The Cumbrian Way:By Wayne Casey

Original Article source: UpFront Mag
The views in this column are not necessarily those of the National Taxi Association

It’s a complicated story

Last months issue saw a rather eloquent defence of the cross border hackney situation by Mr. Ian Shanks of Blueline Taxis, a few pages later there was a full page advert for Blueline Taxis insurance services, coincidence or something more sinister?
Reference was made in the article to the situation at Newcastle Airport, where hackney carriages from different areas stand and ply for hire. It was stated words to the effect that these people are doing the same as the “out of toon” hackneys are doing within Newcastle. I think the obvious point I want to make in respect of the situation at Newcastle Airport is that it is a perfectly legitimate state of affairs by virtue of the court case YOUNG AND ANOTHER v SCAMPION QBD [1989] RTR 95, 153 JP 321, 87 LGR 240.
I don’t wish to bore you all rigid with the details of the case; a copy of the ruling is available on the NTA website, so if you’re a member you’ll have no problem finding it in the documents section of the member’s area www.national-taxi-association.co.uk .
In respect to the buying and selling of hackney carriage businesses, it is not actually illegal to sell a hackney carriage business as a going concern; indeed according to the act the local authority must register transfers. The licence belongs to the vehicle and may be transferred from one proprietor to another as of right: R. v. Weymouth Borough Council ex parte Teletax [1947] KB 583, 591.
In the above case Lord Goddard CJ stated;
‘˜There is nothing in this Act which provides that the vehicle may not be sold, or may only be sold with the consent of the council. There is no provision here to say that, if a person has obtained a licence for a cab and disposes of it, or dies, he must surrender his licence. What is necessary is that the register should be kept in order and kept up to date. Therefore, it seems to me that, by necessary implication, a person who buys a cab which has been licensed is under a duty to go to the authority and say: ‘I am now the proprietor of this cab which you licensed for a year. Please, therefore, enter me in the register as the proprietor, and enter my name on the licence granted in respect of the cab, instead of that of the earlier proprietor.’
A suggestion in the same article was made that a judge could rule that hackney carriages cannot work as private hire cars, this is a strange suggestion, the courts have ruled that a hackney carriage is always a hackney carriage, indeed, hackney carriages are clearly permitted to carry out PH work by virtue of section 46 (1) (a) of the 1976 act
46. Vehicle, drivers’ and operators’ licences. ‘ (1) Except as authorised by this Part of this Act’
(a) no person being the proprietor of any vehicle, not being a hackney carriage [or London cab] in respect of which a vehicle licence is in force, shall use or permit the same to be used in a controlled district as a private hire vehicle without having for such a vehicle a current licence under section 48 of this Act;
In addition to the above, by virtue of section 67 (1)
67. Hackney carriages used for private hire. ” (1) No hackney carriage shall be used in the district under a contract or purported contract for private hire except at a rate of fares or charges not greater than that fixed by the byelaws or tables mentioned in section 66 of this Act, and, when any such hackney carriage is so used, the fare or charge shall be calculated from the point in the district at which the hirer commences his journey.
It also seems to be the general rule of thumb in all byelaws (and certainly the model byelaws from the DFT) that ‘when accepting a fare for an appointed time and place the proprietor or driver of a hackney carriage shall punctually attend with such carriage at such appointed time and place’. That sound’s awfully like a pre-booking now doesn’t it?
It isn’t a private hire booking in the sense of the previous article, a private hire booking is a booking made for a private hire car through a private hire operator, who is of course a person who accepts bookings for private hire vehicles with private hire drivers.
Presumably this judge bloke is going to have to dig rather deep to stop hackney carriages doing pre-booked work.
The question we need to ask is what’s the difference between hackney carriage and private hire. There are elements out there who will tell you there isn’t a lot of difference between the two trades, both trades invariably pick up a passenger and take them to the required destination, my view is that this is where the similarity ends. As stated last month, the advent of dual licenses should be treated with grave concern by the hackney trade.
A hackney carriage driver is different to his private hire counterpart, the hackney carriage driver is legally entitled to ply for hire within his licensed district, whereas the private hire driver can only accept pre booked work through a private hire operator.
The Gladen court case specifically proved that a hackney carriage proprietor didn’t need a private hire operator’s license in order to accept pre bookings, effectively a hackney carriage driver can accept a pre booking because the 1847 act and his byelaws say so.
However, there is an obvious difficulty with private hire, just say a private hire driver takes a regular customer from point to point ˜b, when the driver gets to point b the customer asks the driver to book him a car for later on, can the PH driver accept the booking and relay it to his office?
The customer contract with private hire is between the customer and the private hire operator, the driver is effectively the agent operating on behalf of the operator. From memory someone in the GMBPDB was actually arguing that as a private hire driver was working entirely under the direction of the private hire operator, with no say in what he could charge, that in effect he was actually employed and entitled to holiday pay. A private hire operator can accept a pre booking from anywhere, however the booking must be accepted from a base within the operators licensing district.
With hackney carriages the contract is between the driver and customer. Looking at it from a private hire perspective, effectively the hackney carriage driver license is also an operators license because the driver is entitled to accept ˜a fare for an appointed time and place.
There is a degree of difficulty here when it comes to ˜out of toon” hackneys, we asked the DFT for their opinion about hackneys from one area working as solely PH in another, we were furnished with the court case DPP v Computer Cab Co Ltd; QBD; November 1994 [1996] R.T.R. 130; [1995] C.O.D. 361. Like many things, this court case may well turn out to be a double edged sword.
In this case a yellow badge driver accepted a pre-booked fare from a green badge area. As you will know, a green badge driver is licensed to work within the City of London; a yellow badge driver is licensed to work in the outer area of suburbs. The result of the case was basically that the yellow badge driver accepted the fare in his own area and was therefore effectively hired from the moment he accepted the job. Presumably if he had been within the green badge area when he accepted the job, he would have been found guilty.
Similarly in Britain v ABC Cabs (Camberley), it confirmed a hackney carriage from one area, collecting a pre-booked fare from another, did not commit an offence. The vehicle involved was dispatched from its own area to collect the fare. I suppose the one question that needs resolved is should a hackney carriage be physically within its own area when accepting a pre-booked job.
If you transfer the above cases to the Berwick (for example) situation, could it be the case that a Berwick Licensed Hackney Carriage can accept a pre-booked fare in Newcastle, but in doing so must be physically within Berwick when the job is accepted?
If the DPP v Computer Cab Co Ltd judgement is going to be the general rule of thumb, then just say I take a fare from God’s Country to Newcastle Airport, my mobile phone rings when I’m at the airport and its a customer who wants a cab back to God’s Country from Newcastle, do I have to refuse the booking because I’m outside my licensed area when I take the call? Or will such a scenario be acceptable if the booking was accepted or through a diversion from my office in God’s Country?
Of course the problem is, and as pointed out by Mr Shanks, that the laws we adhere to date from the horse and cart, I cannot imagine in 1847 that they would dream of the problems something like satellite communication or the mobile phone would create. However, I don’t necessarily believe wholesale change is needed, perhaps a little clarification but no wholesale change.
Till next month
Wayne Casey

Tagged as: berwick taxi, cross border hiring, hackney carriage, taxi