Shropshire taxi drivers angry over licence fee rise

Taxi drivers today criticised a planned licence fee hike across Shropshire.

Bosses at Shropshire Council want to bring in a raft of higher licence charges for hackney carriage and private hire vehicles, with some fees set to rise by up to 26 per cent.

A consultation has been launched, with the changes due to come into effect on November 1.

But local taxi drivers have questioned where the extra income would end up.

Matt Young, the owner of Shrewsbury Taxi Service based in Bellstone, said: “If the increase means we get a better service then fair enough, but we get such an appalling level of service at present that it does make you question why we should be paying any more money towards licences.

“It’s very rare you can get hold of them nowadays – everything is being done by appointment – and they took away our direct telephone contacts so we now have to go through a central number which is always busy.

“The issue here is where is that extra money going to go? If they’re going to use it to pay for a licensing officer to walk the streets of a Friday and Saturday night and educate drivers and ask private hire vehicles to prove they have a booking when close to a taxi rank, then brilliant.

“We don’t feel as though we’re getting anything back from the service at present – and we’re not having a go at the licensing team because they do their best with the limited resources available.”

The changes would see the cost of a one year driver’s badge go from £166 to £204 – a 23 per cent rise – and a three year driver’s badge renewal increase by 26 per cent, from £136 to £172.

It comes as funds generated by the council through licensing fell from £726,043 in 2011/12 to £673,059 in 2012/13 – the equivalent of 7.2 per cent.

But Shirley Gibson, who has run Wem Travel for the past 20 years, said: “I don’t agree with this planned increase at all.

“The council is hard enough to get hold of now anyway and they never focus on the real issues such as cracking down on taxis operating illegally.”

Shropshire Council has said the move is essential to prevent further job losses within the authority.

It has urged people to make their opinions known by noon on October 30.
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Dublin

Gardaí have seized a Dublin taxi for a forensic examination after a college student alleged she was raped by the driver who was bringing her from a popular night club in the city.

The alleged rape occurred in the Phoenix Park, north Dublin, in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The 20-year-old woman was travelling in a taxi from the Copper Face Jacks nightclub on Harcourt Street in the south inner city towards Dublin City University (DCU) on Collins Avenue, Whitehall, north Dublin, when the cab took a route via the park.

The vehicle stopped in the area of the Wellington Monument at around 1.30am where the woman claimed she was raped and falsely imprisoned by the taxi driver in his car.

The man, who is from Dublin, has claimed he had consensual sex with the student. He claimed he gave the young woman his phone number and then drove her to her destination at the student accommodation at DCU.

Immediately on alighting from the taxi, she sought out security guards working on the campus and raised the alarm.

When the matter was reported to gardaí, the taxi driver’s mobile phone number had been entered into the woman’s phone and gardaí were in a position to contact him.

The woman has told gardaí the driver put his own telephone number into her phone.

The man’s car has since been taken for forensic examination as part of the investigation. A statement has been taken from the alleged attacker.

Gardaí have also spoken to a number of other witnesses and the issue of the woman being too inebriated to consent looks likely to be a key feature in determining the outcome of the criminal investigation.

The woman is said to be very distraught and underwent an examination at the sexual assault unit of the Rotunda Hospital in the hours following the event.

Reacting to the news of the allegation, the Union of Students in Ireland and the Rape Crisis Network Ireland said it was vital people would never be afraid to report a rape.

USI’s deputy vice president of welfare Denise McCarthy said it was important students understood that “having sex with someone who cannot consent because they are too drunk or are in fear, is rape”.

It is never the fault of the victim even if they have been drinking or taking drugs. It is important that victims feel that they can report an incident no matter what the context, she added.

Director of the rape crisis network Fiona Neary said taxi drivers often dealt with people who were vulnerable and while the law was there to safeguard against criminal behaviour, other forms of conduct by drivers should also be reported.

“(It) is important to note that conduct that is inappropriate but not necessarily criminal should also be reported. We would urge anyone who has felt uncomfortable or feel that the taxi driver was inappropriate, particularly sexually, to make a complaint.”
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 California

Taxi interests in California are collecting a war chest to finance anticipated lawsuits against Lyft, SideCar, UberX and other tech-enabled companies that are using mobile phones to match riders with private drivers for hire.

The Taxicab Paratransit Association of California, which represents major cab companies across the state, will meet on Thursday to decide how to proceed in the wake of a state Public Utilities Commission ruling that accepts the new mobile device ride dispatching services under specific conditions.

Hansu Kim, owner of DeSoto Cab in San Francisco and a board member of the taxi association, expects litigation. He said that with its new app rules the PUC, which regulates limousine services, wrongly deregulated the locally regulated taxi industry by officially sanctioning the use of private vehicles for commercial livery.

“We are definitely going ahead with a lawsuit,” Kim said.

The situation is now unfair, Kim said, with licensed taxi operations facing tight regulation from local agencies, while Lyft, SideCar and UberX and the individual drivers with whom they subcontract will be minimally regulated on a state level by a very overstretched PUC.

“It’s going to get serious,” Kim said. “I think these companies will be found acting illegally in many ways,” he alleged.

Officials from Lyft, SideCar and Uber Technologies, which operates UberX, all declined to comment on the potential for litigation.

The taxi association earlier had collected $250,000 from its members for a legal fund, and members committed to contributing $500,000 after the PUC issued its Sept. 19 ruling creating a new classification of service called a Transportation Network Company, Kim said.