On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 02:03:30PM -0000, Basil Jet wrote:

Taxis need to be hailable on red routes - without that, London would become,
in tourists' eyes, the only city in the world where the taxis would always
sail past and never pick you up. The huge number of one-way roads and banned
turns mean that a taxi pulling around a corner from a red route to pick
someone up might be putting the fare up by a fiver - it would significantly
reducing the capacity of the fleet to carry people home at busy times. Taxis
setting down on red routes is harder to justify.

Surely it can be justified on exactly the same grounds - without that,
London would become, in tourists' eyes, the only city in the world where
when you tell a taxi driver to take you to the Hotel De Posh he drops
you a hundred metres down the road for no good reason.

Since minicabs are only supposed to perform pre-booked journeys, I see
little justification for allowing them to pick up on red routes

because people want to be picked up from the Hotel De Posh, perhaps?

because
finding the right person, checking they are the right person and
reprogramming the satnav takes so much longer than someone hailing a taxi,
saying where they are going and zooming away.

Not really. Whenever I use a minicab it takes no time at all for the
driver to find me and verify that I'm the right person. *He* doesn't
have to find *me*, *I* find *him*, by looking at all the approaching
vehicles and finding the one that looks like the vehicle the dispatcher
described to me over the phone. He verifies that I'm the right guy by
asking "Mr Cantrell?", and I say "yes". As for programming the satnav -
surely he would have done that before setting off. It's true that the
satnav I had a few years ago couldn't handle trips with multiple stops,
but modern ones can. And for an awful lot of trips, they won't need to
use it anyway.

--
David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive

Compromise: n: lowering my standards so you can meet them

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 11:28:52AM -0800, Mizter T wrote:

I was thinking that the suggestion was perhaps to give both Taxi *and*
minicab drivers the ability to take payment by Oyster PAYG

They won't like that - think of the tips, most of which are "keep the
change" as opposed to "hmm, the bill's GBP7.40, so add 10% and make it
GBP8.14 my good man".

And there's nothing "shifty" about minicab drivers. Not, at least, if
you use a minicab instead of a random stranger touting for business on
the street illegally. If a minicab driver rips you off on your Oyster
card, well, you and TfL will know who it was, or at least which company
it was, and they'll be strongly incentivised not to do that.

--
David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice

Perl: the only language that makes Welsh look acceptable

In article , (Mike
Hughes) wrote:

This does seem to be more prevalent
outside London as getting a badge doesn't take 3 years and isn't
valued by the drivers as much.

Funny you say that. I got a Black Cab from Kings Cross to Waterloo a while back. HE
seemed to think that the fastest route was down past Farringdon, onto the
embankment, across Westminster Bridge and double back to Waterloo. The meter went
near £20. He claimed he went this way due to shoppers on Holborn (on a Sunday
evening).

When I told him that the shortest route was something else entirely, and it went no
more than £10 on the meter, he didn't bother asking for my name and address, or a
tip on the two fivers I handed over.

IME, local cabs seem much less likely to take the ****.

--
Paul Cummins - Always a NetHead
Wasting Bandwidth since 1981

In article ,
(Mike Hughes) wrote:

In message ,
writes

Refusing to use the meter within the Borough boundary is a criminal
offence and should be reported to the police. Take the cab and driver's
badge numbers.

Not strictly true. You can agree a fare *lower* than the maximum
permitted on the fare chart and they would not have to put the
meter on. Having said that how could you prove that the agreed fare
is lower unless you put the meter on?

In practice what happens in the (rare?) cases that such an
agreement is reached most drivers (at least in London) will run the
meter up to the agreed amount then stop it. They will then continue
the journey with the meter not set - all perfectly legal.

(I do this in the early hours of the morning if I get someone who
wants to go to Heathrow at around the same time I want to go home,
offering them a discount off the normal fare. I then stop the meter
and take a print out which records the start time, finish time,
distance travelled and the fare. That is my proof of what was on
the meter?

Some drivers are not so honest. This does seem to be more prevalent
outside London as getting a badge doesn't take 3 years and isn't
valued by the drivers as much.

