that!
I make no bones about the fact
that I like Steve Norris. My wife and I have
had dinner with him (when he was Transport
Minister for London) and he is a real
charmer. He also has the amazing ability of
remembering everyone he meets and when a
politician who you haven't seen for a few
years greets you unexpectedly and says:
"hello Alan, how are you," it
impresses you!
However, although he
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undoubtedly had the most amazing
knowledge of this trade - probably equalling
Ken's passion for buses - we also remember
the
feelings we used to get when he
seemed to ignore anything we asked for and how
he pushed minicab licensing against the wishes
of the trade at the time. Older drivers
will remember Ken doing something similar in
pushing contra-flow bus lanes to the exclusion
of licensed taxis when leader of the GLC!
But then again, Steve Norris as a
Minister was responsible for the quote:
"So long as I am in power, minicabs will
never be allowed to ply for hire."
It could be an interesting
election...
DaC AGM
Rumpus
Call Sign was mentioned at the DaC
AGM rather more than I'm used to hearing. I
enjoy praise but I can also take criticism.
I'm a believer in the maxim that if you dish
it out, you must be prepared to take it. You
need only look at the Mailshot pages of Call
Sign, which occasionally publishes driver's
letters that would make similar magazine
editors go into labour! I am not afraid of
controversy and few letters received are not
published.
But boy was I slagged off at the
meeting by one of the BoM election candidates.
In fact he used the whole of his election
address to have a go at me, giving his version
of events in our private conversations, much
of which I had never heard before! Parts of
every topic he raised had some truth in, but
then went awry to contain bits that were new
to me. To those who noticed, yes, I
was absolutely fuming inside, eventually
raising a "point of order" disputing
the quotes that allegedly were supposed to
have come from me.
In fairness to the candidate, I
am not going to dispute individual items of
what he and I said in
our conversation, because neither can really
prove what the other said, but I assume that
his
low poll of votes in the hall itself must have
said something.
All I will offer is his statement
concerning the leaflets he handed out to
drivers around the Finsbury Square rank and
other places including outside the meeting
itself. His big bone of contention was that I
would not allow him to give an election
address in Call Sign, as I asked for CV's. Why
I did that was itemised in the last
issue.
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This candidate originally went
to Howard Pears to show him his election
address (before I ever saw it) and Howard told
him that one item in it was illegal under our
constitution. He had no other problem with it.
The candidate took that as an acceptance from
Call Sign, something that it wasn't because as
Howard would tell you, he doesn't edit this
magazine. It was later offered to me with the
offending piece crossed out. I still rejected
it as not being a CV.
So he continued to give out the
leaflets and deliberately left the offending
item in, knowing full well that even if he
were to be elected, it could not be put into
fruition. In my book that comes very close to
deliberately trying to deceive the membership.
So why did he do it?
Well, his answer at the AGM
rostrum was that he deliberately continued to
give out false information "...in order
to get a response from Alan Fisher." No
mention about drivers voting for a system that
the candidate knew he couldn't carry out if
elected!
Well, Michael, here's my
response. You alone have convinced me that I
was right to ask for CV's rather than allow
candidates to say and offer whatever they
liked in the hope that they would become vote
catchers, regardless of whether they could be
carried out following the election. If I am
still editing Call Sign at the next election,
I plan to ask for CV's and put several
questions (all the same) to candidates.
Allowing anyone to make claims that they
cannot hope to achieve serves no purpose to
DaC subscribers who expect and deserve the
truth from Call Sign. I thank you for proving
to me that my final decision - perhaps forced
on me - turned out to be the best way...
Tariff Increase
So the tariff increase revealed
in last month's Call Sign has now been
officially confirmed. Other than the fact
that the clock 'drop' has now gone up to £2
instead of the £2.40, our increase forecast
was spot-on. Not only were we correct, but
in the Chairman's Report, Brian Rice even
forecast that the Evening Standard would
concentrate purely on the flag drop increase
and totally ignore the fact that it works
out at around 2.9% as you can now go much
further for the £2. And guess what, two
weeks later, page 2 of the Evening Standard
saw the headline: Minimum fare for cabs set
to rise by 40%. In a four-column article,
you'd have to read the last three lines to
realise that the increase would only affect
1.9% of taxi users.
I think it's about time we had
fare negotiators who live in the real world
because anyone who thinks that this was a
good time to increase the initial hiring
charge is seriously out of date...
Alan Fisher
Editor
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