Summary
This page, and associated linked pages, is intended to provide the public, who may hire or book a taxi, with brief details and guidance about how to make a few simple checks to discover if the operator, vehicle and driver are correctly licensed before embarking on a journey.
Link pages.
Staying Safe when using Taxis ‘page 1’ |Vehicle or Driver may be Bogus!|
|Staying Safe when using Taxis ‘page 2’ |More Ways to keep a Check on Your Safty! |
|Staying Safe when using Taxis ‘page 3’ We Check so You May Travel Safely!
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Adobe Acrobat's portable document format (pdf). To view these files you will need to have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. This can be downloaded free at www.adobe.co.uk|
Have a Safe Journey!
We are asking the public to be more aware of safety issues when travelling in public vehicles and, for your own safety when embarking on a journey, to check that vehicles and drivers are correctly licensed and therefore, you and they are properly insured to carry passengers and that you can be sure you are safe to embark and carry-out your journey.
Keep Yourself Safe!
If you suspect or notice anything that may be bogus or amiss, you are advised to contact us on telephone number 0116 257 2708 or the local Police on telephone number 0116 222 2222 and make a report.
More Ways to Keep a Check on Your Safety!
What is a Taxi?
‘Taxi’ is a common term used by most of us to describe a vehicle which is licensed to carry no more than 8 passengers and is usual booked in advance or picked up in the street or at a taxi rank. A form of transportation that is offered up for public use that, broadly speaking, takes the hirer on a journey from a given pick-up point onto the hirers required destination, or set-down point.
However, you should be aware that there are two distinct types of vehicle licenses that may be granted by the Council, who act as the local Licensing Authority, to carry out two distinct roles of public vehicle transport.
As mentioned before, unknowingly most of us refer to a ‘taxi’ as a vehicle that will take us on a journey from ‘A’, to ‘B’ to wherever we choose. It is important that you are able to understand and can identify the difference between the two types of licensed vehicles that you may find are offering you a service.
Examples of Illegal and Legal Public Vehicle Hire
Legal and Safe to use a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’
If you decide to travel in a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ it must only be because you have telephoned or visited the office of a Private Hire Vehicle Operator to pre-book the vehicle before you embark on your journey. This is the only way that a journey taken in a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ can be legally used for hire and in which you are properly covered by the vehicles insurance.
Illegal and Un-Safe to use a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’
It would be illegal, and your journey may not be insured if the driver of a vehicle, or any other person including the driver of a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’, made a vehicle available for you to hire and travel in without first booking the vehicle through a ‘Private Hire Vehicle Operator’. This practice is called ‘touting’.
Legal and Safe to use a ‘Hackney Carriage’
However, remembering that a ‘Hackney Carriage’ can legitimately be called a ‘Taxi’ or a Cab’, it would be legal and safe if the driver of a ‘Taxi’ made a vehicle available for you to hire. This might be because you have ‘hailed or ‘flagged down’ a ‘Taxi’ in the street. Or, may be it is because the taxi was sitting on a ‘Taxi Rank’ from where this type of licensed vehicle is allowed to pick-up passengers.
This practice is called ‘Plying for Hire’ and allows the driver to legally pick you up ‘there and then’ anywhere within the boundary of the Borough in which the Vehicle is licensed.
Drivers of Hackney Carriages may also legitimately carry out pre-booked work for a Private Hire Operator and therefore take on bookings to act as Private Hire Vehicles.
Illegal and Un-Safe to use a ‘Hackney Carriage’
Unless a Hackney Carriage is to be used to act as a Private Hire Vehicle and has been specifically dispatched to pick you up by a Private Hire Operator, it would be illegal and your journey may not be insured if the driver of a Hackney Carriage was Plying for Hire and picked you up ‘there and then’ in another place other than within the boundary of the Borough in which the vehicle is licensed. This practice is called Flimping.
You Should Check Out the Licence!
You may Not be Insured for Your Journey!
Under certain circumstances and depending on the type of licence the vehicle has, when you get into a taxi, it may not be lawful for the driver of the vehicle to pick you up.
Or, it may be the case that, the vehicles insurance company may not cover you, your fellow passengers, the driver, or the vehicle for the journey.
This is because each of the two types of licence has different rules and conditions which regulate how they can operate and when and where they may pick up passengers.
So when you take a ‘taxi’ you are really either ‘hiring’ a ‘Hackney Carriage’ or ‘booking’ a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’.
These vehicles may be both insured but in different ways.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ must be insured for use as a ‘Public Hire’ vehicle and
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A ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ must be insured to be used for ‘Private Hire’.
Both these types of public vehicle are insured for a different purpose relating to the way the vehicle is intended to be used.
Defining the Two Types of Licence!
Hackney Carriages verses Private Hire Vehicles
Here are some of the basic differences between the two types of licensed public transport vehicles and an insight as to why different insurance cover is required by each.
Hackney Carriages
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‘Hackney Carriages’ can be also officially known as ‘Taxis’ or ‘Cabs’ and can use these words on vehicle signage.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ does not have to be pre-booked and can ‘Ply for Hire’.
