Taxi driver protest

MOH · 10-03-2009 02:32PM

Taxipete29 wrote: »

1, Far more stringent testing of new drivers
2, Better vetting of drivers
3, Removal of part-time drivers ( health and safety issue)
4, More strict criteria for vehicles.
5, Better enforcement of regulations from both the regulator and the Gardai
6, A right of appeal for decisions made by the regulator

I definitely think 1 needs to be applied to all drivers, no just new ones.
On 3, I don't see why 3 is necessarily a H+S issue. Certainly, if someone's working a full 40+ hour week, then taxiing in the evenings, fatigue is going to be a factor, but not all part-time drivers are going to fall into this category.

One thing that struck me about the report is that for all the taxi drivers who say the regulator pays no attention to what they want, of the 2800 drivers surveyed for the report 2300 didn't bother to respond! No wonder drivers are complaining that figures such as current income are misrepresented.

Another interesting thing is the figures for Dublin: there are 5 times as many taxis as there were in 2000. But there's a lot less hackneys. Counting the total, there's only a little over twice as many cars. And from 1997 to 2008, number of taxi trips has risen by 82%. So while there's less trips per taxi, it's not as significant as the first figure might make it seem.

Terrontress · 10-03-2009 04:54PM

I think the health and safety element around part time drivers working too many hours is covered in existing legislation. I'm not sure about Ireland but there have been people in the UK prosecuted for causing an accident due to tiredness. If the law exists on the Irish statute book then there is no need to bring in this restriction.

It would be like imposing a restriction on not driving a taxi if you have been in a pub in the last 24 hours. The legislation is there to prevent drink driving. If you fall foul of that then you are dealt with on that basis.

Taxipete29 · 10-03-2009 10:05PM

MOH wrote: »

One thing that struck me about the report is that for all the taxi drivers who say the regulator pays no attention to what they want, of the 2800 drivers surveyed for the report 2300 didn't bother to respond! No wonder drivers are complaining that figures such as current income are misrepresented.

I have to say I was disgusted with this level of response, drivers really are their own worst enemies at times. Its not surprising the findings didnt see the problems as we see them, they werent bloody told.

Taxipete29 · 10-03-2009 10:17PM

Terrontress wrote: »

I think the health and safety element around part time drivers working too many hours is covered in existing legislation. I'm not sure about Ireland but there have been people in the UK prosecuted for causing an accident due to tiredness. If the law exists on the Irish statute book then there is no need to bring in this restriction.

It would be like imposing a restriction on not driving a taxi if you have been in a pub in the last 24 hours. The legislation is there to prevent drink driving. If you fall foul of that then you are dealt with on that basis.

The problem is there is no legislation that deals with them actually working those extra hours. They are entitled to work part-time and it is accepted as is stated in the report.

I find the assertion that part-time drivers are more likely to provide a peak-time service as ridiculous. Saturday night accounts for anything up to a third of a drivers earnings for the week. I know plenty of drivers dont work them but they tend to be older drivers who dont need to earn as much and work longer hours during the week and daytime saturday. The company I am affiliated with has 130 drivers and on sat night there is usually about 75 working. This is reflective of the normal % throughout companies in dublin that I would have knowledge of( which is quite a few).

scorpioishere · 10-03-2009 10:41PM

Too much taxi i don't think so. Last year i was getting taxi to go to work early in the morning. The day before i made my booking to a taxi company for 6am. 6am no taxi, i rang the company to ask where is the taxi, they said to me its on the way and i had an argument with the lady on the phone about that and she said there are no taxis available at the momend and shw will send one as soon as possible. It was suppose to be at my house at 6pm as i booked the day before. 6.10 the taxi arrived with 10 mins late and they still charged me 2 euros extras for the booking i made. 1 year it was going like that. Always having trouble about the taxis, the drivers ringing me at 4.30 in the morning to ask me where is my house situated.

