Wirral taxi tariffs are set to become the highest in Merseyside with a new charge brought in for people dropped off in Liverpool.
The Liverpool Echo reports that the new tariffs are being brought in as hackney carriage drivers, represented by Unite the Union, said costs for insurance and tyres had dramatically increased as well as the need to earn a living as food prices increase.
This was approved by a Wirral Council regulatory and general purposes committee but is subject to public consultation over 14 days.
The current day rate is £3.60 for the first 300 yards and 20p for every 207 yards. This will change to £3.60 for the same distance but 20p every 175 yards after that.
This means it will cost 40p more to travel one mile and £3.60 more to go ten miles. Rates will also increase by 7% to go one mile at night and 20% more to go ten miles.
However on bank holidays it will actually be cheaper to go five miles or more but on Christmas Day and the New Year, it will cost £9.30 and £47.70 to go one mile and ten miles respectively.
The new fares will be the highest in the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Ellesmere Port, and Neston.
During the day, it costs someone £5 to go one mile in Liverpool, £4.70 in Sefton, £4.30 in St Helens, £4.80 in Knowsley, and £4.60 in Ellesmere Port and Neston.
It will cost £5.40 to go one mile on the Wirral with a new £5 charge being added to any fare dropping off in Liverpool plus the fees to return through the tunnel.
Gary Gregory, representing around 85 drivers for Unite, said: "In a perfect world, you wouldn't put the fares up," adding: "We've been hit recently with a massive increase in insurance. For some reason motor insurance has gone up 30% but public hire has gone up by 45%."
He also pointed to increasing food prices.
Explaining the new Liverpool charge, he said: "If the traffic's bad, it can take an hour to get back. We can't work in Liverpool, we can't pick anybody else up so that's been factored in to pay for that lost time."
He added: "There has to be something because the fares are non-economical, they're not viable to do. You get £16 for the fare, you take £4 for the tunnel leaves you £12 and you're working for an hour and a half. That's not even minimum wage."
He said traffic congestion was an issue along the Strand, adding: "When Everton open that stadium, it's going to be a no-go area. You can't expect the taxi driver to sit for two hours waiting to get back to where you can pick up legally and not be compensated."
Councillors also removed a limit on the number of hackney carriage licences.
Source: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/wirral-black-cab-fares-become-28164144
A man has been sentenced after being found guilty of a hate crime in Farnham.
Oliver Cunningham punched the driver several times during the incident.
On August 6 this year, a group of six men ordered a PHV to get them home from a night out in London.
As they got back to Farnham at 4.50am, the passengers asked the driver to add on an additional journey and grew angry when they were told this would cost extra.
One of the men, Cunningham, 18, from Farnham, grew violent, punching the driver in the face several times causing swelling and bruising. He also bit him, spat at him in the face and spat on the car before running off.
Commander Rob Brian, from Surrey Police, said: “This was a particularly nasty assault against a taxi driver who has been abused and spat at while simply trying to carry out his job.
"I hope this result demonstrates to people that we do take reports related to hate crime seriously and they will be followed up.”
At his sentencing at Guildford Magistrates’ Court on November 14, Cunningham received a £200 fine, rehabilitation activity and he must pay a £114 victim surcharge.
Source: https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/farnham-man-bit-punched-taxi-28170254
A man has been arrested after women were followed in southwest London and an Uber driver was stabbed in Clapham.
The Met Police said the driver was stabbed twice in the chest in Balham in the early hours on Thursday 23 November.
His condition was not life-threatening or life-changing and he was been released from hospital.
The 22-year-old was held in Brixton just before 4.20am on Friday, on suspicion of committing grievous bodily harm, having an offensive weapon and public order offences, the Metropolitan Police said.
The man, who is in custody, was arrested after someone called police after seeing a public appeal for a suspect.
This attack followed incidents during October and November in which women were targeted in Clapham Junction, Brixton and Balham:
10 October - A man approached a woman as she was entering an address on Barrington Road, SW9 at about 10.50pm. After a short struggle she was able to fight him off and he left
17 November - A woman was followed at about 4am as she walked along Sisters Avenue, SW11. As the man got close, she began to shout and he ran away. He was in possession of a knife
19 November - A man approached a woman and grabbed her on Sumburgh Road, SW12, at about 1.40am but she managed to escape
23 November - An Uber driver was stabbed on Nightingale Lane, SW12, at roughly 12.20am
23 November - Officers saw the man approaching women near Holy Trinity Church on Clapham Common, SW4 at 2.50am and chased him, but he escaped
23 November - Officers spotted the man using a red bicycle at 4.45am and chased him again, but lost him on St John's Road, SW11
Det Supt Dan O'Sullivan said extra police would be deployed in the area to reassure members of the public.
He added: "I know that many people will have been incredibly concerned about the details of these linked investigations.
"A team of dedicated detectives are continuing to carry out a thorough investigation."
Bradford’s controversial Clean Air Zone (CAZ) has generated over £10 million since being introduced in September 2022.
