Exclusive, Breaking news.

It seems that the second summit held at Woodfield Road has proved extremely fruitful, after complaints were made by the trade that absolutely no action had been taken after the first summit.

Messages have been put out on Com Cab today that the clubs where clipboard men were seen to be touting on the LTDA’s commissioned DVD, will have there operators license revoked.

TfL has given assurances that action is to be taken against the Private hire cars currently touting outside clubs and bars. Westminster council have also given assurances that they will finally start to enforce parking restriction were mini cabs have been seen ranking illegally. It is also hoped that new ranks will now start to appear outside these late night venues.

From all accounts it looks like the action the drivers have been taking has started to make a real difference.

There will now follow a rush of Association chairmen to claim responsibility for these results. They will be putting out special editions of their trade papers claiming its all down to them. Its even rumoured that Bob Crow will be out amongst the drivers Friday night.

But let’s not forget where the praise should be going, to all the drivers who have put themselves out joining the ranks, taking back the work at night from the scabs.

Taxi Wars. Episode 1v, A new Hope.

In a Galaxy not so far away, parked outside the night club Nobu, Addis Onloo, counted his euro credits. If this rebellion isn't put down soon with the help of the troopers from TOCU, I'll be back on the bun house road come Mayday.
" How much to Russel Square John?".
" Its a minimum of 20 credits squire".
"Nah, Its all right, there's a wooky in that black cab behind you, I'll take him".

Wednesday night and things are just starting to hot up. Reports in so far show cabs ranking at Nobu, Smithfield market,and now a new contender Cipriani's.

The Anderson Shelter undercover snout "mini cab mick" has told us the reason why the video cameras have been put into action is, they want to catch drivers taking Photos/videoing while driving. So make sure that if you film the scabs make sure your stationary or out of the cab.

Breaking news
10pm. Cabs arriving at Smithfeild.
10.05. The Sanderson Hotel is now on the hit list as Licensed taxi rank up outside.
10.30. Cabs starting to arrive at the Brewery due to burst soon.
10.40. Looks like someones moved the cones at Zuma.
11.00. Work at the Brewery no cabs.
12.59. Started to get nasty at Shoreditch House Ebor Street E1.
01.20. police called in to Shoreditch House as trouble erupts.
01.45. mini cabs block the road off at Soho house, making it impassable
No updates coming in from the west end must be a bit busier tonight.
02.10. Taxis that had managed to rank at Shoreditch house have been blocked in by the scabs.
03.30. Dave signs off with the observation "there were less scabs around at Nobu and Zuma".
Was told tonight that a new club is opening close to Funky Buddha. A rank is definitely needed here. Could turn out to be one of the best moving ranks in London.

Updates thanks to Peter and Dave by twitter fox
Live updates to end tonight as I have to work now to make up for all the time I've had off.

They really haven't got a clue what to do, about the situation THEY have created....

Keeping up the good work....by Thomas the Taxi

If anyone had any doubt, whether we could keep up this pressure, their fears were answered last night. While Dial a cab led from the front again, for the first time, live updates were posted on the Anderson Shelter and with the help of the “Twitter” micro blogging application, we attacked them where it hurts the most, their wallets. Thousands of jobs are being taken back nightly.

The first updates started to arrive from our man at the scene around 9.30pm when it was reported that taxis had started to rank outside Nobu. After a while it became clear that the London taxi trade had united once again. Taxis started to form ranks outside most clubs and bars.

It appears this policy is working and they have no idea how to counter the action we are taking. Door staff have been heard screaming down their mobiles requesting help from (can you believe it) the police.
Clipboard men are finally writing on their clipboards, scribbling down Taxi registration numbers and waving their arms a lot.
For years the scabs have been allowed to escalate like a virus. Using simple mobile technology, through hand held palm top PDA’s and even just mobile phones, they received vital information from doormen, who make it uncomfortable for Taxi drivers wishing to legally rank outside their premises. Now we have attacked them with a better, more up to date technology, a better cheaper service and they don’t like it.

We have won the first battle but the war is not over. Soon they will receive help from the police, traffic wardens, Westminster’s video cars and even the PCO.
But we must not be disheartened. As long as we stick together and keep up the pressure, victory could soon be ours. We have the law on our side and the only way we can be defeated us now, is if they actually changed the law.

It wasn’t all good news.
There was a bit of a do at the Brewery tonight and at chucking out time, the police arrived, moved the licensed taxis on and generally assisted the mini cabs to illegally tout. Could be a good place for Bob Oddy to win back some kudos with the membership of the LTDA, by actually doing something positive. Or it could be a great place for the RMT to show their first hand.



Photo credit Cabby Dave.

Photo 1. The OXO Tower, Looks like touts are making their own video, should be interesting.
Photo 2. Bedoun, taxis right back to Farringdon.
Photo 3. Nobu Just Taxis, no touts.