I think they are all taking the piss by this protest. As i said before if you can't work, leave the job and give it to those who are capable of doing it. You have to go and drive and look for job and not sit and wait for job to come to you. :mad:

Spook_ie · 10-03-2009 11:26PM

confused-dazed wrote: »

just a couple of things i want to say here.
it wasn't to long ago that we had taxi drivers whinging,moaning and foaming at the mouth because the guards hit them at one of their prime illegal spots and dished out fines to all involved. i'm sure one of our taxi regs could mention the place, if not i'll post it in a few days. just seeing how short their memories can be.
now spookie nice pic you posted of the rank in o'connell street, blocking a 24hr rank. i heard a spat on the radio between tommy 'o'gorman and the guy/crowd that organised this protest. you going on about to many taxi's not enough work. then why did you stop other taxi drivers that weren't protesting from using the o'connel street rank. as well as all the other ranks that were blocked.
you posted earlier about me being in two places as once, do you not know who i am. i'm superman.:D
you see those arrows at junctions and on streets that are either turning left or right. they're not decorations they're there for everyone. not just joe motorist.
you see those double yellow lines on the roads ,not decorations either. just in case you dont know it means no parking.
as for taxi plate maybe you should set up your on school considering your studying a bit. a school for taxi drivers on how to read the following
"20.00 -06.00 taxi rank "or are these signs just for decoration as well.
damn in infants they teach you how to read a clock and by primany school they teach you the 24hr clock, but alas this doesn't comprehend in a taxi drivers brain what any of the signs i've mentioned mean ( these are but just a few by the way)
as for my poll.
i'm not going to reply to that thread. i set it up for joe public, maybe i should've put in bold." taxi drivers need not reply."
oh and if bus drivers go on strike i'll be doing a poll on them as well. just to be fair.at least they know how to drive. unlike other stereo type drivers i know :rolleyes:
as i've said before BIFFO needs more money in the coffers, now's his chance. let the guards enforce the rules of the road properly and to the law. damn with all the fines being dished out our taxes mightn't go up with all the money rolling in from fines. even better he could take us out of the recession.

I think you need to go to specsavers, that picture isn't of any taxis blocking O'Connell St rank, they happen to be driving in an orderly fashion down past the spire, perhaps this is why you seem to think lots of taxi drivers break laws, because you are unaware that the law isn't being broken. Must hope that you continue to use the bus rather than drive or cycle to work, you would seem to be another potential hazzard we could do without....

godtabh · 11-03-2009 09:36AM

Taxipete29 wrote: »

I have to say I was disgusted with this level of response, drivers really are their own worst enemies at times. Its not surprising the findings didnt see the problems as we see them, they werent bloody told.

So only the taxi drivers who are making a living from it responded but their opinion doesn’t count?

I doubt it. I wouldn’t think that the report was based on responses only

Terrontress · 11-03-2009 11:47AM

Taxipete29 wrote: »

The problem is there is no legislation that deals with them actually working those extra hours. They are entitled to work part-time and it is accepted as is stated in the report.

I find the assertion that part-time drivers are more likely to provide a peak-time service as ridiculous. Saturday night accounts for anything up to a third of a drivers earnings for the week. I know plenty of drivers dont work them but they tend to be older drivers who dont need to earn as much and work longer hours during the week and daytime saturday. The company I am affiliated with has 130 drivers and on sat night there is usually about 75 working. This is reflective of the normal % throughout companies in dublin that I would have knowledge of( which is quite a few).

Again this comes down to euros and cents. It seems that reason after reason is given for excluding new or certain groups of drivers citing health and safety, car standards, route knowledge etc etc. But each time the surface is scratched it is that the existing drivers want these groups excluded so that they can make more money. I'm sure every person working to make a quid would like to see his competition eliminated but that is not how things work outside of North Korea.

amtaxi · 11-03-2009 12:02PM

Have read the goodboy report - oh my god where do these guys get their figures?

The first comment I have is that in their report they say on a graph that there has been an increase of about 200 licences for Jan-Feb 09 - yet in their conclusions they say that as of end 2008 they are 27,429 licences and end of Feb 09 there are 27,383 licences - this figure suggests a decrease of of 46 licences - if these idiots can't do simple maths how are any of their other figures credible?

Another figure not highlighted is the transfer of licences from 2007 and 2008 has increased by almost 50% from 1328 to 1993 - this to me would indicated that like the rest of us these people could no longer make a living from driving a taxi!! Of course the idiots at goodbody put this down to retirements and other employment!!

This report suggests that the only ones working 75 hours a week are those with 2 jobs - not true for many of us!

