Claim's Cabbies Corner. Kill crazy rampage imminent.

[DodgeRover]

The plate was a birthday present five years ago akshully.
The van wipes out any of my profits in repairs. It had £5000 between January March not to mention £280 a month finance.

'kin hell, that's 5 replacement vans to me, each of which I would expect to last several years without major expenditure!

[paulplom]

Aye it's fucking disgusting. The 2010 transit I sold was paid for and 100% reliable for 125k.
This has nearly 47k on it now.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I've never used a cab.. If there are 3 people on the same ride is it just split , or loaded a bit ?

Before I got my PH/Hackney license in 1996, I’d never been in a cab either. All I knew about the job was from the episode of Minder where Terry cabbed an A60 and watching Carry on Cabby as a kid.
Both were surprisingly accurate !

[DodgeRover]

I hoping for some Barbara Windsor type anecdotes now.

[SubPar]

Fair play Warren, doing 21 hours at a time isn't for the faint of heart! Definitely not for me anyway.

Also, you're way cheaper than Aberdeen taxis. I live about 2 miles or so from the centre of town, and the last time I got a taxi home was a good few years ago. I still didn't get much change from a tenner then! They all drive around in E classes and 7 series up here, though. I'm not even joking either!

[Warren t claim]

So what's the future like regarding the setting of a nationwide uniform standard for both drivers and vehicles?

Wirral, my licencing authority, is part of something called Liverpool City Region, an administrative area none of us had heard about until the Bat Flu pandemic.

lcr1.PNG (30.01 KiB) Viewed 2269 times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_City_Region

Recently there's been mutterings about merging all six councils licencing into one, meaning I would have a LCR badge and plate. This would mean agreeing on a set of standards for vehicles and drivers which will be a harder task than you think. The main stumbling block will be the Liverpool Hackney Owners Association. In five out of the six councils acquiring a hack plate just means buying a vehicle that's under three years old that meets regulations but Liverpool is different, hack plates are strictly limited and change hands for £20,000, see ad below.

hacksale1.PNG (466.59 KiB) Viewed 2269 times

https://www.gumtree.com/p/peugeot/taxi- ... 1405442295

It must be said that before Uber came to town, a hack plate would fetch £45,000 so the Liverpool hack owners are already pretty pissed off as this would make their plates virtually worthless. Also, it would mean hacks from all over the LCR converging on their honey pot of the city centre and stealing their piss take cherry picking quotes on jobs over six miles.

I suppose the question should be whether a merger would be good for passengers. At face value, you'd be inclined to think it is but if we delve a little deeper we'll see that maybe that isn't the case. I'm going to use Uber as an example. Uber has operators licences for all six boroughs. Quite often when I've picked up punters who've had to wait an hour for a taxi they whinge at me saying that they wish Uber worked properly on Wirral. As a driver who not only works for a Wirral firm but also is registered on the Uber platform, I tell them the truth. When Ubering, I'll log on in Wirral, get a few jobs bouncing around the borough, get a job taking me to Liverpool, and then spend my shift bouncing around the LCR area. I may not get a job taking me back through the tunnel for many hours.

This is exactly why merging taxi licencing may not work. All the hacks and local PH firms will be fighting over the city work and leaving the suburbs struggling to get covered.

Even London hacks don't work like that. Many London hack drivers have only a yellow badge allowing them to ply for hire in certain zones with only the green badge holders, who've taken three years out to study for "The Knowledge" able to work all of London.

Another thing to consider is that there are areas of LCR that run a mixed fleet policy for hackneys, this means that Sefton Council will plate a Mondeo as a hack, unlike Liverpool which insists on a purpose built, wheelchair friendly vehicle. You'll never see a Mondeo hack plated and ranked up in the rough areas of Bootle but plenty in Southport and Formby. Would the driver of a Mondeo hack pick up off the streets in Toxteth? Probably not.

[Warren t claim]

I've just read through this thread and realised that I missed out some Frank tales that, according to the likes, you all seem to enjoy.

We were down to maybe eight drivers, and three of them went and got an operator's ticket to start pitching for their own airport work. They had cards printed that they displayed in their cars and it was pretty obvious that whenever we gave them an airport job they were handing out cards to cuff the work. At the time we were pretty competitive on distance jobs and I could see the regular riders not ringing up as often as they used to. It was obvious what was going on so I cornered Frank to complain about the three amigos cuffing quality jobs. Frank's answer was "I can't afford to lose their base rents, find me another three drivers and I'll sack them."

One morning I had a Man Air collection when June, Frank's bit on the side who was operating that day, found a piece of paper with the take out and flight details written in the handwriting of Danny, a driver who lost his badge due to an admin fuck up that Frank felt sorry for and gave him a job operating so he could feed his family. June made the reasonable assumption that Danny had forgot to put it in the book and sent me to pick them up. A fucking bonus as a back to back Man Air is the peppermint cream of jobs!

I rock up to the take out address only to find that they'd just left! Fuck! As I was still having to go and cover the Man Air pick up I wring the neck of my Mondeo up the M56 to see if I can catch the driver who took them. At this time I was thinking that the punter had called two firms and jumped in the first car that arrived, a common problem back then. In fact, it is taxi code that if two firms turn up at the address of a double booker then neither car will take them and woe betide a driver that does!

