ASA censures London taxi body’s campaign for reinforcing negative stereotypes about eastern European drivers
Two complaints were made that the campaign was racist and offensive
The advertising regulator has banned a London radio campaign by the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association for depicting foreign minicab drivers as “underhand and unreliable” and black cabs as the only trustworthy form of transport.
Two LTDA radio ads aired on London radio station LBC and in each case featured scenarios where minicabs were unable to find their way to a destination.
In the first of the ads, made by Tyga Marketing, the driver of a cab appeared to be of eastern European descent. The minicab driver gets lost while using a satnav system and says he has not done the Knowledge, the test that all black-cab drivers must pass to get a licence.
In the second ad a couple miss their flight and receive a rebuke from an airline worker that they should have taken a black cab. “Next time use a real cab,” is the tagline at the end of both ads.
The Advertising Standards Authority received four complaints. Chauffeur Select and one other complainant, a cab driver, objected that the ads were “misleading and denigratory towards all public carriage organisations” because they “implied that non-LTDA members were incompetent and unreliable”.
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Two other complainants objected that the portrayal of the driver in the first ad was racist and offensive because it implied that eastern European drivers were “unreliable and underhand characters”.
In its ruling banning the ads, the ASA said the character with a foreign accent was portrayed as someone who “was an unreliable driver who had little regard for the needs of his passengers”.
“We noted that we had not seen any evidence which suggested that foreign drivers were unable to carry out the duties of a licensed taxi driver effectively,” the regulator added. “Because [the] ad reinforced a negative stereotype of foreign drivers as being unreliable and underhand, we concluded it had the potential to cause serious offence to some listeners.”
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The ASA said non-black-cab drivers did not need to be members of the LTDA to have a valid licence from the PCO, yet the ads made specific reference to only relying on black cabs.
“[The ASA] considered that those references suggested there was a difference between black cabs and minicabs, irrespective of licensing, and that only black cabs were reliable. We concluded the ads were denigratory towards PCO-licensed minicabs,” the regulator added.
The LTDA said the ad was intended to discourage people from using cabs not licensed by the Public Carriage Office.
Initiatives backed by the Metropolitan police and Transport for London to identify unlicensed cabs in recent years had revealed that “in excess of 95% of unlicensed drivers who were arrested, originated from overseas and many were illegal immigrants”, the LTDA added.
Justice finally catches up with violent minicab tout.
An illegal minicab tout who dodged deportation for ten years is finally being booted out of the country for attacking a black cab driver, the Old Bailey heard yesterday.
Lounes Khalfi, 53, spat at cabbie Paul Griffin-Ahamed and punched him in the face for taking his picture while touting for business outside a West End casino.
He then threatened another black cab driver, Andrew Donovan, who had witnessed the attack, claiming his friends would ‘f*** you up’.
After his arrest, it emerged Khalfi should have been deported as long ago as 2004 after a conviction for fleecing tourists, but blundering officials allowed him to stay.
In 2013 Khalfi was arrested again by British Transport Police, a spokesman said Khalfi, who lived in Essex, had been charging “extortionate rates”.
For many years, Khalfi had “preyed” on tourists around Camden high street and had also been banned from eight London rail stations for five years.
Lounes Khalfi, 50, was given an Asbo in 2013, which barred him from approaching members of the public outside stations, including Euston, King’s Cross, St Pancras and Marylebone. But it made little difference to Khalfi who just moved into the West End where he thought he would have little chance of being caught touting.
Khalfi operated as a tout outside clubs and casinos in the West End, undetected by compliance if the police and probably would have still been operating there today, had he not used violence against a couple of licensed Taxi drivers who filmed him at work.
Presently in London’s west end, a minicab tout has more chance of winning the lottery, then being arrested for touting. TfL’s answer to the increase in touting reports is to double the team of compliance officers who have no powers other than to report suspected incidents. Compliance teams rarely go out on patrol, looking fir touts. Their main duties are normally limited to Badge and Bill checks on Taxi drivers at station ranks. Operation Neon officers who seem to only concentrate on PH parking offences only go out Friday and Saturday.
Just before Christmas, ex top cop Chief Superintendent Matt Bell resigned as head of compliance after just a few months. No statement has been made by TfL to the reason why Matt quit. It’s a shame because Matt Bell was approachable and for just a few months, things certainly improved as visual action was being taken against the touts.
Because of the lack of enforcement, touts outside night venues have become more aggressive with reports of assaults on Taxi drivers common.
London’s largest representative group the LTDA, on their Twitter feed yesterday, agreed to email their members and ask them to support next Wednesday’s protest action.
Unite the union London Cab section also said they will actively participate in the Taxi Trade protested called for Wednesday 10/02/2016.