Re driver earnings - where do they get their "independent" figures from suggesting that after costs we earn 40 grand - and since in the next paragraph they give the figures reported by taxi drivers in their survey they are calling us liars!! They base their figure of net earnings of €11 an hour on these independent figures - but using the realistic figures our hourly pay is more like €4.57 which almost half the minimum wage. They have twisted figures to suit their own agenda - suppose they thought us "uneducated" taxi drivers would not be able to decipher their badly laid out report!

In relation to their small piece on "Back to Work Enterprise Allowance" they leave out valuable information such as the level of grant given to participants and the fact the they retain social welfare payments for 4 years as well as extra allowances such as rent allowance, medical card, fuel allowance and back to school - thus giving these participants an unfair advantage to the rest of us! If I didn't have car repayments, rent etc to pay each week I wouldn't have to work such long hours! People getting redundancy are buying taxis thinking they will make a fortune - god help them - do they not realise that when they become self-employed and when they realise they can't make a living the social welfare won't entertain they for 12 months - good ploy by our government to save them money!!!!

I would also question their figures in relation to the number of taxis working in each county? How do they know this? I know of serveral rented cars whose owners live in one area yet actual taxi works in another!!

In relation to enforcement and the paragraph stating that the regulator's spot checks show low levels of non-compliance- god even the dogs on the street know how quickly taxis dissappear when the regulator guys are about - they don't have a clue how to do checks - they might as well use flashing signs to announce they're about!! Total Joke!!

murphaph · 11-03-2009 12:56PM

Maybe the taxi drivers who can't figure out where Goodbody are getting their figures from are not working hard enough for business.

MOH · 11-03-2009 02:12PM

Taxipete29 wrote: »

I find the assertion that part-time drivers are more likely to provide a peak-time service as ridiculous. Saturday night accounts for anything up to a third of a drivers earnings for the week. I know plenty of drivers dont work them but they tend to be older drivers who dont need to earn as much and work longer hours during the week and daytime saturday. The company I am affiliated with has 130 drivers and on sat night there is usually about 75 working. This is reflective of the normal % throughout companies in dublin that I would have knowledge of( which is quite a few).

I read that as part-time drivers are more likely to provide a service at peak than off-peak; I don't think it's saying that they provide more of a peak service than full time drivers.

amtaxi wrote: »

Have read the goodboy report - oh my god where do these guys get their figures?

The first comment I have is that in their report they say on a graph that there has been an increase of about 200 licences for Jan-Feb 09 - yet in their conclusions they say that as of end 2008 they are 27,429 licences and end of Feb 09 there are 27,383 licences - this figure suggests a decrease of of 46 licences - if these idiots can't do simple maths how are any of their other figures credible?

If you're talking about figure 4.4, it clearly states underneath that this only shows new licenses issued, not overall net changes in license numbers.

Another figure not highlighted is the transfer of licences from 2007 and 2008 has increased by almost 50% from 1328 to 1993 - this to me would indicated that like the rest of us these people could no longer make a living from driving a taxi!! Of course the idiots at goodbody put this down to retirements and other employment!!

"It is not possible to determine what proportion of exits is due to decisions to retire or change profession against early exits"

This report suggests that the only ones working 75 hours a week are those with 2 jobs - not true for many of us!

It clearly states that 8% of all cab drivers work 75+ hours a week.
16% of all taxi drivers are part time, and even if all of those have a second job, less than 20% of them work 75+ hours. Thats under 4% of all drivers. So more cab-only drivers work 75+ hours than those with 2 jobs. There's nowhere in the report that in any way claims that the only ones working 75+ hours have two jobs.

Re driver earnings - where do they get their "independent" figures from suggesting that after costs we earn 40 grand - and since in the next paragraph they give the figures reported by taxi drivers in their survey they are calling us liars!! They base their figure of net earnings of €11 an hour on these independent figures - but using the realistic figures our hourly pay is more like €4.57 which almost half the minimum wage. They have twisted figures to suit their own agenda - suppose they thought us "uneducated" taxi drivers would not be able to decipher their badly laid out report!

They base their figures on the 20% of surveyed drivers who bothered to respond, and on the figures supplied by customers on what they estimate they pay per average journey. And they then estimate after costs figures based on each. They then take the midpoint between the two and use an average of 52 hours work per week to calculate the €11/hour. They clearly state how everything is calculated and where the figures come from.