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‘Plying for Hire’ can only be carried out within the area of the Local Authority who have licensed the Vehicle to do so.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ ‘Ply’s for Hire’ when it is parked on a ‘Taxi Rank’ to await prospective hirers.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ ‘Ply’s for Hire’ when it is cruising the streets, un-hired, and is looking to be ‘Hailed’ by prospective passengers who may flag down a ‘Hackney Carriage’ from the street.
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There are only a few reasons, without committing an offence, why the driver of a ‘Hackney Carriage’ can refuse to take a passenger.
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Unless the ‘Hackney Carriage’ is already hired, A ‘Hackney Carriage’ driver must stop for, and carry, passengers who have flagged it down off the street or who have hired it from a ‘Taxi Rank’.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ can not ‘Ply for Hire’ in another Local Authorities Area.
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The fee ‘or Fair’ for hiring a ‘Hackney Carriage’ is usually determined by a Taxi Meter.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ Driver cannot charge more than the fare shown on the meter at the end of the hire period.
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A ‘Hackney Carriage’ can be pre-booked and act as a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ but bookings can only be made through a Private Hire Operator who has a prior arrangement with the driver of a ‘Hackney Carriage’ to undertake the work and temporarily operate as a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’
Private Hire Vehicles
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A ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ cannot ‘Ply for Hire’; ‘park on a Taxi Rank’ or be flagged down in the same way that a ‘Hackney Carriage’ can.
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A ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ can only be hired by a booking made through a licensed Private Hire Operator.
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The fee ‘or Fair’ for hireing a Private Hire Vehicle must be mutualy agrred between Private Hire Operator and yourself before you your booking. This is always part of that mutual contract which is made when you book a Private Hire Vehicle. you and he make for hirefor hiring a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ is always set determined by a Taxi Meter.
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The driver of a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ cannot take bookings. Bookings can only be made through a Private Hire Vehicle Operator
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Those who wish to travel in a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ must pre-book their journey by telephone or in person at the booking office of a Private Hire Vehicle Operator who will dispatch a vehicle and driver specifically to them.
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‘Private Hire Vehicles’ cannot sit on Taxi Ranks and drivers cannot accept a fare off the street without being pre-booked to pick-up passengers. ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ drivers who do so are liable for prosecution and should be reported.
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It is also important for you to note that anyone taking a journey in a ‘Private Hire Vehicle’ which has been 'flagged down' or hired at a Taxi Rank is NOT INSURED for the journey.
The Cost of a Journey!
How much will it cost to Hire and take journey in a Private Hire Vehicle?
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The cost of the ‘Fair’ for hiring a Private Hire Vehicle must be mutually agreed between the Private Hire Operator and yourself before you embark on your journey. You should always ask the Operator, before you undertake your journey, how much the journey will cost.
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The Operator may ask you to provide further details of your journey so he can properly determine this cost.
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The cost of most popular journeys made to destinations locally and to such as Airports and the like are usually determined by use of a table of set fairs which the Operator himself has calculated and determined.
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You should note that you may encounter a difference in quotes for the cost of a journey given different Private Hire Operators to hire a Private Hire Vehicle. For instance, ‘Operator A’ may quote a cost for your journey and ‘Operator B’ may quote a different cost for a like journey because (A) and (B) may have determined their charge of your journey by working from there own individually costed fair table.
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Usually, once the cost has been quoted and agreed, the contract for hire has been between you and no amendment of the fee quoted by the Operator should be made.
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No arrangements to book and hire a vehicle or to determine a charge for your journey should be made by the driver of a Private Hire Vehicle without reference to his Operator unless he himself is also the Licensed Operator.
How much will it cost to hire and take journey in a Hackney Carriage?
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The cost of a journey taken in a Taxi will usually be determined by a ‘Taxi Meter’.
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Meters are fitted to all Hackney Carriages which are licensed by us. These meters have been pre-set to display an incrementally calculated fair which, in summary, is determined by the length and time of a journey.
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The cost of your journey will be shown ‘on the meter’ at the end of your journey must not exceed that shown.
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A copy of the ‘Table of Fairs’ must be prominently displayed somewhere inside the cab.
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The cost of journey which has been calculated by a meter may only be applicable if the driver was ‘Plying for Hire’ when you were picked up. For instance, if you stated your journey from a ‘Taxi Rank’ or if you ‘Haled’ the taxi in the street somewhere within the Borough in which the taxi is licensed.
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The cost of a journey taken in a Hackney Carriage, other than set out above, can only be determined if the vehicle is acting as a Private Hire Vehicle which has been has been pre-booked by you through a Private Hire Operator.
We have determined and set the fair table for Hackney Carriages which are licensed by us.
To see a copy of our Table of Fairs plasse click on the link below.
REMEMBER!
If a vehicle does not display a licence plate, or a driver his drivers licence badge, then they are not licensed, have not been vetted for safety purposes and are not insured for your journey.
Help to protect yourself and others. Play your part in ensuring that unauthorised drivers and vehicles are not used.
Please contact the Council’s Licensing Section or the local Police if you have any issues relating to licensed or un-licensed Operators, Vehicles or Drivers.
If you have any reason to doubt whether the operator, vehicle or driver that you have used or propose to use is properly licensed, please contact:
The Council’s Licensing Team on 0116 257 2708
or email licensing@oadby-wigston.gov.uk|
Alternatively contact the local Police on 0116 222 2222