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Search forIt's time to clear the streets of these bogus cab drivers
Tuesday, November 18, 2008, 08:00
I believe this would be the right opportunity to rid our streets of the bogus and unsafe vehicles plying for taxi hire.
Back in 2004/5, after the Press had recorded several rape cases and assaults on young vulnerable women who had summoned lifts from unlicensed bogus taxis, Bristol City Council announced that a new policy of legal identification licensing would be adopted.
This licensing of bona fide taxicabs would be identified by having yellow-painted doors. This identification of safe, roadworthy vehicles would be acceptable to true taxi men, so canceling out those opportunists making money by making unrealistic charges for journeys.
With this licensing, the police could then prosecute those trading illegally.
It should have cancelled out those bogus, unsafe vehicles sporting fictitious licensing hire plates one sees daily, with fake licences tied to vehicles with wire or string, used by many desperate immigrants who now make up a growing number of illegal taxis plying for trade in Bristol on dark nights at weekends.
So why has the council failed to fulfil its stated intended legislation to get bogus taxis off our roads, with the added loss of council licence revenue for the many vehicles to scandalise the taxi trade which presently struggles to survive from our over- subscribed supply of illegal taxis and a downturn of customers' business, while the safe protection of the public has still not been effected?
During the summer, I had need of a lift from the Colston Hall to the middle of Gloucester Road. A charge of £17 was quoted by one such illegal hire. Needless to say, I walked the two miles.
Edmund J Goodland North Somerset
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