Touts up for it, at the OXO tower.....by Dave

Reports started to come in to the Anderson Shelter at around 9.45pm tonight via twitter from Cabby Dave, that the touts were gathering for a confrontation at the OXO tower restaurant. But it turned out one of their number had bought his camcorder to work and was trying to intimidate the Licensed drivers by walking around like an idiot and videoing them.
While at 10.30, at Nobu it looks like the touts have lost heart. This evening, it looks like a complete victory for Dial-a-cab drivers.
Stay tuned for more updates from our man at the scene!

Breaking news as it happens
11.45pm The troops are gathering ready to attack the brewery.
Apparently just after midnight, Cabs moved on by the police at the brewery. The clipboard man at Bedoun is taking the number of all the Taxis ranked up out side.
I always wondered what the clipboard was for and now we know.
Police turn up at Nobu but after a stand of with a DAC driver they left.

Twitter updates from the scene are proving a great new tool in our fightback.
1.30am and Funky buddha doorman demanded that warden do something. How about he walks to the Haymarket and tickets all the mini cabs outside Tiger Tiger, parked in a 24 hour bus lane.




Our friends across the pond in the States, are
also having a rough time. Can you imagine how
they feel, at the international terminals, watching
the passengers coming out wearing face masks.
Would you pick them up?

The Anderson shelter would like to thank Cabby Dave and the Cabbiescapital for there updates.
Without your help, tonight would have gone unreported.

And now, for something completely different!......by Thomas the Taxi.

Fed up with all the moaning, fed up with all the politics, just want to sit back and be entertained,

then watch the Vegascabbie show.

This is a web site that has been put together by a brilliant Cabby from Las Vegas Nevada. So if you've had enough of the angry cabby and just want to chill out with something a little different, just click on the link below.
Why not e-mail him after and let him know what you think of his work.
You can let him know what you think of Las Vegas Cabbies, he's a big guy he can take it.
Be warned though contains adult content

Click Here

Visit his blog at http://vegascabbie.typepad.com/


Not finished yet!
There's more to this guy than first meets the eye.
Read Rick's amazing story
losing_weight
...............................................................................................................................................

Why are they not listening?......By Thomas The Taxi

On Friday the 29 of June 2007, two car bombs laden with propane gas canister, six inch nails and thousands of ball bearings, were left in London's West End. One car, a green Mercedes, was left for hours in a line of illegally parked private hire cars, outside the bar Tiger Tiger. The other was left at the bottom of the Haymarket, intended to catch people fleeing from the initial explosion. By the grace of God and the incompetence of the terrorists, the bombs failed to detonate. Within hours of this heinous attack on the night bars customers, illegal private hire operations were allowed, by the Metropolitan police, TfL/London buses and Westminster Council traffic wardens, to continue as if nothing had ever happened.

Next time will we be so lucky and who will be to blame?



.............................................................................

Least we forget..............by Thomas The Taxi.

John Kennedy contacted me today and asked me to put a post on both our sites as he felt so strong about this issue. The strange thing was as I received the e-mail, I was already half way through my own contribution to this story.

Never in all my years have I ever been so ashamed of my own government.

The treatment recently handed out to that great regiment of Gurkhas I think is inhumane, callous and quite frankly brutal.

This unit has fought alongside British and common wealth troops for many years, indeed 45,000 have made the ultimate sacrifice and laid down their lives for King, Queen and Country, with many of their number receiving our highest awards for bravery.

The condition that this Labour government has place on these people being given residence in the country they have fought and died to defend, is atrocious and frankly unacceptable. They have been told that they can only be given residence if they have served for 20 years. As enlisted soldiers only serve for fifteen years, it would only apply to officers who serve for twenty. Why would the government put this restriction on the Gurkhas when other commonwealth soldiers only have to serve for 4 years to be eligible.

This is nothing more than a form of racial discrimination.

It is not the British people that have called for this measure, it is the Labour government. The same Labour government that has opened the flood gates and welcomed with open arms, every criminal and unsavoury character thrown out by their own country across Europe.

Joanna Lumley who’s father was an officer in the Gurkhas in the second world war is leading this campaign and deserves our collective support. We at the Anderson Shelter would urge you, if you haven’t already, to sign the online petition at www.gurkhajustice.org.uk it only takes a minute or two.

once this is done, let us all go one further and contact our MP’s and demand change from the very people who run this country on our behalf. Let the politicians of all parties know, that you can’t treat members of the armed services in such a shoddy fashion. The Gurkhas deserve the right of the abode here in the UK; let them exercise that right here on our soil for you, yes you were very quick at sending them aboard to liberate the soil of countries in trouble.

Its back..........Carry on Complaining, with the LTCPR

After years of inaction from their leaders London's licensed taxi driver, on their own backs, have started taking back the work that has for so long been stolen from them.
Monday night saw the start of the revolution when a Dial-A-Cab driver was asked to move from outside Nobu in Berkley Street W1, so that their mini cabs could rank up outside.
With the help of the dispatchers the driver soon had the street full of Taxis.
Night after night we have seen the action escalate as more and more venues are targeted. Drivers are seeing a substantial saving in diesel, instead of ridding round empty they just wait a few minuets on a rank.
We have taking this new found fighting spirit as an opportunity to bring back the popular Carry on Complaining campaign.
Please join in, it only take a couple of minuets and I promise you will feel better as a result of helping you fellow drivers to save our trade.
Just Click Here

Happy Birthday George.