--
Mike Hughes
A Taxi driver licensed for London and Brighton
at home in Tarring, West Sussex, England
Interested in American trains real and model?
Look here http://mikehughes627.fotopic.net/

All true I'm sure, Mike. I was of course using a shorthand for what you
wrote. :-)

Good to see you back here again.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 1 Mar, 13:44, David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 02:03:30PM -0000, Basil Jet wrote:
Taxis need to be hailable on red routes - without that, London would become,
in tourists' eyes, the only city in the world where the taxis would always
sail past and never pick you up. The huge number of one-way roads and banned
turns mean that a taxi pulling around a corner from a red route to pick
someone up might be putting the fare up by a fiver - it would significantly
reducing the capacity of the fleet to carry people home at busy times. Taxis
setting down on red routes is harder to justify.

Surely it can be justified on exactly the same grounds - without that,
London would become, in tourists' eyes, the only city in the world where
when you tell a taxi driver to take you to the Hotel De Posh he drops
you a hundred metres down the road for no good reason.

Since minicabs are only supposed to perform pre-booked journeys, I see
little justification for allowing them to pick up on red routes

because people want to be picked up from the Hotel De Posh, perhaps?

Last time I used the Hotel de Posh, it had it's own driveway where
they could pull in.

On 1 Mar, 16:57, MIG wrote:
On 1 Mar, 13:44, David Cantrell wrote:





On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 02:03:30PM -0000, Basil Jet wrote:
Taxis need to be hailable on red routes - without that, London would become,
in tourists' eyes, the only city in the world where the taxis would always
sail past and never pick you up. The huge number of one-way roads and banned
turns mean that a taxi pulling around a corner from a red route to pick
someone up might be putting the fare up by a fiver - it would significantly
reducing the capacity of the fleet to carry people home at busy times. Taxis
setting down on red routes is harder to justify.

Surely it can be justified on exactly the same grounds - without that,
London would become, in tourists' eyes, the only city in the world where
when you tell a taxi driver to take you to the Hotel De Posh he drops
you a hundred metres down the road for no good reason.

Since minicabs are only supposed to perform pre-booked journeys, I see
little justification for allowing them to pick up on red routes

because people want to be picked up from the Hotel De Posh, perhaps?

Last time I used the Hotel de Posh, it had it's own driveway where
they could pull in.

The Devil crept in and inserted an apostrophe. I deny all
responsibility.

On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 08:57:47AM -0800, MIG wrote:

Last time I used the Hotel de Posh, it had it's own driveway where
they could pull in.

Many Hotels des Posheaux do, or at least have a designated taxi drop-off
area, but that designated area is the same place that taxis hang around
(perfectly legitimately) to pick people up, so a driver dropping a
passenger may have to stop outside the designated area.

And there's bound to be a few exceptions which don't have anything. And
then there's the eleventy zillion places people want to go to and from
that aren't hotels and certainly don't have a driveway. Restaurants,
for example.

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

The voices said it's a good day to clean my weapons

On Mar 2, 12:40*pm, David Cantrell wrote:

And there's bound to be a few exceptions which don't have anything. *And
then there's the eleventy zillion places people want to go to and from
that aren't hotels and certainly don't have a driveway. *Restaurants,
for example.

Which people might also wish to park their car outside, but they can't
because traffic flow is more important.

If stopping and loading are not permitted, this should be for all
vehicles.

Neil

David Cantrell wrote:

And there's nothing "shifty" about minicab drivers. Not, at least, if
you use a minicab instead of a random stranger touting for business on
the street illegally. If a minicab driver rips you off on your Oyster
card, well, you and TfL will know who it was, or at least which
company it was, and they'll be strongly incentivised not to do that.

Like the way Lewis Day Minicabs were strongly incentivised not to swindle
quarter of a million quid out of the NHS?

--
We are the Strasbourg. Referendum is futile.

On Tue, Mar 02, 2010 at 02:52:01PM -0000, Basil Jet wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:
And there's nothing "shifty" about minicab drivers. Not, at least, if
you use a minicab instead of a random stranger touting for business on
the street illegally. If a minicab driver rips you off on your Oyster
card, well, you and TfL will know who it was, or at least which
company it was, and they'll be strongly incentivised not to do that.
Like the way Lewis Day Minicabs were strongly incentivised not to swindle
quarter of a million quid out of the NHS?

It would, obviously, rely on people bothering to complain, and having a
personal incentive to chase TfL if they don't sort it out pronto.

And in any case, Lewis Day did get caught, and didn't they have to pay
the money back, with interest?

--
David Cantrell | even more awesome than a panda-fur coat

engineer: n. one who, regardless of how much effort he puts in
to a job, will never satisfy either the suits or the scientists