As I reach Chester Services on the M56 I see a familiar car, one of the three amigos displaying the door signs of their airport transfer company on his doors. I pull in behind and phone the contact number we had for the job. As expected, his passenger picks up their phone and tells me that they're already in the taxi. I politely thank them and continue to the airport to collect my passenger.

During the return journey, I ponder what's happened. Danny has clearly fed a decent job to his mates which really isn't the done thing! Once the passengers have been taken home Evil Warren phones Frank to explain the situation. Frank sounds pretty hurt that a lad who he gave operating hours to just to help him out would do such a trick. Evil Warren just wants blood! Frank summons Danny to the office. Now dear reader, as you've followed this thread and read about the antics of Frank, the Gene Hunt, Life On Mars taxi firm owner I'll let you choose from the following three options to guess what Frank told me to do.

1. I'll sort this out Warren. It was probably just a mistake.
2. This is clearly a disciplinary matter and I'll sack him unless he's got a fucking good excuse.
3. Danny will be here at 10am if you want to come over and give him a slap for feeding his mate's with jobs.

At 9.55 I'm back at the office waiting for my satisfaction. Danny turns up thinking that nothing is wrong only to be greeted by a VERY angry Frank! As the penny has now dropped that he's been caught, Danny makes a run for it only to have his escape route blocked by a seething Evil Warren! Evil Warren grabs him by the throat and chucks him on the sofa in the office. Evil Warren gives Danny a "how dare you!" monologue well worth of St Greta and demands a good reason why he shouldn't have the shit kicked out of him! Danny starts pleading "you'll get your money, you'll get your money" whilst held up against a wall. Evil Warren feels that he's made his pint and lets him go. Danny leaves with his tail between his legs.

I turn around and look at Frank. He's got a smile wider than Katy Price's legs and puts his arm around me saying that he's proud of me for fronting up another driver and not willing to be taken advantage of. This, coupled with the fact that I actually gave a shit about the firm, cemented my position as "heir apparent" to the company.

And what about yours truly and Danny? Well, Danny was also quite old school, spleens vented, no grudges were held and we still chat to each other today as mates. He's got his badge back and is apparently doing quite well. Did I get my £50 airport payment as promised? Well no actually. He was going through a hard time then and no way would I take the bread off his table. Sometime's the principle matters more than the price.

TL:DR

W.T.C x

[Warren t claim]

Anyway, let's talk about one of the three amigos in particular, namely one I shall call New Zealand Warren from now on.

NZ Warren was from one of our colonies and you could say he's a bit of a know it all. His legal advice to another driver about pleading guilty to a traffic offence caused the lad to get a six month totting up ban.

NZ Warren regularly emails the town hall to complain that Frank is doing airport runs without a badge or licence. NZ Warren has a short memory about how he is still allowed a badge himself!

About seven years ago I was summoned to the town hall to answer a complaint that was logged against me by a passenger picked up off our base. I spent a sleepless weekend worrying about what this was about and was pretty much shitting myself when I attended the meeting with the licencing officer at 9am the following Monday. Moving in the circles I do, there's plenty of good reasons to ban me off the road!

I turn up to be greeted by the (now retired) licencing enforcement officer that fancied Ex_Mrs_Claim. Bonus! He ushers me into an interview room and pops the question, "Do you smoke wacky baccy Warren?" Apparently a passenger had heard my name being despatched for a base fare and I left the office in a plume of weed smoke! Now don't get me wrong, I love my drugs, but I've always prided myself on being strictly a Class A man who never smokes weed! Warren NZ though is a prolific pot smoker though and now I understand what's happened now! Yes, they've got the wrong Warren!

Now, I have two options. I could either tell the truth and drop him in it or front this out. I choose the latter and manage to get the benefit of the doubt after a grilling meaning I could walk away. I could've taken the easy option and drop Warren NZ in it but I didn't!

[Warren t claim]

Reading about H_K on our Vile Hatred thread has prompted me to write this.

The problem with H_K is that he's not doing anything illegal and social services are powerless to stop someone in need of help from spending their money foolishly.

To illustrate the point, here's a tale of a customer I sometimes pick up who prompted several firms to call social services about. We call him Mr Subway due to his fondness for that particular take away franchise. Everyday he phones one of the taxi companies to take him on a tour of every Subway on Wirral. In some stores, he'll only buy a cookie or a drink and he's happy to pay waiting time whilst he's in there. He's the only child of the local chimney sweep and was left a nice house once his parents passed away. I don't know how much cash he's got but he spends upwards of £70 a day on taxis visiting as many Subway stores as he can in an hour and a half.

Yes, it's always a bonus when you see his address appear on the screen as your next job, especially as he always calls when it is quiet (early afternoon) but his behaviour has prompted the taxi firms to contact social services concerned about his mental state.

The man himself is probably late 40s to early 50s, quite a large chap, always seems to be a bit on edge but not threatening.

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His house looks well maintained and he's clearly not living like Mr Trebus!

[panhard65]

Does he have a firearms certificate though ? HK has lost the plot and hopefully access to any firearms