In article ,
(Paul Terry) wrote:

*Subject:* Taxi insurance for multiple people?
*From:* Paul Terry
*Date:* Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:31:54 +0000

In message , Roland Perry
writes

In message , at 14:52:11 on
Sat, 20 Feb 2010, Paul Terry remarked:

Nothing to do with insurance - he was more likely referring to
his private hire licence. He'd be in serious trouble if he
picked-up anyone who had not been pre-booked. In the case in
point, where only one passenger had been booked, it would be
necessary to get back to the operator and have the booking
changed to two people.

I've never heard of that before. Is it a London thing?

Yes - London has its own act for private hire vehicles ("The
Private Hire Vehicles (London) Act 1998"). To quote TfL's guidance
for drivers and operators:

"PHV drivers who pick up passengers that have not been booked
through their PHV operators are plying for hire and are therefore
committing the offence of touting for which they may be prosecuted
and their PHV driver_s licence suspended or revoked."

I think that the driver in the case concerned was applying the real
letter of the law in order to extract a bit more cash for the fare,
since he wasn't actually touting. But I suspect he was technically
correct because the passenger who made the booking had presumably
only booked for one person.

That's no more plying for hire or touting in London as outside. The law is
the same in effect. I am assuming that the arrangement to share was made
by the person who made the booking before communicating with the driver.

The fact that the extra passenger wasn't going to the same destination
would probably justify a different fare, though, if it involved a detour,
for example.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In message . li, at
13:40:37 on Sat, 20 Feb 2010, Tom Anderson
remarked:
Is there any possible truth to his assertion about insurance, or was
this a barefaced attempt at a scam?

Sounds 99% likely to be a scam. I've never heard of such a thing.

Did get a surprise in the Middle East recently - the client ordered a
"car" from the airport to the hotel, and it turned out to be a minibus.
And the fare they had quoted was therefore per person not per trip.
That's the first time I was caught out like that - although it wouldn't
normally matter, I'd met a colleague on the plane and offered them a
ride to the hotel, which turned out not to be "free" after all!

Out of interest, any idea how much a black cab from Heathrow to
Finsbury Park would cost?

It's about 36km. At that time of night, the first 9.4km will cost £24.20
(including Heathrow supplement) the remaining approx 27km at 20p/100m or
£54 so a total of about £78.

--
Roland Perry

On Feb 20, 1:40*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

Afternoon all,

Here is a story which my housemate just told me.

He arrived at Heathrow by aeroplane at 2230 last night (friday). He'd
previously booked a minicab (from Network Cars of Crouch End, for the
benefit of anyone googling that firm in future) to pick him up and bring
him home to Finsbury Park. He'd been quoted a price of 40 pounds.

(Why he didn't just get the Piccadilly line, i don't know - i suppose
because he could expense a taxi, and preferred that to schlepping his
luggage through the tube.)

A colleague of his was flying with him, and lives near us, so they decided
to share the taxi.

The driver told them that he was not insured to take more than one person,
and that the price would therefore be 80 pounds for the two of them. My
housemate asked him to check this with his controller, and after radioing
in, he claimed that it would actually only be 10 pounds extra, at 50
pounds.

In the end, the colleague was so annoyed by this that she took the tube.
My housemate still took the taxi.

Is there any possible truth to his assertion about insurance, or was this
a barefaced attempt at a scam?

Absolute total horse****, of course. Sounds like they're a firm to
avoid. Interesting to note the discrepancy between the drivers idea of
an achievable scam, i.e. double money, and the controllers slightly
less outrageous notion of an extra tenner on top - would the driver
have to split it with the controller later on for going along with it
all I wonder?

Good on the colleague for telling him to get stuffed. No-one should
stand for such nonsense. Always a good idea to agree a price
beforehand with control and also then with the driver, and have none
of it if they try and bump it up somehow.

On Sat, 20 Feb 2010, Mizter T wrote:

On Feb 20, 1:40*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

Is there any possible truth to his assertion about insurance, or was this
a barefaced attempt at a scam?

Absolute total horse****, of course.

What i reckoned. Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. I will try to
persuade the housemate to make a complaint, but i doubt he can be
bothered.

tom

--
Miscellaneous Terrorists: Ducks | Bird Flu | Avian flu | Jimbo Wales |
Backstreet Boys | The Al Queda Network | Tesco -- Uncyclopedia

Tom Anderson wrote:

I will try to persuade the housemate to make a complaint,
but i doubt he can be bothered.

Minicab fares are not controlled, so there is no-one you can complain to who
will care. A letter to the local paper might hit the company in the pocket,
but the minicab company knows where your friend lives and how to break
windows.

--
We are the Strasbourg. Referendum is futile.

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.

That said, there's nothing saying that a minicab firm cannot have a
fares structure that charges the same amount for each passenger, but
I've never come across one. And I've never been asked to specify the
number of passengers when booking one, other than when I asked for a
minibus once.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

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

On Feb 22, 2:05*am, Mizter T wrote:

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):

I wondered what those were for - thanks.

Though I don't understand why anyone - taxi, private hire, car, lorry
or anything, should be stopping on a Red Route other than in a
designated parking bay, as that negates the whole point of *having* a
Red Route in the first place.

Neil

Neil Williams wrote:
On Feb 22, 2:05 am, Mizter T wrote:

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):

I wondered what those were for - thanks.

Though I don't understand why anyone - taxi, private hire, car, lorry
or anything, should be stopping on a Red Route other than in a
designated parking bay, as that negates the whole point of *having* a
Red Route in the first place.

And yet London's traffic basically works, on the whole. Junctions tend to be
the pinch points.

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.

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

--
We are the Strasbourg. Referendum is futile.

On Feb 26, 2:03*pm, "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.

Agreed to some extent, as setting down is so much slower as there is a
financial transaction to perform. Another way of reducing the impact
of this might perhaps be for taxis to accept Oyster PAYG?

Neil