Response to JNugent
Mark McNeill wrote:
Response to JNugent

What you seem to suggest *would be* "changing the rules". Taxis are
operating according the "the rules" as they have been since at least
as far back as the nineteenth century.


That reminds me - I was surprised, given your interest in the subject
(based AFAICT both on intellectual curiosity and on an amount of BEER
which depended on the answer) that you didn't respond to my post re cab
law a few days ago. Did you miss it?

I must have done.

Still have it?


Sure, it's Message-ID:

and here it is -



What's next, taxi drivers required to keep a bale of hay in the back?

That one went in 1976...

Did it?

That's interesting.

The only taxi-related legislation passed that year was the Local
Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. It did not purport to
revoke, repeal or replace either the Town & Police Clauses Act 1847
(which operates in E&W outside London) or any of the various London
Cab Acts - or any of their provisions. Both the T&P Act and the London
Cab Acts are still in force.

So which Act compelled cab-drivers (until 1976, there was never any
mention of "taxi" drivers in national legislation) to carry hay?

I really want to know this (many pints may depend on it) - and which
provision it was that you say repealed it.


Twenty seconds or so of googling found the website of the Law
Commission: -

QUOTE
An enduring misconception about hackney carriages is that the driver
must keep a bale of hay in the boot to feed the (nowadays) non-
existent horse. This misconception probably comes about because of
section 51 of the London Hackney Carriage Act 1831 which made it an
offence, punishable by a 20 shilling fine, for the owner or driver of
a hackney carriage (or any one else) to:

"feed the horses of or belonging to any hackney carriage in any street,
road or common passage, save only with corn out of a bag, or with hay
which he shall hold or deliver with his hands".

This offence was repealed by the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1976. As a
result any taxi driver who travels around accompanied by a bale of hay
does so purely for his own amusement and not in compliance with any
legal requirement.
ENDQUOTE

www.lawcom.gov.uk/docs/legal_oddities.pdf



--
Mark, UK
"I do not know, dear reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they
may be, you must concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine-tenths
of mankind are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of
course, those which you do not hold."