ROCHDALE
 
A former taxi driver has been prosecuted after he drove a taxi without a hackney carriage licence and car insurance.

A member of our licensing team witnessed Matloob Hussain, of Derby Street, driving a Rochdale Borough Council licensed hackney carriage vehicle in Middleton in July 2018 despite having had his licence revoked.

Mr Hussain, aged 48, was banned from operating a taxi when his licence was revoked with immediate effect in March 2018 by our licensing panel. The panel found that he was not a fit and proper person to hold a licence and was told he was not permitted to drive any Rochdale Council licensed hackney carriage vehicle.

At Manchester and Salford magistrates' court on Monday, 17 June 2019 Mr Hussain entered guilty pleas to driving without insurance and driving without a licence.

For driving without insurance, he was fined £162 and is disqualified for driving for 6 months under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988.

For operating a hackney carriage without a licence he was fined £50, ordered to pay costs of £1126 to us, as well as a victim surcharge of £30.

Councillor Sara Rowbotham, Cabinet member for Health and Wellbeing, said: "We want to ensure that our residents can travel safely and confidently around the borough.

"It is important that we pursue prosecutions like this to penalise people who ignore the safety of our residents and our licensing team do a great job of clamping down on anyone who doesn't comply with licensing standards."

https://bit.ly/2J2DIdm
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NORTHUMBRIA

An estate woke up to the sound of screaming as a three-man gang robbed a taxi driver in a "vicious" attack.

Using a weapon, the brutes fractured the 28-year-old's skull and snatched his cash in the middle of the night in Meadow Well.

Horrified locals behind a police cordon woke to blood-stained doors, cars and roads as a manhunt was launched.

A few hundred yards away, police probed the scorched site in which the gang torched the taxi before making their getaway.

Exclusive pictures obtained by ChronicleLive show the vehicle on fire with a witness claiming: "It just went boom.

"There was flames everywhere and there was an explosion every few minutes.

"I thought there must have been guns in the back due to the way it was banging."


Northumbria Police claim the thugs attacked the driver in Weyhill Avenue after flagging him down shortly after 12.30am on Wednesday.

Several locals claimed the driver desperately banged on doors on nearby Avon Avenue seeking help.

"He was braying the door and looked like he had a pipe or stick in his hand," claimed one onlooker, who asked not to be named.

One man, who also requested anonymity, claimed he rushed to the driver's aid until paramedics arrived.

"He was full of blood," claimed the Good Samaritan, who said the man was clutching a 'wheel brace'.

"He had been slashed to his face and was holding his stomach."

ChronicleLive understands the man's injuries, which are not life-threatening, are not thought to be consistent with a stabbing.

However officers were seen carrying out door-to-door enquiries on Wednesday morning as it probed what Inspector Judith Scott called a "vicious assault".

“We will take robust action against those found to be involved and a team of detectives are now carrying out an investigation to locate those responsible," she said.

https://bit.ly/2IPhDAc
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NEW YORK

A policy change by Lyft has enraged Uber and could increase congestion by shifting cars from the outer boroughs to Manhattan.

Starting June 27, Lyft drivers will not be able to get onto the company's app if they are cruising where few people are demanding rides. Instead, they will have to wait until demand picks up, or drive to a busier neighborhood—Midtown, for example, or Downtown Brooklyn.

Drivers will have to keep looking for busy areas throughout the day, or risk getting thrown off the app until demand increases.

Some Lyft drivers will be exempt—the ones who accept 90% or more ride requests and have completed at least 100 rides in the previous 30 days. Insiders say that is likely to be a small portion of them.

The policy is Lyft's reaction to new minimum-wage rules that it unsuccessfully challenged in court—and which it says benefit Uber.

The new payment formula looks at how much of the time a driver cruises with an empty car. The more cruising a driver does, the more fare revenue the app-based company needs to share to ensure the driver makes at least $17 an hour after expenses.

App-based services with a high "utilization rate"—meaning their drivers are ferrying passengers nearly 60% of the time—can contribute less to the driver's pay. To reduce congestion in Midtown the Taxi and Limousine Commission wants fewer empty cars.

Both Lyft and Juno have argued that Uber, which has more users than its competitors, will need to chip in the least to make their drivers whole. The TLC has been using an industry-wide utilization rate but in February 2020 will begin using company-specific rates. Lyft is acting now because the agency will calculate next year’s rates over a six-month period that starts July 1.

By keeping drivers off its app when demand is low, Lyft will boost its utilization rate. It could also hurt Uber's, as drivers switch to Uber's app, flooding its platform with available cars.

It is possible that demand could pull traffic out of Manhattan: A recently released TLC study found that for-hire vehicles' utilization rates in Brooklyn and the Bronx in June 2018 were higher than in Manhattan’s core. But Lyft has argued that the city's formula incentivizes drivers to pursue short, low-speed trips—the kind that are typical in the central business district—rather than the longer, faster trips common in the rest of the city.

Lyft emailed its drivers today about the change and put up a blog post with suggestions for working with the rules.

"Because of the TLC regulations, we're making changes to the Lyft app which will limit the number of drivers who can log on when there isn't a high demand for rides," a spokesman said in a statement. "This means some drivers may have to wait to drive or may not be able to drive at all. We believe these new rules are misguided, but are working diligently to support drivers during this change."

Uber sees Lyft's move as a slap to the face.

"Once drivers are kicked off of the Lyft app, they will immediately log on to Uber, significantly increasing the vehicles on our platform without taking a car off the road," an Uber spokeswoman said in a statement. "We will continue working to ensure that we can provide sustainable earning opportunities for drivers and affordable trips for riders."

The Independent Drivers Guild, which represents app-based drivers and gets funding from Uber, said Lyft was ignoring the city's requirement that the payment formula take into account the time a driver spends "waiting for a dispatch and then traveling" to pick up passengers.

"This is Lyft trying to avoid paying drivers for all of their time on the app as required in New York City—and city leaders cannot allow it," a guild spokeswoman said in a statement. "By forcing drivers to log off the app and drive to a new location before they can get back on, they are shifting the costs for those miles and minutes back on to drivers in violation of city rules."

https://bit.ly/2KFzLPh