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Should Call Sign Have Published THAT Letter (1)...??? |
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This magazine has
never won any awards for tact! If we want to ask a question or
publish a controversial letter, then we generally go at it full tilt
hoping that at the very least it will create a discussion on the
subject. That’s what we did when we published a letter in the last issue from Martin Cox, who although he has a green badge and was on the Board at Radio Taxis, has spent the past years on the private hire side of the fence and in direct competition to the licensed taxi business. He was responding to another controversial article – this one in the previous issue, from Board member Mike Son on how we could win back our work. Following publication, Call Sign’s phone rang consistently for two days with drivers wanting to talk about it. Several emails were received, but only two wanted publication although some wanted to go in the magazine but not give their names. Sadly, Call Sign has a rule that – except in special circumstances – if you don’t want your name published, then we can’t put your letter in. We do not want any possibility of readers believing we have made letters up. We have picked out two letters giving both sides of the argument... |
 From
Mark Blackett (M16)How could Call Sign have the audacity to publish a letter from Mr Cox? The introduction of cars to Radio Taxis was detrimental to the drivers on the circuit at the time and unfortunately, Dial-a-Cab seem to be following that path with Concierge. It does not matter how you try to sell it to the members, Concierge has opened the corporate doorways for private hire companies to compete and take accounts. We should stick to our core business and not give our accounts to, for example, Lewis Day to name but one. You only have to look outside the London Wall account to see how much damage Concierge has done in giving private hire an opening into DB. Mr Cox, (a PH proprietor) is now telling us how to win back work, the work PH companies are trying to take from under us! So, do you really believe Mr Cox is giving us ways to win back work, or a smokescreen for him to take work away from us? Mr Cox stated that he believed in the black cab trade and was trying to help us to win back work, then the question must be asked, as a green badge holder why is he running a private hire company and not working with a Licensed London taxi company to combat private hire? Having had first hand experience of Mr Cox, I would be very wary of his comments. Finally, Alan, I recommend you should think long and hard about publishing any letters from our competitors in the future. From Mark Hinds (C50) February’s Call Sign was monumental to me as for the first time in 9 years of reading various trade related press, I actually found not one, but two articles that were not whinging or moaning, but constructive and enlightening. I feel they can both therefore be used as ways to move this great Society forward. We should thank Martin Cox for his letter regarding the PH view on the ground transportation business (good description), but I found the thought disturbing that some members may complain you deemed fit to even publish this invaluable look at us from the outside and the advice it contained. Well to those members, I say you are dinosaurs refusing to adapt to changing times. The competition has changed, but due to your attitudes we are unable to do so. Subsequently we are becoming extinct - slowly and painfully. The refusal to change is, I have unfortunately found, endemic throughout the trade, not just to DaC. This along with wrongly held beliefs that we are indispensable and that all our demands should be met. Just ask the miners, dockers and print workers how those beliefs worked for these once great institutions. So, if we decide to carry on as we are and ignore lessons of the past, will we also become a trade consigned to nothing more than a GCSE history question? Also, a bigger thank you and hoorah goes to James Griffin (T97) for putting most of my own views in such a well thought out piece (p12 Feb Call Sign). Now for my two pennies worth; I can see a common flaw in all articles relating to PH competition. Why do we keep referring to the work available as ‘OUR WORK’? It’s not, it is work that is out there and available to whoever can provide the service required at a price that is acceptable. So we have to get over this sense of entitlement before we can move on as a business. To all intents and purposes DaC is effectively a PH firm that uses Licensed London Taxis as its vehicles. That is therefore a market we compete within and are currently losing in. I have also noticed a lot of articles referring to when our work returns to ‘NORMAL’. Don’t count on it, whenever a financial period such as we are currently experiencing happens, the previous status quo rarely returns. People have had to find, if not a better, then certainly a more cost effective way of doing business. So don’t hold your breath on ‘OUR WORK’ just returning to ‘NORMAL. We must change and then we can go and win it back 
If you still think we will just get through this period and it will be back to
normal, then think on. It’s only a few short years to 2015 and then Crossrail
will be having a go at our market share. No more Padders to Moorgate, you will
be lucky to get further than Berkeley Square.