Happy birthday Great Granddad,Granddad and Uncle, three generations of George Sharwoods on my mothers side.

.

And a special Happy St Georges day goes to Stephen Fry who once again has chosen to buy a London Taxi, this time the new model TX4.
"Where to Guv!"

Protest to be held at City Hall 24th June 2009.... by Thomas the Taxi

We've had the “enough is enough” drive in, where 8000 disgruntled taxi drivers bought London to a stand still for a couple of hours. Other than that, it had little or no effect on the PCO/TfL or the local councils regarding the problem the trade faces with private hire drivers touting and forming illegal ranks at night.

We then saw the “United front summit” at taxi house. A secret meeting, where all the top brass from TFL, the PCO and the Metropolitan Police met with our major trade representatives and were shown a DVD incriminating most of the London night venues clipboard men, where touting has now got out of hand.Sound bites from our man on the board of TfL, Bob Oddy, have since filled the Taxi Media.
“This should all be cleared up within a month” he said.

Well guess what?The month is up and it is just as bad out there at night as ever before. Are we surprised, I don’t think so. The problem has now escalated on to the day man’s shift with private hire booking desks and satellite offices springing up in some of London’s largest and most prestigious hotels.

The next meeting of the board of transport for London will be at City Hall on the 24th of June 2009.

It is our intention to picket this meeting from 9.00 am and seek a meeting with the Mayor of London and his representatives to discuss the issues affecting the London taxi-cab driver. I urge you all to attend on foot and meet outside City Hall where, we shall invite the many media organizations that operate within London. We shall picket this meeting until our concerns are met in full and the board of transport for London listens to the genuine concerns of hardworking self employed taxi-cab drivers.

We ask only for the law to be enforced in a firm but fair fashion. If TfL is unable to manage the London taxi trade in a competent manner then, we shall have no alternative but to seek a divorce from this unelected quango.

We firmly believe that the PCO/TfL has a duty of care to look after the working practices of the licensed Hackney carriage taxi trade and it is evident that at present, this is not the case.Our Demonstration will be led at City Hall by John Kennedy, founder of the Licensed Taxi Cab Public Relations group. We will need about 200 drivers to make this demo successful and it will be open to Licensed Taxi drivers, family and friends. This demo will be a milestone in the relationship between the board of transport for London and the London Cab Trade, the first time we will have picketed TfL directly and if we get no joy, hopefully this will not be the last.

More information will be posted nearer the event.

Dial-a-cab show the way in guerrilla tactics.... By Thomas The Taxi

At the risk of sounding like a Parrot!..."That's the way to do it"

The Anderson Shelter would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the drivers and dispatching staff that took part in the guerrilla style ranking exercise in the early hours of Monday night/ Tuesday morning. This action was a complete success and has shown the rest of the trade that something can be done by the drivers in small groups. We don’t have to bring the whole of London to a standstill, just pick a different venue each night and block in the scabs. It has worked before in the past and it can work again.

The clock is ticking, and time is running out...... by Thomas the Taxi

Everyday, more and more news is surfacing about so called satellite offices. Desks of all shapes and sizes are appearing in most termini, hotels, clubs, pubs and restaurants, offering the services of private hire cars. Passengers are walked passed ranks of licensed taxis by so called marshals or clipboarbmen with the full knowledge of the PCO, TfL and the Police.
Believe it or not, as long as the passengers are not approached by a tout, this situation is, in their opinion, completely legal. However, these clipboarbmen are standing in the street outside virtually every nightclub bar and restaurant, asking departing customers and passers by if they want a “Taxi”

We now have a situation where a private hire company can just turn up at a hotel or bar and negotiate with the management, to steal our work from under our noses.
Why then, do the PCO and TfL repeatedly inform us that nothing illegal is going on, when it is quite clear to us all that there is and the situation is now completely out of hand?

About a month ago, Ed Thompson agreed to be taken on a late at night tour of the hot spots, after receiving complaints from drivers for three years. Apparently this is the first time he has made any attempt to investigate the complaints.
Around the same time top brass from TfL, the PCO, Westminster City Council and the Met Police were shown irrefutable evidence, in the form of a commissioned DVD, that an illegal network of touts are skimming work from venues all over the West End and City.
Apparently this was not news to them as they were shown a DVD of similar content just over a year ago by the LCDC. They did nothing then, so why should we assume they will do something about this situation now.

Why are the authorities turning a blind eye and a death ear to our complaints?
Is there too much money involved...?

This monster has been created by TfL officials, over selling licenses with no proper check or balances on the recipient.
Nearly 60000 licenses have been sold to drivers, some of whom have no intention of becoming mini cab drivers or offering a service. They just want to avoid paying the Congestion Charge. We see pictures on a weekly basis of pick-up trucks and two seated sports cars with green baby on board type stickers, all over the taxi media.

