A Merton cab driver is raising money for the London Air Ambulance by driving 10,000 miles to Siberia.
Ross Turner, of Church Road in Colliers Wood, is taking part in the gruelling Mongol Rally; an annual event that involves driving across Europe and Asia to raise a minimum of £1,000 for the charity.
The 30-year-old was inspired by friends and family working in the NHS to donate what he raises to the air ambulance.
Mr Turner said: “They are the best of the best, those guys never complain and go into the hardest and toughest situations.”
The event will start in London on July 19 and finish in Ulan Ude in Siberia with the drivers permitted to take any route to complete the journey.
The event used to end in Mongolia’s capital but the organisers changed it this year for practicality reasons.
Mr Turner has been a black cab driver for three-and-a-half years and admits it was his sense of adventure that attracted him to the job.
The team car
He said: “It gives me freedom, I can work when I want and it is working out well now.”
He will be completing the journey with three companions and they will be relying on a car with an engine of one litre or less to complete the rally in July.
The rules of the rally mean that the team will receive no roadside help or support should their car break down at any point in the eight to 10 weeks it will take to complete the journey.
Mr Turner, who previously spent 19 months travelling, is especially excited at the prospect of travelling through Mongolia, Iran and Tajikistan.
He said: “I’ve driven to Italy in a Smart Car for fun before, I managed to drive through eight countries in three weeks.
“I just love travelling and it is a passion of mine.”
The taxi market in London is a key example of a culture clash between these two groups. The history of regulation in the London taxi market goes back to 1636. Following laws introduced by King Charles 1 (designed to reduce the use of hackney coaches in London for fear of congestion!) reform has been ad hoc. This all changed with the sudden arrival of smartphone apps, and the dramatic disruption that followed.
There are now many well-known brands operating in London. Some are focused on protecting and developing the black cab trade and playing by the rules; others seek to create new a market for minicabs and play by some of the rules; and some don’t even know what rules are.
Whatever your view on each, the frustration from drivers, passengers and campaigners is clear to see. Regulators have yet to win the confidence of almost everyone connected to the sector – and failed to persuade almost anyone that there is a coherent plan to manage the many issues that are now confronting a vital part of London’s infrastructure. Tech is pulling the sector inside out, and fundamentally reshaping it – without passengers, and Londoners, having a say. Active engagement and thoughtful consultation is required.
This issue is not particular to transport in London. It is the elephant in the room of regulators working in a wide range of sectors and industries.
The taxi and private hire sector in London should be seen as a test bed for this issue.
Finding a solution before it’s too late
Policymakers should show leadership, work with the recent practical set of proposals made by Caroline Pidgeon AM and the London Assembly, and set out a clear timeframe for consultation, before leading to a dedicated ‘Taxi Bill’ in the next Parliament.
Crucially, the tech sector should be active participants in this process. Tech companies must be fully hardwired into the policymaking process – they should both listen and be listened to.
Finding a balance between innovation and established ways of working is far from easy. Not least when communities believe their heritage and history is being eroded; and when there are fundamental issues of safety and accessibility at risk. But it is an issue that policymakers and regulators must engage with now, before the market decides what is in its interest, rather than the public interest; and before today becomes a future none of us had a say in.
My own view is that this new tech should not be used to torpedo long-standing ethical considerations, or, in some way, be exempt from commonly accepted values and standards. In the taxi sector, this is about safety, accessibility, transparency and community engagement. However the sector evolves in the future, should these not still form the backbone of the industry?
Tech should disrupt markets, not destroy values. Will 2015 be the year of responsibility in tech?
A Taxi driver who was assaulted while on shift has called for an increase in safety measures for cabbies.
John McCaskie, 61, was beaten up by a group of men after they demanded he give them a lift.
The incident took place on Fore Street in Hertford when he wound down the window to ask them to stop leaning on his vehicle, only to be punched in the face.
A fracas followed outside his vehicle, which saw Mr McCaskie attacked on the ground before bouncers managed to intervene.
He now believes all cabs should have IP cameras to deter criminals and also follow the example of towns such as Luton, where all taxis are specifically designed for added security.
“The vehicles need to be purpose-built like black cabs,” he told the Mercury.
“Private cars are no good for customer safety or for driver safety.
“It’s far too small to have four fully-grown, often overweight, men crammed in and they are too close to the driver, especially when they start messing around.
“I see small saloon cars parked outside that rank and I think that’s a terrible business.
“They have no cameras in because most people just use their family cars and the council don’t want to pay for them. It’s hard enough for us to earn a living as it is.”
Earlier this month, 22-year-old Cameron Alder, from Warner Road in Ware, pleaded guilty to the assault and was fined £110,with the victim receiving £50 in compensation.