I would also question their figures in relation to the number of taxis working in each county? How do they know this? I know of serveral rented cars whose owners live in one area yet actual taxi works in another!!

It's clearly stated that the county breakdown of taxis may be inaccurate due to cars registered in one region working in another.

I can't be bothered checking the rest of your claiims. You seem to have just skimmed the report and then misquoted it repeatedly to suit your point of view.

spiderpig101 · 11-03-2009 05:47PM

Hey lads I have fare for you's it rite off the end of Howth pier, whens the next protest, I want to have time to make my "Taxi drivers are c#@ts" poster

confused-dazed · 11-03-2009 06:31PM

Spook_ie wrote: »

I think you need to go to specsavers, that picture isn't of any taxis blocking O'Connell St rank, they happen to be driving in an orderly fashion down past the spire, perhaps this is why you seem to think lots of taxi drivers break laws, because you are unaware that the law isn't being broken. Must hope that you continue to use the bus rather than drive or cycle to work, you would seem to be another potential hazzard we could do without....

fair enough i hold my hand up i didn't look at your picture properly but i will ask the same question as i saw most city centre ranks closed of by protesting taxi drivers.
why did your colleagues stop other taxi drivers that weren't protesting from using the o'connel street rank as well as all the other ranks that were blocked.?

Taxipete29 · 11-03-2009 07:29PM

kearnsr wrote: »

So only the taxi drivers who are making a living from it responded but their opinion doesn’t count?

I doubt it. I wouldn’t think that the report was based on responses only

It was based on a number of things including a household survey, telephone survey, survey from the Irish Wheelchair Association and the driver survey.

My point is this report only managed to survey( this was the drivers own fault) 500 odd drivers. There are 25000 in Ireland. This means they got responses from 2% of the drivers in the country. This is not a large enough sample to gauge an accurate mean for drivers earnings and working hours.

If they wanted to do this properly they should of sent out surveys to all drivers, a 20% response rate would of yielded 5000 results and a far more accurate figures would of been determined.

I never said their opinion didnt count, but its not neccessarily a fair reflection of all drivers.

Taxipete29 · 11-03-2009 07:38PM

MOH wrote: »

I read that as part-time drivers are more likely to provide a service at peak than off-peak; I don't think it's saying that they provide more of a peak service than full time drivers.

Im sorry but you read it wrong so.

"Part-time drivers are much more likely to supply services on days of peak demand than are their full-time counterparts"

This is from page 8 of the report.

Calina · 11-03-2009 07:41PM

spiderpig101 infracted. Similar style posts will potentially meet with bans in the future. Bear it in mind if you're trying to be funny and failing badly.

As you were.

amtaxi · 11-03-2009 07:43PM

I only know of 1 driver who received this questionaire - they contacted Goodbody in relation to the way the questions were asked. They felt that the questions asked and choice of answers to give did not acurately describe their situation. By only allowing respondants to answer by the choices given they felt was unfair. They asked if it was possible to give other answers and were told no!

Taxipete29 · 11-03-2009 07:43PM

Terrontress wrote: »

Again this comes down to euros and cents. It seems that reason after reason is given for excluding new or certain groups of drivers citing health and safety, car standards, route knowledge etc etc. But each time the surface is scratched it is that the existing drivers want these groups excluded so that they can make more money. I'm sure every person working to make a quid would like to see his competition eliminated but that is not how things work outside of North Korea.

I was talking about the assertion that part-timers provide more of a service at peak times than full-timers. How does what you say above have anything to do with that????

spiderpig101 · 11-03-2009 07:53PM

Calina wrote: »

spiderpig101 infracted. Similar style posts will potentially meet with bans in the future. Bear it in mind if you're trying to be funny and failing badly.

As you were.

BTW I wasn't trying to be funny, I will be making a poster saying such, taxi divers have absolutely no support, and frankly the blatant racist ****e some were coming out with was a joke and definitely won't be raising their popularity.

Taxipete29 · 11-03-2009 07:56PM

MOH wrote: »

They base their figures on the 20% of surveyed drivers who bothered to respond, and on the figures supplied by customers on what they estimate they pay per average journey. And they then estimate after costs figures based on each. They then take the midpoint between the two and use an average of 52 hours work per week to calculate the €11/hour. They clearly state how everything is calculated and where the figures come from.