So how did they solve the problem of too many PHV drivers and not enough work to keep them renewing the license fees?

TfL have created work for them, work stolen from us, work we will probably never get back and every week they are stealing more.
With our representative bodies only concerned with the dead line of their trade papers and hoarding the subscription fee's (approx 3 million pounds a year) the future is looking bleak. Why did the LTDA wait three weeks to tell us about the so called “Summit” and DVD and why did the LCDC wait three weeks to tell us about Ed Thompson, How difficult would it have been to publicise their videos and bring out special edition news sheets. Who knew of the LCDC’s DVD, made eight months ago, was it supposed to be secret, for their eyes only?
Why are we constantly being told we have to wait, wait for what?
In the last three years The Anderson Shelter has broken more exclusives, published more information and video footage about this particular problem than forty years of the LTDA. Just one blog, with no financial backing or advertising revenue. They should all be ashamed of their inaction and constant silence.

Since Bob Oddy was given a seat on the board of TfL, we have had no statements or announcement from him about this problem, WHY?

There’s no more we can do in respect of gathering evidence, photos, videos, witness statements or personal tours. Apathy from our leadership has been our biggest adversary and now we are all paying the price. If we do not act soon, it will be too late. The Important date of 2012 is fast approaching and if things stay as they are, we will have disappeared as a trade by then, with just a few stragglers left to amuse the tourists. We could even be outnumbered by the solar powered rickshaw currently being developed in London to appease the greens, with the majority of taxi work being done by private hire vehicles, which will eventually be given the right to ply for hire from ranks and on the street. The radio circuits will adapt by becoming mini cabs circuits, no more than an arm of the private hire trade and we, will have lost everything this trade has worked for since the turn of the century.

So what can we do?

We have to seek a parliamentary review of the private hire act for a start. The morally bankrupt, inept, and uninformed, that make up the management at TFL and the PCO need to be completely replaced as they have been seen to be biased and consistently fail to look after our interests.
We need the support of local council wardens and the police who are currently failing to do the job that we pay them to do. If a license operator is found to be trading illegally then their license as a supplier or just a driver, has to be revoked with immediate effect. Whatever happened to one strike and your out Boris…?

Private hire ranks such as we see out side Tiger Tiger, must be removed immediately and policed properly. Clipboard Johnnies have to be outlawed. These issues must be dealt with now, not tomorrow or next week but now.
But most of all, the other 60% of drivers who don't belong to any association or union, need to join up on mass now and start a revolution for these organisations to unite.
If the leaders fail to look after our interests, then they must be swept aside and replaced as soon as possible. We don’t have the time left for ego’s and empire builders, we need unity and we need it now.

The clock is ticking, and time is running out...

This article was taken from on line publication Gizmo Journal.

Solar powered vehicles are something we are already used to. Energy saving technologies is in fashion and it seems to be a very important factor in helping our planet out of the global warming consequences. London based company Solar Lab is in the thick of designing a solar powered rickshaw that can appear in English roads soon. Rickshaw is a famous Indian mode of transport coming with three wheels.

Boris Johnston wants more environmentally friendly vehicles in London and has pledged to support the introduction of more electric vehicles. Could this be the reason behind the apparent demise of the London Taxi trade. Environmentally unfriendly diesel engine taxis replaced on short trips by Solar powered Rickshaws and for longer trips, hybrid cars.

Deconstructing London…...by Thomas the Taxi.

Maybe its because I'm a Londoner
All my life these few words from the old cockney song, hit my heart like the hand of a Texan hearing the word “Texas”.

But now, everything is different, every thing has changed and there doesn’t seem to be a thing I can do about it.

I loved working days in the 70’s. I would do a few hours in the morning then take myself off to Camden town for a coffee, walk around the antique shops. Some days I would goto Church Street, Edgware Road, to Alfies antique market and generally chill out for a while. If it was a really hot day I would stop off at Hyde Park, swim in the Serpentine and sunbathe for half an hour. Back to work for the next mini shift, a little bit of window shopping down the Kings Road and then at three in the afternoon, on Mondays and Wednesday, meet up with my pal Tony for a game of tennis in Queens Park.

Rain, no problem off to the pictures for the afternoon. If it had been a quiet day and as I lived in the heart on Central London, I would pop out after tea for an hour or so, while Chris got the kids ready for bed. Later I would park the cab and pop into the pub for a couple before retiring for the night.

Some days the traffic was bad, but it didn’t matter because there was always a way around the jam's. Every route had a rat run.

The 70’s were great, the job was fantastic, most people were polite, there was very few mini cabs and life was sweet.

So what’s changed?

Now you go to work and unless you put on a rank you can’t stop. Double yellow lines, red routes, box junctions, no left turns, no right turns, environmental areas, roads blocked off with road works everywhere, no co-ordination, you can’t stop while a passenger gets cash from an ATM, a newspaper or packet of cigarettes. It’s a complete nightmare out there.

When you don’t want to stop, when you just want to keep moving, you come up against traffic signals with phasing that would baffle Einstein. It’s as if the TfL are going out of their way to employ people that have no common sense whatsoever.