And more than £6m of this came from the 142,697 penalty charges issued to motorists who haven’t paid charges for driving non-compliant vehicles through the zone.
According to The Telgraph and Argus a newly-published report by Bradford Council reveals details of the first year of the CAZ and what the council needs to do before it can be lifted.
In 2018, the Government ordered Bradford Council to reduce the illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide in the district. The CAZ, covering much of Bradford and parts of Shipley, was developed in response and went live in September 2022.
Owners of non-compliant commercial vehicles, including vans, HGVs and taxis, have to pay a daily charge to enter the zone. If they do not pay they can be issued with a penalty charge notice.
The new report, which goes before members of Bradford Council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday 28 November, shows that of the income from the CAZ since September 2022, Bradford Council took £9,590,600 and the Government took £785,634
How many Penalty Charge Notices have been challenged?
Details of how many people have challenged penalty charge notices are also included in the report, which says: “A total of 21,037 representations against PCNs have been received.
“This is a rate of 14.74 per cent of PCNs issued – this level of representations has remained consistent since the beginning of 2023. The percentage of accepted representations (successful appeals) is 3.3 per cent of PCNs issued.”
Bradford Council is required to ring-fence any income for environmental programmes, or schemes to reduce traffic.
The report reveals that a £1m Clean Air Schools Programme was set up using the income, and has offered schools funding to reduce pollution around their sites. A third of all Bradford district schools have expressed interest in the programme.
Members will be told that other schemes being rolled out include further grants to help owners upgrade their vehicles, the development of schemes to introduce hydrogen-powered vehicles and drawing up plans for organic waste collections.
The report includes recent data showing that NO2 levels in the CAZ area fell to the lowest level in years over the summer.
However, levels rose slightly in September, but have since begun to fall again in October. Levels have remained below the legal limit since January.
When could Bradford's Clean Air Zone end?
Committee members will also be given details of when the CAZ may end.
Bradford Council has previously said the Government would lift the order once Bradford’s air quality had returned to legal levels, and that Government officials were convinced they would stay at those legal levels.
Giving more detail on this, the report says: “The Government is just starting to publish the process that a CAZ authority needs to follow in order for the Government to remove the CAZ Direction."
To determine whether this has been achieved, there is a four state road map.
State 1 - on track to achieving success; State 2 - achieved success; State 3 - demonstrated to be maintaining success with measures in place; State 4 - likely to continue maintaining success in the absence of measures implemented in the Clean Air Plan."
“All CAZ Authorities are currently classified as State 1 by the Government," the report says.
Members will also be told how the CAZ has impacted the type of vehicles used in Bradford.
In the run-up to the CAZ being implemented, local businesses were offered funding to upgrade their vehicles, and the report shows that more than £20m has been spent upgrading taxis, vans and HGVs.
It says the latest data shows that 99 per cent of Bradford’s taxi fleet is now compliant.
The percentage of non-compliant vans passing through the CAZ fell from 50 per cent to 30 per cent shortly after charging was introduced, and 97 per cent of HGVs are now compliant.
All tendered bus services are CAZ compliant, the report claims.
Did Bradford need to introduce a Clean Air Zone?
One of the biggest political debates in recent years has been whether Bradford Council needed to introduce a charging CAZ, with critics arguing that pollution levels could have been reduced without the need to charge motorists.
Referring to these claims, the report says: “The council looked at many options, including electric bus routes, traffic management and traffic light phasing and park and park and ride facilities, however, a CAZ was the only option that the Government would accept that achieved compliance in the shortest possible timeframe.”
A cabbie in Tunbridge Wells has driven home the reasons that drivers don't like taking passengers who want to pay by card.
Toni Conlon, a cabbie for 19 years in the town, told KentLive about issues like passenger cards declining after a night out, phone payment problems, lack of signal for card readers, and passengers later cancelling transactions.
It comes as passengers have frequently raised the issue of being refused at the taxi rank outside Tunbridge Wells Railway Station due to not having cash.
A report by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council said the authority had received "a growing number of complaints from members of the public" unable to get a cab at night because drivers said they didn't have card readers.
The counci said it was concerned about public safety and people without cash being "left stranded". It has been consulting on proposed changes to its policy governing hackney carriages and private hire vehicles.
Card payments, along with issues such as medical fitness, background criminal checks, reducing emissions, vehicle testing and a national register of drivers were all part of the recent consultation.
As KentLive reported in September, the "general position" is drivers can't pass on surcharges for debit or credit cards to the customers, said the council.
And drivers have previously raised concerns about the problems of using card payments in areas with poor phone/internet signal.
Shujaullah Baraki, the head of Tunbridge Wells Taxi Association, has called for a meeting with the council to "voice concerns directly". And now Toni Conlon, who has been a cabbie in the town for 19 years, has exposed the difficulties faced by drivers trying to make a living, while grappling with everything from poor Wi-Fi and card charges, to the differing prices of medicals at surgeries.
Responding to the council's consultation which included making contactless/card payments mandatory, Toni said: "Taxis and private hire vehicles must be the only industry in the UK, which is predominantly serviced by the self-employed, who are dictated to by the council as to how they get paid for their services!
