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There has been
much discussion of late as to what is OUR work? Well OUR work is the right to accept an instant hire by a prospective passenger, the private (radio) hire via a telephone booking, the right to ply for hire on railway property and all by virtue of the fact that we are qualified to so do. That’s why it is OUR work. The Private Hire fraternity do not have this right, other than to accept PRE-BOOKED trips. THEY CANNOT PLY FOR HIRE ON RANKS OR STANDS, that is the law! They are not qualified or licensed or permitted, therefore they are prohibited from doing OUR work. We have earned that right by passing exams. Yes, there is much of The Knowledge that is pointless and outdated in this 21st Century, but it works to enable us - we the qualified ones - to provide a Taxi service second to none throughout the world. In which other capital city can a person ask to be taken to an address across town and still know they have a more than 90% chance that the |
Last month,
Laurence Kelvin (W88) asked a taxi
driver’s age-old question in Call Sign. This month, David Kupler
(Y74) adds to the discussion of… JUST WHAT IS "OUR" WORK???" |
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 driver will know the destination without the need to consult a map? Not one! GPS, SatNav and other similar systems might aid the unqualified drivers to provide the level of service that their prices reflect, but the difference between them and us in terms of professionalism, can be likened to the difference between The Metropolitan Police and Securicor. Wearing a cheap suit, shirt and tie does not make a Taxi driver out of an unemployed bricklayer, just as one cannot make a silk purse from a pig’s ear. |
How a Licensed
Taxi driver presents him / herself to the travelling public is
no reflection on their ability to do the job. Wearing a cheap
suit to disguise the evident fact that in general, PHV drivers
are less than capable of performing their jobs without those
aforementioned aides, is in fact a clever cover-up to fool the
public into believing that there is an element of respectability
in driving the vehicle. We know differently, n’est pas? So to surmise as to what is OUR work? The answer is ALL of it, except when somebody decides to 'phone a PHV organisation because there are no available licensed Taxis in that area. There is no need for PHVs to be ranking in the West End…anywhere! David Kupler (Y74) |
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A Pain in the Butt? |
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"Yes, it’s true, I’ve a pain in the butt," DaC driver Ivan
Sobell (P69) told Call Sign "and I’ve had it
for several weeks now without any sign of it abating, so I’m
pretty sick and tired of it!" Ivan’s problem is Sciatica, which is when the spinal discs that form your backbone press on the Sciatic nerve, trapping it and which can also seriously reduce the blood flow to your legs, giving you a pins and needles sensation. "Don’t worry," said Ivan laughing as Call Sign’s hack took a hasty step backwards, "it’s not catching! My doctor has prescribed pain-killers and they seem to have had some effect, but it’s a hell of a pain in the lumbar region that can shoot down into your legs and foot," he explained with a demonstration of leg bending while explaining that it didn’t affect his movements. "Look," he said proudly, "I can run and twist and stretch, but it’s just a constant pain in the butt!" As Ivan spoke, he had his arms flailing around in the air to help prove his point. "I think I started it off by bending awkwardly while lifting out the ramp from the back of |
the cab, because I noticed the pain come on a day or so
afterwards," he commented. ©Call Sign Magazine MM9 |
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Isn’t life a bitch…? |
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Dial-a-Cab driver Barry Spear (Y16) seems to have caught
the Call Sign photography bug! In the past, Barry
has photographed an out-of-town taxi using the M4 bus and taxi
lane. After we asked the Public Carriage Office about it, we
discovered for the first time that ANY taxi that was licensed
anywhere in the UK could use any bus/taxi lane. We too can use
out-of-town bus/taxi lanes – providing, of course, we are in our
taxis at the time. Next he sent us a photo of a Parisian taxi apparently plying its trade in London during the last RMT tube strike. We don’t think Monsieur le Cab was actually allowed to do that. However, as RMT members were probably taking their turn at operating railway station shared ride trips while their fellow members were on strike, we assume that everyone was looking the other way on that day! Now it’s the turn of a strange looking Vito. Barry told Call Sign: "Seeing this vehicle caused me great confusion. It is the same vehicle that is used as a licensed taxi, whilst also used by private hire. This certainly wasn’t a taxi, but it surely cannot be licensed as a private |
 hire vehicle because of the adverts, yet if it is carrying passengers, then it should be." Barry ended with this profound statement: "I noticed that it didn’t use the Bishopsgate bus lane, so it’s definitely not a bus!" On that note, we allowed Barry to get on with his newly found hobby… |
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