Despite his assailant also incurring other costs totalling £265, Mr McCaskie, who works for himself, believes the punishment for the October attack was not strict enough.
He is calling on East Herts District Council, which is responsible for licensing cabs, to step up.
“It didn’t even cover my loss of earnings, there was no way I could carry on working that night, let alone the trauma I suffered,” he said.
“I think it’s absolutely shocking. I’m running a public service and if the council cannot provide transport late at night then I think they need to do more to help us.
“All they want is to clean the streets up and they don’t care about the rest of us.”
The leader of the Hertford and Ware Street Pastors, Rick Harwig, earmarked the area by the war memorial, where the attack happened, as a potential hotspot for crime.
He said: “I think that would be the most likely place for it to happen as there is a kebab shop there and a lot of people looking for a lift.
“My advice to him for stopping it happening in the first place would be not to stop anywhere other than the official taxi rank.
“Not being able to afford a camera sounds like an excuse to me, you can get one to sit on your dashboard quite cheaply.”
It appears, however, that many taxi drivers are aware of the issue but are willing to accept it.
A spokesman for Foxholes Car Services said: “Assault happens in some form every weekend, it just the degree of assault which changes.
“I think a lot of drivers just see it as a hazard of the job and a lot of the time it goes unreported.”
An East Herts District Council spokesman said: “Taxi drivers are self-employed and choose which vehicle to present for licensing. If a driver feels unsafe in the vehicle they have chosen to licence then they could take any safety measures they feel appropriate or select a different vehicle to licence. This is the same principle that would apply to a shop or any other business.
“East Herts Council takes the issue of safety very seriously and can offer a range of advice to drivers.”
Police were unavailable for comment.
Source: Hertfordshire Mercury
How seriously do you think, TfL are taking the damning GLA report that branded them as Woefully inadequate?
Yesterday at City Hall, the Mayor admitted he hadn’t even read it.
Later in the afternoon, Garrett Emmerson, TfL’s Surface Transport Chief Operating Officer, appeared on the Eddie Nestor BBC London show and said, they are seriously looking at two of the nineteen recommendations.
Yes, it’s not a misprint, just two!
1. The signage on Minicabs.
2. Making the acceptance of credit cards by Taxi drivers mandatory.
He then repeated his amazing claim that TfL were the Gold Standard of Licensing Authorities which others aspire to. It’s an old PR trick that if you tell a big enough lie often enough, people start to believe its the truth. Garrett’s belligerent attitude seems to suggest TfL are going to put their heads down and hope this all just goes away.
He also made some amazing contradictory comments about enforcement:
In his London Live TV interview with Caroline Pidgeon,
Companies like Uber and Lyft have often referred to their services as “ride-sharing” or in done cases “Taxis”.
But these are not accurate terms.
After much criticism, Associated Press (AP) now agrees in part and has banned the words ride-share for Uber-like services in its widely-used style guide. The better term, AP says, is “ride-hailing”. Of course in London I could think of a better term.
Well, it’s a start! Perhaps they can now add, stop calling private hire car services TAXIS
In July, AP was criticised over the trend of calling these and other services “sharing” and called on its Greater Washington readers to come up with a better term.
When a number of people collectively buy something so all can use it, that may be sharing. When a company brokers transactions between people buying goods (in this case, rides) from people who sell these goods, that’s not sharing.
As Charlie Warzel explained in BuzzFeed, “Though Uber has recently introduced a carpooling service, the vast majority of services that Uber and Lyft and others provide mimic a traditional taxi service. You don’t get in an Uber to share a ride with another paying passenger”.
There are already ride systems and services that are much more properly “sharing.” Virginia has long had the practice of “slugging,” where drivers pick up other passengers at designated lots in order to use the carpool lanes. Other people are creating companies that help people actually share rides. In London, this would be known as stage coaching and I believe is not yet legal without a published rout and time table.
Amazingly after the LTDA’s now infamous Bug Bugs case, Richshaws were allowed to continue to operate under the stage coach act as they charge separate fares, even though there is no rout or time table. An apeal although winnable, was never lodged.
Jenny O’Brien is a community manager for Carma, a smartphone app that connects drivers and riders for the purpose of carpooling.
She says, “When I tell a potential user about Carma, as soon as I say ‘app’ and ‘ride sharing’ they say, ‘Oh, like Uber!’ Then I have to explain that Uber is more like a taxi”. But she is in fact as just as wrong. Uber are private hire.
She went on to say “It’s frustrating that the public lumps us together because of the misuse of the term ‘ride sharing.'”
She’s stating that carpool and ride sharing companies are frustrated by being associated with Uber.
Many writers follow the AP Stylebook.
It is fortunate that AP has agreed with the critics to more accurately describe this some of the new technology and services offered, but now they really do need to focus on the difference between Taxis and Private Hire.
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