21 Years on and 1984 Truly Arrives!
According to the Corporation of London, the City is the world’s leading international financial and business centre. It made a net contribution to the UK's current account of over £13bn, most of which was generated within the square mile. In addition, over $500bn of foreign exchange turns over each day in London.
   The Corporation also say:
“Our services sustain the City’s 24 hour operational needs and our strategic economic development positions the City for the future. We will take every opportunity to ensure the City continues to thrive as the world’s leading international finance centre and Europe’s financial capital.”
   So Call Sign’s question is: How do these money makers manage to get around because however much the Corporation of London help the City, they sure as hell don’t do much for the Licensed taxi trade!
   We all know about the Bishopsgate bus lane and how eager the Corp’s photography department is to take the picture of any taxi that strays over the line, or the catastrophe that is London Bridge northbound where taxis have to queue up for so long to cross the bridge, that it’s usually quicker for passengers to walk across - unless you’re big, empty and red!
   We all know about the Fleet Street bus lane and where someone representing the Corp has placed bollards just before a bus stop so that if a bus pulls up to let off it’s passenger, then no one can overtake it. You’ve probably heard about me getting a CoL parking ticket while helping a one-legged passenger into the LINK store on London Wall after explaining to a warden standing nearby that I would be 30 seconds. Well, the Corporation have even outdone themselves on that story now by sending PCNs to drivers for stopping to set their passengers down or for picking them up!   These PCNs are generated via the CoL’s video cameras, which are placed everywhere presumably to counter terrorism, but which they have now discovered can make them PCN money at the same time.
   Call Sign has had many calls from drivers who’ve received PCNs after stopping briefly to set down or pick up. Old Bailey and South Place seem to be the most popular places to get your photo taken, along with the West Smithfield bog. At least the latter is (sort of) a matter of choice, but to receive a ticket for picking up or setting down?
   Call Sign asked Warren Smith – who runs what used to be called the DaC Clamp Club and who decides if drivers should be reimbursed after paying a PCN – how many drivers have claimed?  He stunned us by saying that it could be around 500 in just 12 months and at £50 a time, that means the Society has spent (aprox) £25,000 on PCNs! We’re not talking of a period of years here; this is over a period of months.
   Currently, Board member Mike Son is in discussions with the Corporation over their
ticketing policy towards licensed taxi drivers and in

Grant Davis and Concierge
DaC’s budding actor Grant Davis (L39) is staunchly anti-Concierge and according to several drivers, was involved in handing around the petition that eventually found its way to the FSA. That, of course, does not imply that Grant knew its final destination, but it does show his feelings about Dial-a-Cab’s distribution engine and it is his right to hold whatever views he wishes.
   Grant once told me that he often regrets writing in the way that he does. What he meant was that he always tried to put his points to Call Sign across in a calm manner, but that they always somehow came out as though he was a real Mr Angry! We both laughed because you are what you are and I accepted that if he sounded nasty, it didn’t necessarily reflect the way he wanted to be perceived.
   But that is a long way from trying to deliberately deceive readers – something he has done in the latest issue of The Badge (June 2005). The article, headed Value for Money, tells of the time when DaC announced the arrival of Concierge and he says that “a lot of people were upset.” You couldn’t argue with that. Many drivers were upset because someone had put the word around that we were going to give our work to minicabs. It soon became apparent that the truth was entirely different and the majority of those who attended the AGM came away realising that Concierge was of great benefit to DaC drivers, having gained us a huge chunk of work from the client who was – and still is - using the system.
   Grant’s argument is based around percentages and shows how easy it is to paint a false picture when using figures. He says, using quotes from Brian

Rice’s Call Sign articles:
   “In January, and no doubt with the prospect of a hostile
AGM in mind, he (Brian Rice) declared that ‘Concierge’ had increased our work by 57%.  That sounded pretty impressive. By April however, he wasn’t so keen on quoting
percentages but did boast that ‘Concierge’ had now generated an extra 40,000 jobs of which DaC drivers got 11,000.”
   What the Chairman actually said was that the company using Concierge had increased THEIR work to US to 57% from the previous 10% they had been giving us. It didn’t apply to all accounts because only one company was using it.
   Grant then comes to his conclusion by saying:
   “Now think about that for a moment. You don’t need the back of the envelope to work out that 11,000 of 40,000 is about a quarter  and 25% is a long way short of 57%. So
what has happened to the missing 32% of the jobs?  Looks like they must have gone to non-DaC drivers.”
   In actual fact, the 40,000 trips Grant refers included all the car trips as well and of those we did an EXTRA 11,000. Had he written to Call Sign with the same article, I could have asked the Chairman for a reply, but doing it this way has given non-DaC drivers the impression that everything Grant wrote is true, whereas his figures are absolute rubbish.
   For our driver’s information, I asked to see the stats re Concierge between 1 October and 1 June. They show that DaC drivers have benefited by doing 25,497 trips via Concierge. Judging by previous records, we could normally have expected from the client involved during a similar period to have done around 4,800 trips. Hardly a failure?
   Perhaps Grant doesn’t like the fact that cars are involved (he even got that number wrong claiming five companies when it is actually four). Ok Grant, I’m not mad on the idea myself, but look at the broader picture. They are there and the trips that Concierge gives them are the trips that they would have had anyway. It’s just that the company ordering the cabs phone us instead of the car company direct. If it wasn’t working, why are we getting so much extra work? Could it be, Grant, that this nasty streak you can’t understand really is a nasty streak?
   Below Grant’s article is a cartoon strip called Taxi Tales. Rather apt I thought, because if you remember scripts the way you recalled Brian’s reports, then Eastenders might have gone a different way! I look forward to your next article in The Badge apologising for getting it wrong!

Alan Fisher
callsignmag@aol.com