LIVERPOOL

A man who was found injured in Aintree this evening is believed to have “fallen out of a taxi window“.

The man, who police said was in his 20s, was found shortly before 5pm on Warbreck Moor having suffered a head injury.

Police are attempting to trace the driver of a black Hackney cab following the incident.

An eyewitness, who claims to have seen the incident, told The ECHO that the man had fallen through the window of the taxi before being found on the footpath.

He said: “It looked like he fell through the window of a black cab before landing on the pavement.

“He was in a bad way, bleeding from his head, it looked really serious.”

The taxi was believed to have been travelling in the direction of Walton Vale when the incident happened.

The injured man was taken to hospital for assessment and his condition is described as stable.

A spokesperson for Merseyside Police said: “Detectives would like to trace the driver of a black Hackney cab.

“It is believed that the injured man may have been a passenger in the taxi prior to suffering his injury.”

A man at the scene said he found the victim lying on footpath.

He told the ECHO: “He was lying face down with his head on his arm. I asked him was he ok but realised he was bleeding from the head.

“I rang the ambulance for him but left when they arrived as I didn’t want to crowd them.

“I don’t know how long he’d been lying there.”
Detective Inspector Steve McGrath said: “At this stage we are trying to establish the circumstances leading up to the man being found with a head injury.

“As part of the investigation we want to trace the driver of a black Hackney cab which was heading from the Aintree area towards the city centre at approximately 4.50pm.

http://bit.ly/2CfPk9k
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LONDON

The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association brought a private prosecution against a driver who was licensed as a private hire driver by Transport for London, claiming that he was plying for hire. The Association had employed two private detectives in what they claimed was a “sting” operation.

The basis for the sting was that one of them booked the driver through the app and then took a ride, while the other filmed the operation. The gravamen of the prosecution was that the ability to see a car on the app meant that the car was plying for hire.

The Defendant’s case was that driving in accordance with the Uber app is obviously not plying for hire.

The Defendant’s legal team then requested the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to take over the prosecution and discontinue it. This power is given to the CPS under section 6(2) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985. It is very rarely exercised.

In this case, however, the CPS did decide to take over the prosecution and discontinue it. The prosecution was, therefore, nipped in the bud.
The case shows that the CPS will in fact intervene in unwarranted private prosecutions, of which this was one.

Philip Kolvin QC acted for the Defendant, instructed by Woods Whur Solicitors.

http://bit.ly/2pL2pVD
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NOTTINGHAM/GEDLING

Council bosses have sent out a hard hitting letter to 1,000 taxi drivers warning them that if they are caught picking up passengers illegally they will be prosecuted and could lose their license.

Gedling Borough Council has sent out the letter after a late night sting was carried out by the Post and Nottingham City Council’s head of licensing.
In just one hour, 15 drivers were caught picking up customers illegally, the majority had their licences issued in Gedling.

The city council's licensing team are targeting drivers who obtain private hire licences from other councils such as Gedling and then 'tout' for business - also known as 'plying for hire' - on the streets of Nottingham.

Private hire vehicles may only pick up passengers when pre-booked, rather than from a rank or being hailed down like a city hackney cab.

But the city council says around 200 are regularly breaking the law and putting the public at risk, with a small minority using their cover to commit serious crimes such as sexual assaults.

Other offences committed by illegal drivers include not setting the meter, charging high prices, and leaving the passenger uninsured if an accident was to occur while in the vehicle.

Gedling Borough Council says the warning letter comes after the Post and Nottingham City Council carried out a late night investigation this month and found a small number of Gedling Borough Council plated vehicles picking up customers in the city who had not pre-booked - which is illegal.

Councillor David Ellis from Gedling Borough Council with the letter sent out to taxi drivers.
The letter, issued to 1,000 licenced drivers, reminds drivers that they must only pick up pre-booked passengers outside of the Gedling boundary.

It also reminds them that if they pick up illegally they are also invalidating their insurance and, if caught, they will be summoned to appear at the licencing committee where they could lose their licence.

Councillor David Ellis, portfolio holder for public protection for Gedling, said: "We have been working with our colleagues at Nottingham city to ensure that all of our drivers are conducting themselves properly and many do, however, this recent exercise has highlighted that some drivers are not following the rules and we are being very clear that if they are caught, they could lose their licence.