I find fault with how they calculated this. Drivers said their average fare was €9,the household survey concluded it was €15. Personally my average fare is €10.

This does not take into account the fact that alot of people only use a Taxi at the weekend when they are going out and when the average fare would actually be around €15. This does not account for all the journeys that are taken mid-week by more regular users whose average fare would be around €10

Calina · 11-03-2009 08:05PM

spiderpig101 banned for one week.

amtaxi · 11-03-2009 08:05PM

Dublin drivers may earn more per fare because of traffic - in other areas you're lucky to get a fiver!!

godtabh · 12-03-2009 06:04PM

amtaxi wrote: »

Dublin drivers may earn more per fare because of traffic - in other areas you're lucky to get a fiver!!

Out side of dublin the cost of living is less and the fiver will last longer

amtaxi · 12-03-2009 07:01PM

kearnsr wrote: »

Out side of dublin the cost of living is less and the fiver will last longer

I don't believe the cost of living is less in dublin than where I live. The houses are as expensive and the last time I checked the pint of milk, sliced pan was the same. Don't know about the price of a pint of beer as I don't drink. Anyway having read your previous thread I understand that you don't have a love of taxi drivers - if you read mine you might realise that I am a reasonable person who works hard - you might also see that my overall opinion differs slightly from others - what a boring world it would be if we were all the same!! While my opinion may differ from some of the others I do acknowledge their rights to protest just as I acknowledge the rights of the public service to protest even though I may not agreed with them. I will however not purposely go online and slag off other people... but that's just me! :rolleyes:

amtaxi · 12-03-2009 07:21PM

Terrontress wrote: »

I think the health and safety element around part time drivers working too many hours is covered in existing legislation. I'm not sure about Ireland but there have been people in the UK prosecuted for causing an accident due to tiredness. If the law exists on the Irish statute book then there is no need to bring in this restriction.

It would be like imposing a restriction on not driving a taxi if you have been in a pub in the last 24 hours. The legislation is there to prevent drink driving. If you fall foul of that then you are dealt with on that basis.

Unfortunately the law regarding working hours does not apply to taxi drivers or to part time drivers who also work fulltime in another job .. there is legislation to say you should not drive more than 3 x 11 hours in a row without taking a 24hr break, but taxi drivers and part time drivers with other job do not come under this as they are not "driving" for a full 11 hours in a row - personally I feel more tired when sitting on a rank for hours than when I'm kept going. Law does need to be changed to include all of these people including full time taxi drivers - but then again there is little or no inforcement of current laws..

MOH · 13-03-2009 11:52AM

Taxipete29 wrote: »

I find fault with how they calculated this. Drivers said their average fare was €9,the household survey concluded it was €15. Personally my average fare is €10.

This does not take into account the fact that alot of people only use a Taxi at the weekend when they are going out and when the average fare would actually be around €15. This does not account for all the journeys that are taken mid-week by more regular users whose average fare would be around €10

I'm not saying the figures are right - I was replying to amtaxi's post asking where the figures came from. It does give a detailed explanation of how the calculation was made, and enough information to draw your own conclusions from it. Personally, I'd assume the figure from the household survey to be over-inflated - most people are more likely to remember an expensive fare over a cheap one, and even if they're trying to be honest will probably err towards a higher average fare.

Is you average fare really €10? It's very rare I'd ever get out of a taxi and pay less than that, and most of my journeys are under 15 minutes. And for fares of 5 or 6 euro, I'm going to walk rather than take a taxi. Not calling you a liar, just surprised.

Taxipete29 wrote: »

Im sorry but you read it wrong so.

"Part-time drivers are much more likely to supply services on days of peak demand than are their full-time counterparts"

This is from page 8 of the report.

You're right, sorry. It actually says that at least three times in the report. I can't find what bit I was reading, must have imagined it.

amtaxi · 14-03-2009 01:29PM

Worked 14 hours last night and earned 7.45 per hour - best hourly rate this week.. Apart from that one of the major reasons I'm protesting is the lack of enforcement of the law in place as I believe if all the bad ones were gone it would improve for the rest of us..........

