Over the past months, many drivers have come to me to complain about minicabs and their disregard for the law. The main gripe seems to revolve around Security letting them into Cabot Square with just a nod, whereas a licensed taxi driver has to produce his badge and bill. Does this mean that minicab drivers are to be trusted but licensed taxi drivers are not? Would the directors of the Island’s security impose the same rules if another bomb went off at Canary Wharf as it did at Brixton recently, injuring influential clients? The compensation factor due to their negligence could be proved by every taxi driver who has entered the Island and noted these occurrences.
   As you read in Call Sign last month, suggestions requesting our own company identity card are being seriously considered once the machine is free from producing the new Westminster cards. The card would be the same size as a credit card with the DaC logo and drivers photo. Subscribers would have to supply a recent passport-sized photograph.
   I know that a few loud-mouthed, uncouth drivers will shout at the watering holes and EC5 asking why they should have to pay for photos. These are the same drivers who tell passengers that they will not pay 50p for a water based pen after failing to display the passengers name in the taxi window. Luckily, these morons are in a very small minority on this circuit, but some passengers are telling me of unpleasant experiences with these drivers.
   I have also had drivers coming in complaining that they are the professionals yet some of our account customers are giving their work to minicabs. But when I have occasion to question them on the price they have submitted for a journey, some answer : "I didn’t know the way and had to rely on the passenger directing me". As passengers have not done the Knowledge, they only know the way they have learnt by going on main roads or motorways which are sign-posted. These routes may increase the fare by many pounds, but those self-styled ‘professionals’ are quite happy to accept the fare knowing that it may be much higher than it should have been. I know it doesn’t apply to most of you, but it may only take one person to lose us an account.

Doreen’s Welfare

Some drivers have phoned me to say that they believed the delivery of the new terminals was imminent, this is not exactly true. As a Board, we are still in negotiations with a supplier who has not yet produced a working model that we can test although that time doesn’t seem far off.
   As I write this article, an email is being printed off for me to check on the working procedures that will be built into the software for the new terminal.
   At first glance, it seems very good - an advancement in the style and working of the future terminals that will be used in the taxi industry. Dial-a-Cab once again will lead the taxi industry in the quest for drivers to have the most modern equipment that is available. We do not just buy what data despatching companies want to palm off, equipment they have had stock-piled on their shelves. We are designing a terminal that is user friendly for our drivers needs.

I have had many discussions with drivers - mainly at their request - over the past few weeks regarding the use of limousines on DaC. My personal opinion is that you need to get set up to have the facility to give our clients limousines. The drivers who think these vehicles should be driven by licensed taxi drivers at a rate of around £20 per hour are sadly wrong. If you are going to pay these type of rates and overheads, you will go bust in a matter of months.
   The Society will need to have a radical rethink and may need to employ non taxi drivers at a much lower rate for the limousines to capture the work. If you do not do this, companies such as Addison Lee or Brunel Cars will go in and undercut us with no problem at all.
   We will have two options; we employ the drivers and own the cars otherwise I see the licensed hire company’s taking on more drivers to capture the work and then eating away at the work which we have at the moment.
   I can hear the ‘faces’ saying that they will not be able to cover all the work. But I think they will because they will pass on the less lucrative work, amalgamate and undercut us on the more profit generating work. What does that leave the licensed trade? There is the valuable disabled work, which most cars cannot do, and the rather less-valuable drunks and bilkers which they cannot pick up off the street. They will be able to purchase their vehicles for much less than a taxi so their profit margin will be greater, enabling them to expand much quicker to encompass more of our work.
   I’m sorry to sound so gloomy, but these are my views for the future unless we address the problem now.