"It is outrageous for a third party to interfere with somebody’s business, when they have very little working knowledge of the industry, or the problems faced by those working within that industry.
"An overview given by the licensing department does not equip anyone to pass judgement. In the past three months, I have found myself £234 out of pocket due to 'card payments' that fail.
Five reasons why card payments are a problem for taxi drivers:
Passenger has already spent all their money on a night out
Toni said: "The people who are complaining that they can’t use their cards, are the same people who have been out on the town in London, having purchased their return train ticket, get into a taxi, only to discover that they have depleted their entire bank account over some bar or other or in a nightclub. They then believe that the taxi driver should take them home for free – why?"
Their phone dies and it ends up being the driver's problem
"The phone runs out of charge, and we are expected to carry a full range of chargers, so that they can charge their phones in order to pay us."
Paying via a phone - where is the phone supposed to fit in a card reader?
"Apple/Google pay. This has happened to me twice now. They try to pay with their phone app, the card reader asks them to insert their card and use the pin, yet to find a way of inserting a phone into a card reader! They invariably don’t have a card and promise to do a bank transfer – they usually don’t."
No signal to process payment
"Which card readers take 'offline' payments? If one does exist, how do you know at the time of attempted payment, that the transaction has been successful? If the transaction were to fail, you would have no opportunity to ask for an alternative form of payment."
Passengers later cancel payments
"This has happened to at least three drivers in Tunbridge Wells. International travellers take a taxi to one of the airports, pay the driver by card. A few days later, the driver notices that the funds have been reversed as the traveller has told his card issuer that the transaction is fraudulent, none of the drivers have been successful in getting paid."
Toni stressed that drivers' reluctance to accept cards had "nothing to do with tax dodging, which is the widely-spread belief". "It is about getting paid what we are owed for a job done."
And finally, Toni said drivers miss out on tips when passengers use cards, as it is customary for passengers to found up fare prices.
She said: "The last little irritation, which may come across as greedy, is that nobody tips on a card. If a job came to £14.20, invariably the customer would give you £15 and tell you to keep the change. Only 80p, but multiply this by the number of clients across the whole of the industry in Tunbridge Wells, that is a lot of lost revenue.
"Although one should never expect to receive a tip, it is a fact that cash payers tip and card payers do not, whilst at the same time incurring transaction fees which we have to pay, double whammy.
"And yes we do know that we can claim the charges back on our tax returns at the end of the year, but that is just it, at the end of the financial year."
Shujaullah Baraki, the head of Tunbridge Wells Taxi Association, also gave a full response to the consultation, which ended on November 10, making many of the same points at Toni.
The results of the consultation were heard by a TWBC licensing committee this week.
Source: https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/im-tunbridge-wells-cabbie-real-8926615
French taxi drivers are calling for government compensation after suffering significant revenue losses during the Paris Olympics.
Coventry city centre has introduced a new taxi marshal service aimed at improving safety and efficiency for late-night revellers.
A court heard harrowing details of the moment a drink-driving uninsured motorist killed three people in a 90mph crash.
The Taxi Charity for Military Veterans was amongst the thousands who enjoyed the Battle Proms at Highclere Castle on 3 August.
Swindon residents could be facing a hike in taxi fares from October after councillors gave the green light to a £1 increase in the standard fare minimum charge.
Ricky Harold, a 20-year veteran of the town’s taxi trade, was parked in a lay-by when his vehicle was struck from behind by a black Audi A2.
Chinese automotive giant Geely has deepened its commitment to the UK electric vehicle market with a £120m cash injection into London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC).
North Tyneside Council is facing a backlash over plans to increase taxi fares by 6.3%.
Nazim Asmal preyed on his victims after nights out in Preston and Darwen, driving them to secluded spots before carrying out horrific sexual assaults.
Newcastle is set to see a surge in pink taxis driven by women as part of a new initiative aimed at improving passenger safety.
An unlicensed taxi driver who picked up two vulnerable women in Aberdare has been ordered to pay nearly £1,500 in fines and costs.
Cleethorpes taxi drivers are breathing a sigh of relief after council enforcement officers cracked down on vehicles illegally parked in designated taxi ranks.
A Barry man has avoided jail after launching a drunken attack on a taxi driver who refused him entry to his vehicle.
Jersey’s taxi service is in crisis, with driver numbers plummeting by more than a quarter since 2014, a new report has revealed.
On Wednesday 27 July, more than 300 vulnerable youngsters were taken on an all-expenses paid trip to Southport.
Taxi drivers in the town will be able to charge passengers more following a decision by the borough council on 31 July.
A taxi driver has been sentenced to a community order after admitting causing the death of a pedestrian by driving at excessive speed.
A joint operation by council, police, and DVSA officials has seen three taxis taken off the road in Oldham due to safety concerns.
Taxi drivers licensed by Mid Sussex could soon be forced to accept card payments, following a surge in complaints about cash-only services.
Two men have avoided immediate jail time after a high-speed race left a taxi driver with serious injuries.