The kids are different now. After years of American imported TV and X rated computer gaming, the youths have become violent, belligerent, rude and undisciplined, with some living in the dark world of a drug induced gang culture. Knife crime is rampant and gun crime is expanding rapidly out of control. It is now more dangerous to be a young man in London than a soldier in Afghanistan.

If you have nice stuff like an ipod or laptop you have to be extra careful where you go or lose it to a thug crack head. No one has time for people any more, no one queues. Try pulling out of a side street in to a busy road, you could wait all day.

When passengers ask why it is that cabby’s don’t indicate I tell them “you can’t let other drivers know what you want to do, otherwise they will do their best to obstruct you”. Just try indicating before changing lanes on Park Lane and watch the drivers speed up to stop you.

Now we have CCTV in virtually every street. Is it being used to help combat crime or to penalise ordinary drivers? Has crime stopped on these streets? No not at all. Do you get unfair penalty tickets from unsympathetic council camera operators? You bet your bottom dollar you do.

Parking tickets, speeding tickets, average speed cameras, wardens in smart cars that follow you and wait for you to make the slightest mistake. Depressing? Why do we keep going?

Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner, a cabby, a green badge, that’s why I love London Town.

But for how much longer?

A sad day for the R's.......by Thomasthetaxi

I was saddened to hear of the death of former Queens Park Rangers captain Mike Keen, who skippered the R's to their 1967 League Cup Final victory against West Bromwich Albion.
Mike died on Saturday evening following a short illness.
He was 69 years-old, made 393 appearances for the R's, scoring 39 goals.
As a mark of respect, QPR players will be wearing black
armbands at tomorrow's home fixture against Sheffield Wednesday.

Former Queens Park Rangers goalkeeper Ron Springett told of his sadness to hear of the death of League Cup winning captain Mike Keen.
Speaking to Ben Kosky at the Kilburn Times, the former Rangers stopper revealed that the news was broken to him by cup winning winger Mark Lazarus.
He said: 'I last saw him about a year ago and I was certainly shocked when Mark rang me up and told me the news.
''Mike was a bit shy, but on the field he was a different character, he was like two different people. He was a very good captain, always looking out for me and calling 'yours, Ron!"
The team spirit was tremendous when we went up - our manager, Alec Stock, was a father figure and no-one could take liberties with him. He demanded 100 per cent on the field and he got that from Mike.'Ron and Mike were part of the team that finally achieved promotion from Division Two with Ron`s brother Peter keeping goal in the infamous 1967 cup final in which Keen lifted Rangers only major trophy.

Undercover story.... by Thomas The Taxi.

By now most of you will have viewed the video, ( http://www.ltda.co.uk/video/)
put together by a team of undercover private detectives, employed by the LTDA. It clearly shows that the clipboard Johnnies have been openly touting, a practise that we knew went on, but TfL and the PCO's spoke's persons has been defending for years.

There's no denying this behavior now the evidence is unquestionable, they have been caught bang to rights.
As an amateur undercover film maker myself, I can appreciate just how important the content of this film is. Having tried for a long time to get similar footage with inferior equipment, I became recognisable to the touts who, would stop touting as soon as they noticed my cab. Some times they would approach and joke with me but other times I have been attacked.

The question's now need to be asked;
Why has it taken almost three years... for the only organisation with large enough resources, to commission a video of this nature?
Even if, they are only concerned with their 8,000 member's, surely the subscribers have been complaining to their board members about this situation.
Have their complaints fell on death ears for all this time?
Why now have they suddenly started to sit up and take notice?

The video was shown on the 26th of March, to the heads of the PCO, TOCU enforcement squad (cab section), Westminster city council, senior officers from TFL, in the presence of The LCDC and Unite representatives.
Now over two weeks later we have seen absolutely no action whatsoever.
Bob Oddy has said that the actions of the clipboard Johnnie could be eradicated within a month, so we now have to wait another two weeks.

Then what?

Back to the Email campaigns, out with the camera's, NO.

This has got to be the final straw. Our next step has to be a legal challenge and a complete sweeping aside of everyone who have allowed this situation to proliferate, even if that means replacing our own representatives.





..................................................................................................

Com-Cab Lose Harrow Schools Account.
Reports have been received at the Anderson shelter, that Com-Cab has been kicked off one of their biggest accounts, the Harrow Council schools contract.
After the scandal that broke earlier this year about Com-Cab selling account jobs to a private hire company and subsequent loss of the Taxi card scheme this will come as a major blow to hundreds of suburban drivers who depend of this type of work.
A spokes person for Harrow Council said
“the relationship with Com-cab had become increasingly untenable after Com-cab repeatedly bombarded the Council with threatening letters and phone calls over alleged late payments by the Council.”
It’s unusual for a schools contract to be terminated mid-year like this, some would say it is unheard of.
Why would Com-cab belligerently bombard a council for payment?
Is there a cash flow shortage?
Staff at their call centre in Aberdeen have lost their prestigious positions and been redeployed to lower paid Jobs over recent events.
It’s an old saying but very true, “For every action there is a reaction”.
Taxi account work in the suburbs is at an all time low, with the Licensed taxi radio companies selling off jobs to private hire, sometimes for as little as 50p a job!
The time has come for drivers to decide whether they wish to work for a Licensed Taxi radio company or a quasi private hire firm.

