Too much health and
safety?
When I was younger, health and safety
referred to exactly that – whether you
felt well and to look where you are
going. Nowdays with the politically
correct woosey society we live in,
Health and Safety reglations mean
that you can’t do anything without first
taking the precaution of making sure it
doesn’t, at the very least, cause you
any inconvenience!
You can now take advice on workplace health and safety issues and
how to manage your sickness absence or
returning to work issues. Many
companies, in return for Government
funding, make a living out of offering
advice to moaners who call their
helplines and assist the caller in
understand their health and safety
responsibilities and to query whether
their place of work is indeed safe or
whether they have or have not been sick
for long enough.
Don’t get me wrong; no one should have to work in surroundings that
are not safe or have to work if they are
feeling too unwell to do so, but how far
should we take H&S regulations?
Take those who work at repairing our roads or perhaps who have to
cut the grass along duel carriageways. I
was recently caught in a several
mile-long tailback on a duel carriageway
where there was no usable escape exit.
Why? Because the complete stretch had
one complete lane shut leaving just a
single lane for huge amounts of
peak-hour cars, lorries and buses.
Don’t get me wrong on this either – if the grass was never cut
along the centre of the road, it could
turn into a forest! No, my problem is
that health and safety dicatates that
even though the centre of the road was
more than wide enough for the
grass-cutters, they had to be ultra-safe
and close a lane off as well.
The same applies to someone actually digging or repainting part of
a road. How often have you been stuck in
a jam because a lane has been closed and
at the end of the closure is a man with
his van just sticking some paint on the
carriageway fence? Go to any part of
Europe and you’ll see the equivalent man
with a few cones around him to give him
protection. They don’t require the
closure of 800 metres of road in front
of them and another 800metres behind.
Thanks to Health and Safety, we have become a bunch of
wooseys…Out
and about with the PCO?
I’d like
someone from the Public Carriage Office
to explain something to the readers of
Call Sign. When the
6-month safety checks (or should that be
mini-overhauls) were brought in, we were
told that it would allow Carriage
Officers to concentrate on other things
instead of spending so many man-hours on
the highways, byways (and railway
stations) checking for licensed taxis
that had faults. They would still be
going out, but be far less noticeable.
Well, judging by the number of |
sightings of late, it
seems to me
that not only are they going out
more often, but also using more men -
could they be those who no longer have
to carry out overhaul checks?
Whatever the answer, I think drivers can be forgiven for believing
that this trade has once again been
shafted by those on high. The six-month
safety check was totally unnecessary and
was probably part of the agreement when
SGS started taking taxis – after all,
there aren’t enough taxis in London to
make the SGS deal attractive, but put
each cab through twice and bingo!
Suddenly it becomes a lucrative deal.
As I’ve said before, I don’t believe our trade organisations did
anywhere near enough to fight off the
half-yearly examinations, which are
going to cost this trade dearly. Every
single driver in our industry should
belong to a trade organisation –
preferably the same one – and only then
will we have enough sway to at least
have a chance of getting a point across.
Who actually listens to us now? No one
is the answer. The PCO do what they
like, TfL do what they like and the
Mayor does what he likes – all at the
expense of the licensed taxi industry.
Why? Because we are no more than a tiny
irrelevance to them. They know that
because the majority of
drivers belong to nothing, they will
accept whatever is thrown at them just
to keep the peace. Since TfL came into
our lives, this trade has slowly been
decimated and anyone who doesn’t believe
that minicabs will eventually be allowed
to ply for hire is living in cloud
cuckoo land. Their aim is to equalise
both public and private hire. By then it
will be too late
Using the
underground…
If you read
further on in this issue, you’ll see
that in a survey by regular world
travellers London has won Best City
Transport for the second year
running. It also came top for being most
expensive. I had an example of that
recently.
I haven’t used the tube for years, but accept it can be a good –
even if very uncomfortable and expensive
– way to cross London, but was totally
staggered when 4-passengers from
Barnsley on a weekend trip to London,
caught me at the entrance / exit to
Piccadilly Circus station early on a
Saturday evening whilst an account
passenger was getting out. They asked to
go to Victoria. I didn’t like to say no
as they looked so sad, even though I
would normally have turned my light off,
read the paper and waited for another
account trip!
It should have been a just another normal job until they said that
they had intended using the tube for the
journey, but when |
told at the ticket office
that the fare was £4 each - £16 for four
people to Victoria – they walked out and
decided to use a cab. Even on rate 2,
the fare only went £8.20. No wonder some
tourists are scared to use cabs when
they see what a rip-off underground
prices are…
Trotting to see the swine!
I couldn’t
help but smile when picking up an
account ride in Bishopsgate supposedly
going to E3. It was a Friday evening and
each of the 3 young ladies looked like a
beautiful – if rather undressed –
princess!
When I asked where to, one of them read from something that looked
to be a small piece of toilet paper!
Struggling to read it, she eventually
admitted that she wasn’t sure but knew
that it was a wine bar in Bow. She
thought it was called the Right Swine!
I started making my way and asked a dispatcher if they could help
because the girls hadn’t a clue. I had
just passed Mile End station when the
message appeared on my terminal. No
trace of Right Swine Bar in Bow. Could
be Wright’s Wine Bar in Bow Lane?
Of course it was exactly that and we trotted back to the City.
"Sorry girls," I said. "Don’t worry," said the girl with the piece
of toilet paper, "the company are
paying!" I wonder whose fault it would
have been had it been a street pick-up!
Looking after the
Society…?
Going into
Waterloo, my account passenger asked
what the significance of the blown-up
photo stuck on the wall of a car
sporting a stuck-on DaC logo was? I
hadn’t see it before, although several
drivers had phoned to tell me it was
there. I didn’t want to tell him that we
have a few drivers that would be
delighted to see the Society fail
miserably just so they could say "I told
you so." I told him that I hadn’t a
clue.
Several weeks earlier, at least one of our drivers sent a phone
photo of a DaC terminal message to TAXI
for publication, even though it had been
explained that the message was totally
unauthorised, incorrect and should never
have been put out. The chances are that
it was the same person who also put
another one in the same station some
years back that Brian Rice was earning
(from memory) £120,000 per annum –
around £2400 each week! At the time I
believe he was on around £27 per hour
and would have had to have completed a
mere 90 hours a week (not including
travelling in from his Hampshire home
each day). So it poses the question: Why
do these bill posters want to be on
Dial-a-Cab?
To be honest, the stupidity of the Waterloo notices made me smile,
but it does make you wonder about the
mentality of those who would be happy to
bring down an organisation of which they
are an equal shareholder…
Alan Fisher
callsignmag@aol.com |