"We also must make sure that when passengers flag down a taxi that they can be sure that it is insured and safe, that’s the most important thing here.”

Head of licensing for Nottingham City Council Richard Antcliffe said this was "positive news" and would help drive down illegal taxi drivers.
He said: "We have been in contact with Gedling following the revelations and they have said they will support us.

"After Christmas they have said they will do more joint operations and stings with us, the next step is for both licensing authorities to go out together and tackle this so that Gedling understands the full scale of the problem. We hope that we keep the momentum. If you take your eye off it you are back to square one."

http://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/around-1000-taxi-drivers-warned-957100
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NEW YORK

Uber, the ride-hailing company, has had a bad year — capped off this month by the murder of a British diplomat by an on-duty Uber driver, and, less tragically, a European court determination that it’s a transportation company, not a tech company. Uber’s woes wouldn’t be a surprise to the company’s investors if they hadn’t assumed that technical innovation equals financial success.

In New York, Uber has improved the quality of life for people who live far from mass transit and where traditional yellow cabs don’t want to go. It’s also convenient for Manhattanites who don’t want to chance waiting for a cab, particularly at rush hour.

None of this, though, guarantees a payoff for the global investors who valued the company at $69 billion early this year. Tech is colliding with the real world — and the real world, for the moment, is winning, with Uber’s value down an estimated 30 percent in the past few months.

Uber’s first problem is government power. For all its pretensions otherwise, Uber is nothing new: It is, as the European Court just ruled and as New York City has long held, a for-hire car service, subject to all the local rules around the world that govern such services.

The fact that Uber makes taking a car easier and cheaper actually means it needs more regulation, not less. As Bruce Scaller, former deputy traffic commissioner at the city’s Transportation Department, just noted in a report out last week, cheaper and more plentiful cars have caused oversaturation.

According to Scaller, although total taxi and for-hire car trips in Manhattan’s central business district increased by 15 percent on the average weekday between June 2013 and June 2017, total mileage for these cars in the same area increased by 36 percent.

The number of taxi and for-hire vehicles increased by 59 percent, but the number of unoccupied vehicles increased by 81 percent, with each for-hire driver waiting 11 minutes between fares. During the afternoon rush, between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., 10,000 for-hire vehicles are trawling Manhattan. Taxis and other for-hire cars now account for more than half of daytime traffic on major avenues.

The conclusion: The only way Uber and its competitors can make each trip so convenient for its passengers is to flood the streets with empty cars. You may not wait standing on the street for a cab, but now you wait on the street in a black car, behind all of those other black cars.

This situation won’t last forever. When Gov. Cuomo unveils his congestion-pricing plan next month, as expected, he’s going to have to tackle Manhattan’s idle Ubers. Roughly the same problem — and solution — exists in other dense cities, Uber’s most lucrative markets.

Uber’s second problem, paradoxically, is government weakness. For all of its promise that algorithmic solutions would reduce the need for government-required background checks, Uber needs such checks to keep its customers safe. The driver in Lebanon who strangled British diplomat Rebecca Dykes passed a government-mandated background check despite a criminal record.

Places where Uber wants to grow and provide a genuinely needed service — a safe ride home — are also places where fake documents, corruption and unsolved crimes are rife.

Uber also has more than its fair share of terrorists in the West, from the driver who committed a sword attack at Buckingham Palace this summer to New York’s bike-path killer, who had previously worked for the service.

Uber’s biggest problem, though, is that its technology is not that special. The company has formidable competitors, from Lyft at home to Gett in Britain to Didi in China, which has already won the battle for market share there.

Allegations that Uber stole trade secrets and spied on rivals aren’t just indications of the company’s poor culture. They also suggest the company is desperate for some advantage.

All this is why Uber lost nearly $1.5 billion last quarter alone, with no indication that it will stop losing money.

It’s a risk of capitalism that the world’s savviest investors, from the Saudi Arabian sovereign-wealth fund to the wealthy clients of Goldman Sachs, didn’t grasp. Uber spawned e-hailing — but ­e-hailing could well outlast Uber.

http://nyp.st/2kZj9Dx 
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