On Feb 21, 7:58*pm, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:40:37 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:
Is there any possible truth to his assertion about insurance, or was this
a barefaced attempt at a scam?

The latter, I'd think. *Not unusual in the taxi industry, IMX.

Taxi fares may well include an extra sum for an extra passenger, but
normally this is a small amount, and has nothing whatsoever to do with
insurance - the driver is licenced and insured to carry the number of
people stated on their plate.

London minicabs don't have these plates - instead (if they're
licensed) they display a diamond-in-circle licence in the front
windscreen and back window as can be seen he

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/resources/corp...le-licence.jpg
or via http://tinyurl.com/TfL-Private-Hire-licence

The licence stickers do show how many passengers the vehicle is
permitted to carry, but the text of that is rather small - though to
be fair, it's normally pretty obvious how many passengers are allowed,
as it's the number of seats!

Additionally many minicabs will also have a more obvious TfL "Private
Hire" roundel (grey with blue bar) on display too, which allows them
to pick up and set down passengers on red routes - this is shown in
diagrammatic form on this TfL webpage (can't immediately find a photo
on the web):

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/businessandpar..._fix_the_signs
or via http://tinyurl.com/TfL-PHV-red-route-sticker