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Brian Rice lashes out At TfL! |
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A furious Brian Rice has told Call Sign that he was
"absolutely disgusted" with Murad Qureshi,
Chair of the Environment Committee at
the London Assembley. The Dial-a-Cab Chairman – who met Mr
Qureshi when criticising private hire’s desire for signage – let
his feelings be known after reading an interview in The
London Paper – a freebie newspaper distributed around town.Brian told us: "I have just read the article in The London Paper and to say I am disgusted with Murad Qureshi is an understatement! If he is a Chairman at The London Assembly - then he shouldn't be. To make a statement like this is misleading and totally unprofessional. "Does he not realise that London taxi drivers drive the vehicles they are forced to drive by part of his very own authority, Transport for London? It isn’t as though we have a choice. I think Mr Qureshi should be given some lessons on how London actually works, because he obviously doesn't know - but then I am not surprised!" The article was headed: Black cabs ‘cost too much CO2’ and below an often-used picture of a row of taxi for hire lights, a sub-heading stated: DIRTY AIR – Londoners should avoid black cabs… According to the paper, Mr Qureshi also added that Londoners should move away from black cabs as "…they produced almost as much carbon dioxide as the capital’s 40,000 private hire vehicles," and he |
ended by saying: "For the
conscientious London who needs to use a taxi service, a licensed
private hire minicab is the proper option." The following day, the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdock, announced The London Paper would close at the end of September due to a lack of advertising. Backing the DaC Chairman, former Tory Minister for Transport in London, Steve Norris told Call Sign: "Not for the first time, Murad Qureshi has missed the point. It is hardly news that some private cars now emit substantially less than 120 grams per kilometre of CO2. It is equally true that the vast majority of London’s private hire fleet, as elsewhere in the country, emit rather more. The London taxi, as Brian Rice has pointed out, is a specialised vehicle, which exists because it conforms to the conditions of fitness laid down by the PCO. But the issue is not whether a London taxi in its current form emits more or less CO2 than a Toyota Prius. The issue is whether it is sensible to seek to persuade people to use private hire rather than a licensed taxi on the basis of this one statistic and where Qureshi is so wrong is that - as any sane person would immediately understand - the issue is actually which form of personalised public transport is best suited to the journey you need to make. Personally, I use hundreds of taxi journeys every year alongside my Oyster card for the bus and tube. Other friends of mine who live in outer London, use more private hire because that suits their personal circumstances. I’m forced to reflect on two things. The first is that if this is the best Mr Qureshi can do, he should think of another career because as a politician, he’s as much use as a chocolate fireguard. The second is that August is called the silly season for good reason. This was a silly statement, which is frankly not worth taking seriously." |
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