PCO must take responsibility for sexual assaults...by Thomas The Taxi

The worst crimes that are committed in London are serious sexual assaults and rapes.
Single females travelling home at night are led to believe that the licensed private hire car they are escorted to by an official looking man with a clip board bearing a license issued by TfL/PCO is safe.
Statements made in the trade press and on the TfL web site, make it clear that this is far too often not the case.

Top chiefs from the carriage office and officers from TfL connected with enforcement, hold up the fact that there are 8 reported incidents a month as if holding up some sort of trophy. This problem should have been eradicated completely, it was one of the main reasons for licensing mini cabs in the first place.

So why are these attacks happening on such a frequent basis?
Perhaps it’s because the PCO/TfL and Westminster City Council have encouraged the public to use these vehicles which illegally park outside every club and bar as if they were Licensed Taxi Cabs sitting on a legal taxi rank.
Perhaps it’s because the PCO/TfL turn a death ear to complaints from the Licensed Taxi trade about these illegal ranks and apparently illegal clipboard Johnnies.
The actions of these touts are constantly being defended time and time again by Luke Howard, who is being used as a spokesperson on behalf of everyone connected with the PCO/TfL who receives a complaint.

By failing to police the illegal ranking that can be seen every night around midnight, these officers of the public carriage office are complicit in these heinous attacks on women.

The worst case scenario is a successful repeat of the two mini cab car bombs incident that happened two years ago outside Tiger Tiger in the Haymarket and at the junction of Pall Mall.
Because these vehicles are being allowed to park in 24 hour bus lanes, on red routs, on double yellow lines, in loading bays and disabled parking bays with no fear of prosecution, they would be a model for future car bombers to base an attack on.

The Licensed Taxi trade is currently losing approximately 2.6 million pounds a week* to these illegal mini cabs with the full knowledge of the Carriage Office. Thats the amount the great train robbers stole from the post office train just over forty years ago and when caught they got thirty years.

Last Friday night the head of the Carriage office went out on a fact finding mission with drivers from the LCDC. The cab trade now waits to see if he is now willing to do something positive about the situation.
He speaks the speak, but will he walk the walk?

But don't hold your breath, after ten days now he has done nothing. No statement, no action. The illegal ranking and touting continues to spread like a virus.

This is the last straw, if nothing is done and pretty quick, then the London Taxi trade will have to call for the removal of these chief officers who currently bury their heads in the sand.

*Amount based on £15 per cab per day

Mary, Mary, quite contrary... by Thomas The Taxi

Relations between London's Taxi Trade and the Licensing authority (the PCO) are at an all time low.
Drivers are furious at the way they are being treated, as if they are the poor relations of the taxi industry. The private hire sector currently experiences leniency in every aspect of conditions of fitness. We have seen the public carriage office bend over backwards to accommodate PHV operators with the set up of stand alone offices in every bar/club, restaurant and now hotel in London and a complete refusal to enforce Hackney carriage laws, by letting PHV drivers rank wherever they like.
The PCO is not alone in its unfairness towards the Licensed Taxi trade, Westminster City Council have been seen to be running a vendetta against drivers. An unprecedented level of PCN's are now being issued to Taxi cabs, an easy target who will pay up promptly perhaps?
Now with the recession starting to bite, more and more drivers are reflecting on the cause of our most recent demise. The same three names keep popping up in all the conversations in the shelters and on the ranks.
The west end and city still seem very busy, the clubs and bars are full, but the work is being syphoned off by so called clipboard johnnies, now a familiar sight everywhere.
After two years of complaining plus a drive-in by 8000 angry drivers the situation still remains. Officers in charge at the PCO/TfL will not even recognise there is a problem. The commissioner for TfL, Peter Hendy said last year, "The trades problems are largely imagined" and " they should get out more and stay out later".
The drivers are now calling for more direct action, but the limp association and union sit on their hands, with our representative on the Board of TfL Bob Oddy, staying completely silent.

The question has to be asked, should these inept, insensitive, unqualified people be running the "Finest Taxi Trade in the World"?

They don't reply in person anymore to complaints. These are bundled up into, what they refer to as "tickets", which are sent on to Luke Howard who in turn gets his PA to deal with them. Seems the new buzz words at Windsor house are "pass the buck".

Anger from drivers is now surfacing in the shelters and on the ranks. Drivers are calling for the removal of the head of the PCO, the LTCPR is calling for a complete divorce from TFL with the PCO run by people connected to the licensed taxi trade who know what they are doing.

The formation of the TOCU squad has proved to be a damp squid, again led by ill informed fast tracked officers, with no knowledge of the Licensed Taxi trade and not much common sense.

Below is a letter published on the LTDF forum from "acabbie" to Mary Dowdye which I think displays the pent up feelings of almost every driver.

