The Caring Cooncil

Well given that this was my third reported incident to Mill Street in 18 months and on all occasions I had given them either Reigistration numbers, name and phone number or name and address and they had not once done anything to follow up I decide to send a complaint to the Chief of Strathclyde Police and handed in a three page official complaint letter on 5th June to Pitt Street, still no reply.

After a bit of deliberation and still seething at the attitude of the police I decided that as the local Licensing Authority were responsible for licensing of Taxi and Private Hire cars and drivers I would find out what they were doing about driver safety. Having trawled the website and assorted paraphernalia I had received over the last 4 years from the enforcement team I drew a blank. An email was required :

Dear Sir / Madam

Please advise me as to what Renfrewshire Councils stance on safety of Private Hire and Taxi Drivers licenced by the authority is and what measures are being taken to improve driver safety.

The reason for my request is that as the holder of a Private Hire Operators Licence and Private Hire Drivers licence from Renfrewshire Council I am concerned as to my safety at work and no support or advice seems to be available from the council. It appears you are more interested in taking the money from licence holders and spot checking cars for cleanliness than working to improve safety for drivers.

In the past 6 months I have been the victim of two attacks and on both occasions have reported these to Mill Street Police Office and been extremely concerend by their lack of action and attitude to these crimes as being unavoidable, undetectable and just "part of the job".

Having extensivley checked the councils website and printed literature I can find no mention of any support or safety initiatives for drivers and operators.

I look forward to your swift response as after this most recent attack on Saturday lunchtime I am seriously considering returning my plate and giving up. Attacks are bad enough but to have no support from Police or Licencing Authority gives the perpetrators of these attacks the green light to carry on as they are and leave hard working, law abiding families to pick up the pieces.

I look forward to your response.

So within a day I had a response and things were looking positive :

I refer to the above matter and your email dated 4 June 2007 and note all
that you write.

I am extremely concerned to note that you have been the subject of two
attacks while working as a Private Hire Driver, and am very keen to discuss
with you how you can feel and be safer at work.

In order that I can address your concerns, please arrange to attend at the
Licensing Department at 2.00pm on Monday 11 June 2007 to see myself.


So I looked around the web, chatted on Taxi Driver websites and basically done a fair bit of research into what other Licensing Authorities and Police Forces were doing on this subject and off I went to the meeting, full of hope that the Council cared about the drivers and not just about the fees they charge for the licenses and putting drivers off the road for a few stray crumbs on the back seat of the car. But oh how wrong I was ........