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  • 27-05-2009 9:00am
    #1
    amtaxi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 255 ✭✭


    I need help with the leglislation below - this is taken from the Taxi Regulation Act. I believe I may have found a loophole which is being used to clone taxis. I have contacted the regulator and have been fobbed off. I am concerned because I have seen these cloned taxis and believe there may be many more.

    To explain the situation as simply as I can, when a taxi is licenced the NCT place "tamperproof discs" displaying the licence number, vehicle registration no. and expiry date, similar to a tax disc. This disc is used to prove the taxi is licenced. Each year when the licence is renewed the disc is removed and the NCT put a new one in place. The highlighted legislation below refers to the removal of the discs in the case of a change of ownership of the public service vehicle (taxi) and the onus on the licence holder to confirm in writing to the Commission that this has been done. The problem arises when a taxi licence owner decides to change/update his car. When this change of vehicle is done a new set of tamperproof discs are placed on the new vehicle. The cloning is done by keeping the first car, which in the case I witnessed there were still 9 months left on the licence. There is no change of ownership involved and in my opinion the legislation below does not apply. A garda at a checkpoint will not be able to detect this type of cloned taxi because it will "appear" to be legal.
    To highlight the seriousness of this situation I ask you to think about this potential incident:
    A young girl gets into a taxi, puts the licence number into her phone as her parents told her, is attacked by driver, goes to court, states the car was a black merc and is told that the licence number belongs to a white carina - case dismissed!
    The taxi regulator has told me that a change of vehicle is covered by the higlighted legislation - am I stupid or right? :confused: I believe this only refers to change of ownership.
    (1) Subject to paragraph (5), a small public service vehicle licence shall not be granted or renewed unless a tamper-proof licence disc issued by the Commission is affixed in a prominent position, as determined by the Commission, to the front and rear windows of the vehicle.

    (2) A person shall not, without the prior consent of the Commission, remove or attempt to remove a tamper-proof licence disc referred to in paragraph (1).

    (3) A driver shall not operate or purport to operate a small public service vehicle licence in relation to a vehicle to which a tamper-proof disc has not been affixed in accordance with paragraph (1).

    (4) Notwithstanding paragraph (2), on change of ownership of a small public service vehicle, the holder of the small public service vehicle licence in respect of that vehicle shall remove the tamper-proof licence disc referred to in Regulation 3 and confirm in writing to the Commission for Taxi Regulation that this disc has been so removed


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