DIAL-A-CAB COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT

E14C
We still have some confusion with drivers saying they do not know how to book into the E14C, E14S and E140 ranks - or do they mean if they use that excuse, then they can cheat on other subscribers. It really is quite easy to understand. All of the above are sub-zones of E14…
   E14C is an active PHYSICAL RANK between the hours of 0600 and 2100…
   E14S is an active PHYSICAL RANK between the hours of 600 and 2100…
   The ranks on the island become NON-PHYSICAL between the hours of 2100 and 0600 when E140 comes into play. To be booked into that rank, you have to be within the security cordon of the island and not just in the E14 zone.
   At 0200, E140 becomes E14C, but for these four hours it is still NON-PHYSICAL, but again, you must be between the two security cordons.
   The reason for reverting to E14C for those four hours is because that zone has 8 back-up zones attached, whereas E140 just has one.
   Then at 0600 in the morning, you can put onto the rank of your choice and rebook in. By doing this, every subscriber on the rank will be in the correct position.

Heathrow
Once again I will try and clarify the rules when booking into zone WW00. If you are within the airport perimeter roads (these are the ones named North Perimeter Road etc), or in the taxi feeder park, you may book into WW00. These rules were brought in to enable us to get a taxi to the client much quicker than when we just let you book in the feeder park with a group number. If a short ride to Hatton Cross was fired out, it would not suit someone who had done 3 hours in the feeder park, but it would suit a driver who had just dropped at one of the terminals and was heading back to town. Since these rules were implemented, clients have got their taxis much quicker and costs are kept down.
   When we used the feeder park as a booking in point, we lost more clients due to late pickups due mainly to drivers who carried on talking or finishing their food before pulling out of the park.  They then expected the client to pay for the time they had been waiting in the cab park!
   Now if a driver gets a cancellation on a credit ride at Heathrow, he is given the amount shown on the meter. So if you have spent 3 hours in the feeder park, you must think before you accept a credit ride, if it is scrubbed you cannot claim for time you have spent eating, drinking tea or reading the newspaper. The fare to and from the airport is very good; an act of being greedy can drive clients to get an alternative supplier.
   Please let’s not act as the taxi trade did over Welbeck minicabs back in the sixties, believing that we were the only ones the public would want and then just bury our heads in the sand. Remember, when you bury your head in the sand your backside is left sticking up in the air and you know what happens then…!

40 Jobs
Last month we still had many drivers who had not completed the minimum amount of credit rides as stated in the official rulebook. There could be many reasons for this lack of

participation - illness, holidays,
overhauls or just plain: "I couldn’t care less – I’ll pick up off the street!"
   If street work should ever dry up, the first place these idiots who fall into my last category will look, is for account work - the work that the hard-working, honest subscribers of this Society are doing their hardest to retain.
   Over the weeks and months, I think I’ve heard every excuse in the book for not completing the minimum amount of rides. A week in overhaul, a two-week holiday, a week off with a cold or just bad signals are some of the reasons. 
But then subscribers who really want the Society to succeed have had one of the above reasons for not working, but in the following 10 days they have completed the 40 jobs! Some drivers are completing 10 to 12 credit rides in a day; they are not greedy - just hard working.
   As you will see elsewhere in this magazine, at the last 2 complaints meetings the Committees have taken a serious view of this threat to our existing clients. If subscribers over the past 18 months have not completed 40 jobs in the majority of these months, they have been expelled.
   Nearly every one of those subscribers said that because they pay their subs, they are supporting the Society. But that’s not the case. They have over £2000 worth of Dial-a-Cab equipment sitting in their taxi collecting dust, while other drivers are waiting to get onto our circuit and cover work that they know is more lucrative than street work.
   None of the rules explained above are new; I have once again tried to explain the correct procedure. This is because drivers are trying to use ignorance to get off answering complaints.
   When drivers sit on a Complaints committee, they are supplied with a folder containing all the procedure rules, official rulebook as registered with the Friendly Society and photocopies of past Call Sign articles explaining the rules and how you have to abide by them. If a driver fails to read Call Sign magazine, that is down to them but we as a Board of Management send it to their home to save them having to go and collect it. One subscriber actually said to me that as soon as the envelope arrives containing the magazine, he throws it straight into the rubbish bin. Does this show you an insight into this subscriber’s commitment to the Society?

Theatre Tickets
Once again over the past 2 months, I have been lucky to have been able to acquire free tickets to many of the new and some of the long-running shows in London’s west end. I get many drivers call me up and ask after the offer has finished, if I can get them tickets? Usually the answer is no. Once a show gets a foothold, then tickets are hard to come by. Most of the tickets we get are promotional, which means they are nearly always at the beginning of a run. So when you see the offers, get your tickets straight away - do not put it off until a later date.

And a bit of controversy!
The Editor always likes me to
include something controversial
because it generates letters for his mailbag! Well this month it’s Camden Borough Council, the council run by do-gooders - women who run around in Dilly
Dream glasses, hair designed by using a pudding basin, hairy tweedy skirts and open leather sandals with unkempt toe nails! And that’s just the good looking ones! The men have mangy old beards incorporating a few field mice, tweedy jacket, corduroy trousers and brogue shoes.
   These gentle folk have installed these new traffic cameras to catch you doing over 20mph -cameras that even produce a photo of the driver. They say this will do away with speed humps - if you want to believe that. I wonder which of Tony Blair’s friends companies installed the speed humps; you will most probably find them in the
House of Lords with a Knighthood. We all know that these cameras are not to keep down the speed, they are just to generate money for the council to waste on people who should not be in the borough.
   Do you think these cameras are going to stop toe rags that have stolen your pride and joy and are doing handbrake turns up Fleet Road and Downshire Hill with no insurance or tax? If you believe that, come in and join the real world.
   The best way to stop these people is put the Metropolitan Police Traffic Division back on the road in force. Get them to work alongside the council, using their tow-away trucks and holding compounds for a fee. If the traffic division stop a person with no tax, MOT or insurance, then tow them away to a compound until all the documents are correct. If this is not done within 14 days, then scrap the car or bike.
   It could also be used for drivers using a mobile phone, something that seems to be on the increase. Another one of Blair’s, keep-the-people-happy laws that just do not work. If the police catch someone using a mobile phone while driving, then get the police to issue a £100 fixed penalty ticket with an added £25 pound for a council wheel clamp.
   The car will then be clamped until the full price is paid either by credit card or cash; if this is not done within 24 hours then the car is removed to a car pound and incurs storage charges. You will only stop these criminal acts if you hit the drivers were it hurts - take the car away and make them walk.
   They also say by keeping car speeds down, you will stop children getting knocked down.
   Sorry, am I missing something? If a child gets knocked down, where is the parental control? Do not put all the blame onto the driver. When I was a child, if I went too near the road, I got a clip around the ear and I did not do it again.
   And before anyone says that I advocate parents hitting children, I do not unless it is a harmless deterrent . Before any hairy skirted do-gooder starts shouting, I know which is better - a clip around the ear for the child or as when I was an ambulance driver having to tell the parent that their only child was dead, as I was retrieving their mutilated body out from under a vehicle. It might give you something to ponder over.
   To all those drivers who are off with an illness or have been over the past 2 months, I wish you well and hope to see you out working again soon.