Dear Ms. Dowdye,

It has been a week since I sent you an email asking you various questions pertaining to the “satellite offices” that seem to be appearing all over London on an almost nightly basis since you in your infinite wisdom decided to remove the need for an operator to have formal planning consent to open a private hire (minicab) office. I shall take you lack of response as another indicator of the contemptuous way you view my industry; the much revered best Taxi service in the World.

Your action is costing every licensed London Taxi driver a loss of earnings he can ill afford to lose, it is giving the private hire drivers who I see on a nightly basis touting my work away from me carte blanche to do as they please. I reiterate my point in case in wasn't salient enough the first time around that the thieves that are touting outside bars and clubs every night of the week will one day commit a rape or murder which I and many of my colleagues will hold you personally responsible for, and for which you can be assured I will take to every media outlet as I see fit.

The level of incompetence at the Public Carriage Office is currently running very high! You don’t seem to have a grasp on the touting epidemic (which is of your own making) in London, your lack of enforcement with the likes of Addison Lee (the rear wipers, signage) and many other private hire operators shows that you have a one sided approach to enforcement; why is it that Addison Lee get given a “period of time” to rectify their faults but as a licensed London Taxi driver if I have an ashtray missing and get caught by your overzealous enforcement officers my taxi is given a stop notice and my vehicle, along with my potential to earn a living is off the road for 24 hours ?

I remember an email I received from Ed Thompson where he stated he just wanted a level playing field for all concerned, a form of taxi and private hire utopia where we as drivers all get along and wave each other cheerily as we pass each other by! Wake up and smell the coffee for crying out loud! We worked our butts off for 3+ years to earn the right to ply for hire and wear the green badge around our necks. Do you and your fellow incompetents really think we are all going to just get along when we see them being given unfair rights by the people who purport to regulate us and who casually turn a blind eye to all their nefarious activities. I would actually question whether you have the right qualifications to hold the position you do. I know under King Newts (Ken Livingstone) administration there was a high level of cronyism and I wonder if that in itself is the reason why the likes of you and Ed Thompson are still in the positions you hold at the PCO ? One would hope that Boris Johnson and his cohorts eventually wake up and realise that there are a great many of “Kens People” still in high profile positions that seek to do damage to his term in office. After all, the collapse of the London taxi trade and the proliferation of touts on the streets of London would certainly lend itself well to King Newts mayoral attempts in 2012.

I’m interested to know if there is anyone within your corridors of power who A) have ever driven a taxi or worked extensively in the industry and B) Anyone who has a vested interest in the Private hire industry; perhaps a position as director with a leading London private hire firm. I ask this because I can’t see any other reason why you all seem so determined to destroy what is unarguably the best Taxi service in the World but yet seem so keen to protect and encourage a fractured and degenerate private hire industry to flourish.

I openly question your competence to hold the position you do. You have no experience of taxi driving, you have no idea of what it is like seeing your work stolen from you every night of the week with the PCO’s blessing. You cannot possibly know how it feels to be made to purchase a £35,000 vehicle to do ones job legally when someone can practically do the same job illegally but with blatant disregard for the law and I say again with the blessing of the PCO in a vehicle perhaps costing many hundreds of pounds! Only last night outside Jalouse nightclub (Hanover Square, W1: Ask a taxi driver to point it out to you as you no doubt will have difficulty using a map) there was a vehicle parked up touting away to his heart’s content with no rear bumper on his vehicle but it seems that’s fine for you all at the PCO as he has his green “exempt from committing illegal acts” sticker in his front and rear screen. No doubt had the PCO enforcement officers actually bothered to get out of bed at 2am and visit the venue they would have pulled me over for having *ornithological deposits on my roof……….a crime considered far worse than driving passengers without insurance by the PCO.

I shall await a reply, no doubt for speaking my mind and having an opinion I will at some point feel the full wrath of the Public carriage office. My offer remains open to drive you around the City and West End of London to show you directly what we as a trade are being made to suffer every night of the week. I only want to hi-light to you the effect that your actions are having on the livelihood of London Taxi drivers. The ramifications are being felt now and they are going to get magnitudedly worse; the more this stupid “satellite office” fiasco (and I consider illegal) is allowed to continue the more of a foothold the private hire touts will get in various bars, clubs restaurants and hotels around the City the less work we as Taxi drivers will have and the more protests and demonstrations you will have on your hands, no doubt some drivers may even be pushed to suicide because of mounting bills, falling income! Again, I hope you sleep well at night.

One last point, you may well be considering to tell me to go and become a Private hire driver if my job as a cabbie is so bad. Guess what ? not on your life! I, unlike many at the PCO (yourself included it seems) have a pride in my job and in doing the knowledge and a level of professionalism that would never allow me to lower my standards. I am and shall always remain a member of the best Taxi service in the world. I am proud to be a cabbie and all it stands for and no amount of paper shuffling or pen pushing will change that fact. We may well become a throwback to a bygone age if people like yourself have anything to do with it but my badge and bill will always count for something which seems to becoming increasingly rare in 21st Century London’s transport infrastructure and at the PCO……….INTEGRITY.

