After seeing the news report last week on how that lovely young girl’s life was cut short due to a police officer driving dangerously at over 90 miles an hour in 30 mile built up area with no siren on. And that he was allowed to work part time alongside his job without the employer being able to check what hours he was working. Only that he had to declare to his employer that he had another form of income. It’s like giving someone a license to kill. As there is no one checking the hours worked or how much sleep this person has had. In North Tyne Side alone I know of many drivers that work another job full time alongside their taxi or private hire job. 2 drivers work on the oil rigs.1 is N/T driver & 1 is Berwick/ 1 Berwick driver works the Tyne tunnel & all will be trained in B/A Equipment. So that they can respond to any Emergency and to aid in the helping & rescuing of others. We all know that in these hard times that most drivers work well over 50 hours a week to meet the high costs of running a Taxi/Private hire. What I would like to know is does the Insurance cover them on their full time job? Or would any insurance be void in the case of a death like that mentioned above. Could the local Authority be found to blame for allowing this to go on?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The NTHCA has many times expressed to the council that it should be full time drivers only in the trade, it is right to point out that persons who have full time jobs & still work as many hours behind the wheel of a taxi/p/h are a danger,to them selves & the public, but there is always the trustey old P/H office proprieter who objects to this & of course the licensing dont care either, its prob a knocking bet they dont pay stamp or tax either well not on the taxi work they do…..
@tc,
apparently your limited to the hours you work in parts of europe, to 8 hours a day? anyone know if this is true?
i wonder whether that would be a good thing, at first you think 8 hours! christ i work 10 hours a day and still end up behind with the rent! but if all hacks/ph were restricted, surely those 8 hours would be more profitable?
or would licencing and operators see this as a chance to get more cars on the road?
As I understand it under the EU Rules, if you are an Employee you have the right to refuse to work more than 48 hours in a week.
If you are Self-Employed you can opt-out of the 48 hour rule with no reguard for Public Health & Safety taken into consideration at present.
In March 2009 the Working Time Directive was introduced for Self-Employed Mobile Workers(Drivers), but guess what apparently it does not mention Hackney Carriage Taxi Drivers or Private Hire Drivers by name in this Directive as we do not seem to count according to the EU, as we must be seen as worthless humans.
The EU do have driving laws in place for larger PSV and LGV Drivers to follow and perhaps as a result of this Police Officers actions in time all workers will have to be issued with a Drivers Credit Card that must be put into a machine in your workplace like the old Clocking-On Machine to register when you are doing other work on the card.
If you work driving a Commercially Licensed Motor Vehicle, that you drive as a second income, then it must be placed in the vehicles machine to register your driving hours, meaning all hours of whatever work you undertake will always be recorded and as the Card would hold your National Insurance Number it could not be fiddled.
The way a Tachograph works is the card must be inserted into the Machine and you switch between the different settings to register Driving Time, Other Work, and Rest Time every week and the Driver Card is Downloaded every 21 Days and the Government Body requires records to be kept for tracking Working Hours.
I know a lot of you reading this post will be horrified at the thought of this, but your datahead is already working as a Tachograph, as from the moment you put your personal log-on number into the datahead to the minute you log-out and switch your datahead off it is recording all your activities whilst you are at work now!
The Hackney Carriage Industry already knows there is a meter already on the market that can accept Driver Cards and it is a Government proposal that by 2016(I understand) a meter that holds at least 12 months working data is going to be a condition attached to what the meter must be able to do!
We will probably all have to go and work for a Supermarket collecting trollies or shelf stacking as someone mentioned the other day on here unless we have gone bust or retired from the Industry by then though!!!!