I've already post the following on a different thread but it may help to explain to you why soooo many of us are fustrated and if joe soap public was really aware of what is genuinely happening evey night of the week they might feel different.......

""Consider this - Private car with taxi roof sign, plying for hire on rank, CTV in town,Garda contact three times and given details and location. Garda contacted again when car picked up passenger from rank - you would imagine that this would be illegal, breaking the law and comitting a crime?! Answer from Garda -" Sorry nothing to do with us contact the Regulator Monday morning" "Don't tell us what's against the law" .. So consider this your Sister, Aunt, Niece gets into a "TAXI" and is attacked, she manages to get the roof sign number and contacts the Garda to be told she must have wrong number because it doesn't match car!!! And just to top it off same person arrives on rank 2 hours later in a different car and same roof sign - still nothing to do with Garda... Now do you feel I'm wrong to protest against the total lack of enforcement regarding "TAXIS". This was last night!!! So when something serious happens, and it's only a matter of time if things continue as they are, who'll be whining then! "

Spook_ie · 14-03-2009 09:59PM

amtaxi wrote: »

Worked 14 hours last night and earned 7.45 per hour - best hourly rate this week.. Apart from that one of the major reasons I'm protesting is the lack of enforcement of the law in place as I believe if all the bad ones were gone it would improve for the rest of us..........

I've already post the following on a different thread but it may help to explain to you why soooo many of us are fustrated and if joe soap public was really aware of what is genuinely happening evey night of the week they might feel different.......

""Consider this - Private car with taxi roof sign, plying for hire on rank, CTV in town,Garda contact three times and given details and location. Garda contacted again when car picked up passenger from rank - you would imagine that this would be illegal, breaking the law and comitting a crime?! Answer from Garda -" Sorry nothing to do with us contact the Regulator Monday morning" "Don't tell us what's against the law" .. So consider this your Sister, Aunt, Niece gets into a "TAXI" and is attacked, she manages to get the roof sign number and contacts the Garda to be told she must have wrong number because it doesn't match car!!! And just to top it off same person arrives on rank 2 hours later in a different car and same roof sign - still nothing to do with Garda... Now do you feel I'm wrong to protest against the total lack of enforcement regarding "TAXIS". This was last night!!! So when something serious happens, and it's only a matter of time if things continue as they are, who'll be whining then! "

It is a Garda responsability though to act against uninsured drivers, I would suggest that next time you see it happen, ring the Gardai and tell them you saw an uninsured driver driving a car ( no need to mention taxi ) or if you feel realy evil tell them you saw them drinking before they got in the car or even taking recreational drugs, that should get some interest

Taxipete29 · 15-03-2009 12:52AM

MOH wrote: »

I'm not saying the figures are right - I was replying to amtaxi's post asking where the figures came from. It does give a detailed explanation of how the calculation was made, and enough information to draw your own conclusions from it. Personally, I'd assume the figure from the household survey to be over-inflated - most people are more likely to remember an expensive fare over a cheap one, and even if they're trying to be honest will probably err towards a higher average fare.

Is you average fare really €10? It's very rare I'd ever get out of a taxi and pay less than that, and most of my journeys are under 15 minutes. And for fares of 5 or 6 euro, I'm going to walk rather than take a taxi. Not calling you a liar, just surprised.

Yes average fare really is €10. I work Ballyfermot/Clondalkin and Lucan area with a local firm and you would be surprised the amount of €5 fares I get in a week. There are alot of older people in these areas that dont drive and cant manage their shopping on the bus.

Not sure if you know Liffey Valley that well but if you do, I have got a fare from outside the cinema to PC World which is in the retail park, its probably a 10 min walk, the meter didnt even move. This might give you some indication of how lazy some people actually are lol

lods · 19-03-2009 10:59PM

http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/

A protest will take place on Friday 20th from 8am onwards. Two separate convoys of slow-moving vehicles will travel from the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, and the Airside Retail Park in Swords into Fitzwilliam Square and O’ Connell St. in the city centre. * A separate group of protestors will gather in the vicinity of Parnell Square, O'Connell Street and College Green area. A group of slow-moving vehicles will drive in a continuous convoy up and down O’ Connell St. Motorists should be aware of possible delays and allow extra time for any journeys. The protest is expected to finish by 2pm.

Just great for a Friday:mad:

Taxi driver protest

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