So how do we compete effectively for OUR market share? We already offer better coverage than PH, our vehicles are built for purpose, we can use bus lanes and generally do journeys quicker than PH. So what can it be? It has to be price! Now here is the bitter pill to swallow; we as drivers have to be willing to take a small loss in earnings per job in the hope that our excellent sales team can generate more jobs in the long term. How, you ask? Easy, lose the run-in (Mountview minicabs already have) and the gratuity - both unnecessary expenses to the client. Then the ridiculous £4 premium for picking up at stations and theatres. How do you get on a rank today? Never mind turning away jobs while you wait for an account client. When was the last time a theatre burst wasn’t covered by loads of empty cabs? Not in years. Lose it, it’s unnecessary. These small reductions have to be offered to all existing accounts now and to all future accounts. By losing these small amounts per job, you will allow our sales team and account mangers to cut account’s ground transportation costs by over 15% on average journeys. If they then go on and at the very least increase our work by just one more job per day, per driver, then we all will be no worse off. Remember 85% of something is a lot more than 100% of nothing. When you are out and about, count the somewhat alarming number of AL cars you see. There are so many of them, but their business is working on very small profit margins per job and relying on large volumes to generate massive profits for secret millionaires and shareholders. They have expanded rapidly and I see they have been telling porky pies about our prices (p25 Feb Call Sign). Surely we can use some of our surplus funds to have a lawyer at least look at this defamation, slander, libel or maybe at the very least, publish our correct prices? Make no bones about it, AL wants all our accounts and they will not stop until they get them. Well fight back now; if we give our sales team the ammunition to go and just get back what they have already taken, we can and will start to turn the tide. Then we can go after all their accounts as aggressively as they have done to ours. AL has expanded too rapidly and though they may look strong, I actually feel this has left them very vulnerable to even be able to cope with a small percentage drop in their account work. So let’s put them out of business before they do the same to us. Hey, we could even pick up a low mileage VW Sharan on the cheap for the missus! Now I know that anything that means we take less money per job will not be liked universally within the Society, it’s not even popular with myself. But I feel it is necessary to protect all our futures. The BoM, as I have read in Call Sign, doesn’t like upsetting groups of drivers but they are there to make tough decisions, not to be popular. The members who complain the most, generally come up with no solutions or ideas to improve the situation. Don’t worry, they won’t like you whatever you do. So if you agree with T97 and myself, maybe not in our solutions but at least in our sentiment, let the BoM know. Let’s hear what you all think. If, however, you don’t agree with me at all, then I am open-minded and the opportunity is always there for you to change my view. But, before you try to change it, please reply to this simple statement and answer these relevant questions. With your beliefs in our entitlement to our so-called work, our right to charge a premium above what the open market sees fit, coupled with the idea that the work will just come back and pay it, please answer the following: A) Is your business plan working for us at this current time? B) Is that business plan going to guarantee our future? If you answered yes to both, then my final question is very pertinent: C) Did you read and understand DaC’s financial report for the last trading year? Really! Now I am all ears. There is however, one final group of members - those who don’t care either way so long as they take their money today. Well put your heads back in the sand, someone else will sort it out and let you know how it all turned out. Now, if I have come across in a negative manner I apologise. On the contrary, I am very positive about the future, as long as we stop dwelling in the past. I love being a Licensed London Taxi Driver and DaC is the best circuit out there. Let’s keep it that way by doing what is necessary, however unpalatable it may be. If, however, we decide to do nothing, then I will see you all at the back of the Metropole waiting to get on the Padders rank and I will of course say hello to any members of DaC’s office staff I see outside the job centre, we can maybe chat about the good old days! Finally, there is a tired old expression within this whole trade, we have all heard it and some of us have even said it. "It’s not like it used to be, the game’s dead!" Well nothing’s like it used to be and the game is not dead. We just have to work harder at keeping it alive. Let’s take short-term pain for long-term gain.... You have now seen two opposite views. As always, anyone wishing to contribute to the debate is welcome, providing you are happy to give your name and callsign ...Ed |
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Brian’s taxi driving golden anniversary Fifty years in the saddle! |
Brian Abrahams
(G91) recently celebrated 50 years of cab
driving after gaining his Green Badge o n
February 4, 1960. Speaking to Call Sign, he told us how he had completed the
Knowledge on a pushbike in two years and then worked for the Great
Cambridge Garage in Shoreditch on a 1/9d clock – that’s 9p to our
younger readers! The son of a cab driver, he recalled how his father gave him 5/- (25p) a week ‘subsistence money’ for food and drink while out doing his Knowledge runs, while Brian would try to save some of that for pocket money. "I remember my dad going out in his Low-loader taxi, dressed in his army great-coat and muffler during the winter months. The cabs were full of drafts, as you were exposed to the weather and you felt like certain parts of your anatomy were freezing off," Brian said with a smile. "I worked for Great Cambridge for over two years before moving to Ginger Nelson’s, which was the garage my father worked for. I bought my first cab - a new FX4 - from M&O in 1965 at a cost of £1100. Things seem to have gone up a bit since then!" Still reminiscing, Brian spoke about his life outside of taxi driving. "After my wife of 45 years, football is my first love. I’m a Spurs fan and now have a season ticket, but I do recall the very next morning after I got my Badge, I told the garage night shift manager – obviously not a fan - that I would not be in to work that evening because I was going to a match. He couldn’t understand why I would take a night off work so soon after getting my Bill, but Spurs beat Crewe 13 - 2 that evening in a cup replay, so it was worth it to me." Talking about how things had changed, Brian said that he had seen many changes within the trade over the years. "The cab itself has improved in many ways, but for me, personally, the introduction of power steering and effective heating were the most welcome! My memory keeps returning to my dad in his muffler," he said with a sigh. Brian – who first appeared in Call Sign in March 1999 following a one-day trip to Poland to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp – added: "I’ve been on DaC for 37 years. I think Martin Gellman was the Chairman back then and I’ve had my own callsign from day one. I’ve also gone through quite a few new cabs, as I used to change them every two years, but I think I’ll keep the one I’m currently driving. I must say, I give all due credit to our current Board of Management for all the work they do, especially in the present economic downturn. And our technology is unbeatable, it eliminates many of the dodgy practices of years gone by," he said. "If only they could also rid us of all those roadworks!" Finally, Call Sign asked Brian a question most of us get asked by non-cab drivers – picked up any famous passengers? "I once picked up the Duchess of Kent from opposite Harrods and took her to Old Bond Street. As she got out of the cab, I politely enquired - tongue in cheek - if I might then display a Royal Warrant in the windscreen. "Certainly not," she said huffily as she strode off into a shop! I’ve also had two MPs as passengers who later became Prime Ministers - Jim Callaghan and Gordon Brown." Congratulations to Brian from all at Call Sign and DaC... ©Call Sign Magazine MMX |
