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[email protected] · April 17th 17, 11:02 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 2017-04-17 06:51:56 +0000, Roland Perry said:

Just seen proposals from my District Council to reform the rules,
which are in response to *local* considerations, including:

Enhancing the existing dress code.

I would consider that a commercial matter for the operator and not
something a local authority should be getting involved in for private
hire.

DBS check annually rather than every three years.

A pointless and expensive waste of time. Can't they just use the
update service, which essentially gives a continuous check at a far
lower cost?

An interesting point. Is that a case of the council not catching up with the
changes from the previous system when DBS started?

Driver medicals every three years. (The current system asks for a
medical on application then nothing until the age of 45. Then every
five years until the age of 65 when it switches to annual medicals.)

People don't get sick in Cambridge more than elsewhere. That is not
a local consideration at all.

Roland is referring to East Cambridgeshire, not Cambridge.

Allowing novelty vehicles like fire engines, army vehicles and tuk
tuk rickshaws to register. [This appears to reverse a decision in
2008 that all taxis should be painted a standard colour, for easy
recognition, and has certain tensions with the dress code - surely
a novelty vehicle would really need a novelty uniform]

That's a niche case, really. Recognition of a private hire vehicle
has become moot, because almost everyone will be informed in some way
of the registration number of their allocated vehicle prior to its
arrival. Only if you telephone for one using a landline would this
not occur, which is heading dangerously towards the proverbial goats
these days.

In Cambridge there are other issues, like admission to restricted city
centre areas. So probably not an issue in East Cambs.

--
Colin Rosenstiel