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Telling tales? I recently received an email from a long standing member asking me about a story that appeared in the London Cab Drivers Club (LCDC) magazine, The Badge, stating that Dial-a-Cab had to obtain a Private Hire Operators licence and we were also in danger of losing our mutual trading status. I must confess that I do not read The Badge as I have found over the years that it contains so many inaccuracies. How do I know? Well for much of the time they are talking about subjects and issues of which I have some knowledge, yet they report those issues incorrectly. The email from our member arrived on a Saturday, so I had to wait until the Monday before I could obtain a copy of the newspaper. When I read the article, it appeared that everything was ‘cut and dried’ yet I had not even had a meeting at London Taxi and Private Hire (LTPH) – PCO to you and me. What the LCDC are saying is that because we are acting as an Agent for five account customers only and booking cars on their behalf, we are a Private Hire Operator and as such need a licence. That is clearly not the case otherwise every hotel or restaurant that books a car on behalf of a client would need to register as an Operator, when quite clearly they do not operate one driver or car. That also applies to us – so how can we be an Operator? The whole issue revolves around the word provision, as legislation states that anyone that makes provision for a booking should be registered as an Operator. However, in my opinion, the person that takes the booking and supplies the car is making the provision and the person that places the order on behalf of the client is the Agent acting on behalf of the client. How did this all come about, because we have been operating this system for six years without any interference from the LTPH / PCO? Well, it would appear that someone had made a complaint |
 to the LTPH about all three radio circuits, our two competitors were contacted but not Dial-a-Cab as the person that made the complaint called us Dial-a-Ride, so initially we were ignored – that is how much LTPH were concerned about us. As I stated earlier, we have been operating our system for six years without any problem, why suddenly is there a problem when there has not been any change in the legislation – unless of course someone has complained and is endeavouring to cause a problem for another organisation within the taxi industry. I’m led to believe the person that is doing the stirring is not a stranger to causing controversy, I am informed there is a forum called the London Taxi Drivers Forum (LTDF) where he used to subscribe under the names of Lulu and Becky (might have been Beccy) and proceeded to castigate anyone he wanted to. One of the problems caused was that because of his antics and feminine choice of names, the LCDC has now been renamed the London Cross Dressers Club. I am sure his members must be really proud of him. Why does this individual have such a negative view of Dial-a-Cab and myself? Could it be that he was expelled as a member of Dial-a-Cab - not by me but by three of his fellow members. Yet Dial-a-Cab and I have to endure his wrath as he seeks to spread negative vibes about us at every possible occasion. As I stated earlier, I am not really concerned about this individual because although he craves notoriety and recognition at every opportunity, he is rather insignificant. However, what I am aware of is that I will take this situation as far as I need to go and if I am |
prosecuted and I fight this scenario
through the courts, there is only one person that we can thank for that and
that is the person that instigated the enquiry originally! Yet he likes to
portray himself as the protector of the taxi industry – that’s really
amusing as he is only interested in his own self-projection and notoriety
and nothing else! To apply for a licence and have it granted costs £2,500 for five years, but whether we have it or not doesn’t make the slightest difference to the way in which your business is run. However, what is particularly impertinent is having an expelled member complain to the authorities about the way in which we run our business – it is nothing to do with him, after all we can’t have the tail wagging the dog – can we? So let me take this opportunity to remind members that if a member of the public or anyone of our account customers were to ring us to book a car, we would not fulfil their request. However, we do have five large account customers where we act as their ground transport provider, whether the client wants a taxi or a car they ring or book on-line with us and we will supply what they desire. I would also like to point out that the client has the contract with the car vendors and not with Dial-a-Cab, we act purely as an agent on behalf of the client. By handling it in this manner, it enables us to control the account. If we were not to do this then the client would ring or book on-line with the car vendor directly and not with us, but they would still get the same car or taxi depending on what they wanted. Large corporate accounts need and want more than just a taxi provider and as we’ve seen, they are no longer afraid of handing all their work to private hire if they can’t get what they want – and that is a complete ground transportation system. But it does appear to be a fact that some people out there would rather we were destroyed than succeed...
Brian Rice |
