I know "Have I got News for you" has a gentle swipe at trade press in the missing words round, but often it has important and / or interesting things of importance to one's trade.
Today I have been reading the summer edition of one of our trade magazines in which it has articles about ongoing battles with our licensing / regulatory body.
I work in a company that's governed by private hire legislation, Executive Chauffeuring if you please or posh mini cabs. We are licensed and governed by the same body that governs the taxi trade, but their relationship with taxi trade often seems cozier [then I'm sure the taxi drivers probably think the same the other way around].
Much of what they are trying to do is GOOD, but they way they go about it can be very bad!
English Language Tests:
Good idea
Applying it retrospectively to over 60,000 licence holders bad
Making the test WRITTEN rather than verbal very bad... they don't need to write a damn thing other than a passenger's name for meet & greet at airport / station etc.
[we lost a Chauffeur who'd been with us, & licensed, over 10 years. His latest renewal declined as he could not pass a written test]
DBS update service
Usual DBS lasts for 3 years but by signing up for the update service registered bodies can check for updates within the 3 years - VERY good.
Insistence on Additional Driving Assessment
Very good - we do that quarterly anyway
Vehicle Signage
Good intentions but bad - they want stickers reminding people to look out for cyclists, wear seat belts and lots of other things that would make our cars look like mini cabs... we don't need to advertise our name!!!!
As for the lies...
They claim there are too many Private Hire Drivers and quote a figure of 117,712, however, there are only 62,339 licensed vehicles. Research indicates that there are actually 60,952 ACTIVE drivers.
The disparity between vehicles and drivers is simple; we [the group] have up to 300 vehicles off the road [for various reasons] at any one time, then there are the companies that specialize in hiring to the trade [replacement vehicles under warranty and specialist vehicles that we don't have on our fleet... Masarati Quattroporte for example]
The 117,712 probably includes folks who have retired, died or car share. I also suspect they have some drivers included multiple times. For example we have owner drivers who also work for other suppliers [including Uber], thus some drivers could be offering their services via 4 to 6 suppliers.
The above rant merely skims the issues, and probably bores you senseless... however, I feel better for getting that out of the system.
[Post edited 12 Jun 2018 14:04]
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