Once again I sign off for now as yours and London’s ever faithful servant.

acabbie

..................................................................

Mary Dowdye decided not to answer this letter personally and past it over, like all the other TfL/PCO officers, to the company spokesperson Luke Howard, to reply.

Next time the Carriage office writes to you get someone else to answer it for you, the milkman perhaps, see how they like it.

Mob stop google street view

Form an article on marketingpilgrim.com

No, this power-to-the-people headline isn’t a belated April Fools’ joke.
A Buckinghamshire neighborhood barred a Google Street View car from photographing its homes and streets w ith an impromptu mob.
The Times reports that after a string of robberies recently, residents had been on the watch for suspicious vehicles. Unsurprisingly, a car with a sphere of cameras mounted on its roof fit that bill.
Resident Paul Jacobs first saw the car. Jacobs went door to door alerting his neighbors, who gathered in the road. They blocked the Google car from passing and called the police. Eventually the driver turned around and left. Jacobs told the Times:
My immediate reaction was anger; how dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent? I ran outside to flag the car down and told the driver he was not only invading our privacy but also facilitating crime.
Personally, I had no idea Google was so powerful. I mean, I’ve seen The Googling, but apparently Google just considering taking photos of a neighborhood makes burglars target it. Because guess what? That crime wave they claim Google was “facilitating” took place without any help from Street View.
Naturally, UK law is quite different to US law in the area of privacy. In the US, it’s well established that anyone can take a picture of your home without your consent (as long as they’re standing on public property to do so). Indeed, it’s only by actually entering your property that an action may be considered an invasion of privacy, and actionable by law.
The UK subscribes to the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 8: “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.” However, I’m willing to bet that “his home” doesn’t mean that we all have to pluck out our eyes if we walk down the street. If you can see it from the street, it may not be considered “private.”
To make things even more complex, there is no UK law legislating a right to privacy. Even in the US the “right to privacy” emanates from a penumbra from other rights guaranteed by the Constitution. However, the UK doesn’t even have that. According to Wikipedia, “An action may be brought under another tort and privacy must then be considered under EC law. In the UK, it is sometimes a defense that disclosure of private information was in the public interest.”
I’m not going to opine whether an image the exterior of one’s house is in the public interest (though, apparently, the details of the Beckhams’ marriage are…). But the fact of the matter remains: if you want real privacy, plant a hedgerow.

Westminster council issue illegal PCN's....now theres a suprise...

Story taken from the Daily Mail.
The security operation at this week's G20 summit was thrown into chaos last night when it emerged that the entire network of central London's wireless CCTV cameras will have to be turned off because of a legal ruling.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has ruled that Westminster council's mobile road cameras - a third of the authority's CCTV network - "do not fully meet the resolution standards required" and must be switched off by midnight tomorrow.

The blackout begins on the eve of the summit, when world leaders arrive in the capital and protesters take to the streets.

The council only discovered last week that images from its newly installed £15m traffic cameras do not meet the quality required under the Traffic Management Act, which comes into force on 1 April.

Under the legislation, traffic cameras must be capable of recording at 720 x 576 pixels, an analogue broadcast standard.

Westminster's wireless network of road cameras, introduced last year, is the only fully digital traffic enforcement system operating in the UK, and is regarded as one of the most advanced in the world. But its picture quality is only 704 x 576 pixels. The DfT's enforcement branch, the Vehicle Certification Agency, has ruled it does not comply with the law.

Does this mean that all the PCN's issued with these new cameras are now and always have been illegally issued and if so will the council be refunding these penalty tickets. After all ignorance is no excuse in the eye of the law.

DfT lawyers were last night frantically exploring a way to exempt Westminster from the legislation. A department statement said: "To ensure local authorities have a fair and transparent way of detecting unlawful drivers, any recording device must meet minimum requirements."

Its amazing how the Council throws a wobbly after they have been caught out. These people haven't done their job properly and should be bought to book for wasting the Tax payers money.

The council last night confirmed that - barring an 11th-hour U-turn - it would have to switch off the network tomorrow to comply with the act.

Danny Chalkley, the council's cabinet member for environment and transport, said in a statement: "The DfT's position is ludicrous and stuck in the dark ages.

Whats that old saying Councilor Chalkley "Look before you leap".

"[This] could result in millions of pounds of taxpayers' money being needed to replace the current cameras, all because of a tiny difference in image resolution on the TV screen."

In a case like this the tax payers should be able to recoup their money from the council members responsible. After all was it not this council that pursued Lady Porter for millions of pounds of tax payers money. Or is it another case of one rule for them and one just for us.

For full article click here

April fuel day....what a joke.

Posted by Norfolk Mickey.
How can the government believe, that in the midst of a recession, it is a good idea all round to increase the duty on fuel by 2 pence a liter?

This will have a dramatic effect on the price of all the essential commodities we purchase, on a day to day basis. Virtually everything we buy is delivered by road. Put up the price of fuel and they pass it on to the customer.