The demo, originally called by United Cabbies Group (UCG), will be supported by the RMT, LCDC, Unite London Cab section and now the LTDA.
Finally, a totally United Taxi Trade.
More good news: National/International Support.
We’ve also been informed that Taxi drivers from Liverpool and Manchester are giving their full support to next Wednesday’s protest in Whitehall.
We are also receiving support from Europian Taxi alliance, as French, Spanish and Italian Taxi drivers show support.
The demo originally planed for today, had to be cancelled when the police objected, saying the area would be on lockdown due to the G20 conference taking place in the QE2 conference centre.
And yet today, we’ve been informed today there is to be a massive demo tomorrow concerning the situation in Syria.
The question needs to be asked, do the Police consider a peaceful Taxi drivers demo more of a security risk than a demo concerning terrorists and terrorism!
Below is a statement from Unite which has appeared on the online Cab Trade News website:
The Tory party’s interference in London’s private hire review shows how it will do everything in its power to deregulate the UK taxi service and private hire trade.
Unite calls for a stop to the Tory Government’s taxi and private hire deregulation agenda and an end to the lowering of transport safety standards.
Conservative Mayor of London, Boris Johnson’s capitulation to his party’s aims and Zac Goldsmith’s voting record on the Deregulation Bill shows that the Tories cannot be trusted with the UK’s taxi services.
Unite Cab Section also calls upon the Government to create a level playing field by making sure that companies such as Google and Uber pay their full share of UK tax.
Unite the union has been at the forefront of the fightback against Tory deregulation will continue its campaign for safe, regulated and accessible taxi and private hire services.
The taxi trade protest will be held on Wednesday 10th February, from 2:30pm in Whitehall, London, SW1.
If you thought cyclists were just a nuisance, prepare yourself for a shock!…by Alan Fisher
Over the years, we’ve heard many true stories that at the time we found difficult to believe, but the one involving a Dial-a-Cab driver just before Christmas outside the Houses of Parliament has surely moved to the very top of the list!
It also brings into play a situation that is not just shocking, but in reality puts our licenses and very livelihoods into the hands of our Mayor’s undoubted favourites – his fellow cyclists!
Debbie Hope had been travelling along St Margaret’s Street towards the Parliament Square traffic lights. Soon after – on Christmas Eve in fact – she received a police letter enclosing three stills taken from a video camera appearing to show that Debbie’s taxi had been driven through the lights whilst they were red.
Debbie’s tells her story in the lasted Dial-a-cab in house magazine Call Sign.
“The photos undoubtedly showed my cab going through the lights on red and although I couldn’t understand how I missed them, I obviously did and was prepared to hold my hands up,” Debbie told Call Sign. “The first photo showed me a short distance away from the lights with them showing red and amber, so the next sequence should have been green. But they obviously must have changed straight back to red because the second photo showed the lights as being red again and my cab going through them.”
Continuing with her story, Debbie told us: “Receiving that on Christmas Eve was bad enough, but the police then said that on looking at files, I did not have any insurance and that frightened me even more! So far as I knew, I was insured with Quotax and had never had any renewal problems. But the letter now made me wonder if, and for how long, I had been driving while uninsured? It really did frighten me.”
Debbie phoned Quotax and they confirmed that she was insured and that any police enquiry must have shown an incorrect registration. But she still faced the possibility of three points for what their own photographic evidence proved was an incorrect light change sequence.
So Debbie then phoned the number on the letter and they confirmed that she was indeed being prosecuted for going through a red light. But what they told her next not only amazed her, but should shock every single taxi driver in London.
“I asked if I had been filmed by a yellow camera because I had never noticed one there. When I was told no, I then asked if it was a police hand-held camera and again the answer came back as no. So I asked where the footage had come from and after a few moments of silence, the voice at the other end said it had been taken by a member of the public!
“My husband, Duncan, took a look at the photos and said that in his view they seemed to be still shots from a video that had been taken by a cyclist with a helmet camera who must have been behind Debbie and passed the footage of a taxi going through a red light over to the police!
“I was still reeling from the shock of what I had been told by both the police and then Duncan, but pulled myself together enough to call the police again and explain that the sequence of lights was obviously wrong and although I admitted going through a red light because the photo showed it, surely the incorrect lights sequence was mitigation enough for the matter to be dropped?
The voice at the other end said she would look at the footage and call straight back, obviously hearing the concern in my voice. True to her word, she did phone back and confirmed that I had indeed gone through a red light, but went on to add that an incorrect sequence was no defence. She also apologised for the police making a mistake re my insurance, but they were not going to cancel the offence.
“Because I now believed it was probably a cyclist, I asked if that footage was allowed as evidence for something serious enough to carry three points if proved and she said yes!
“I was truly stunned and several days later when I spotted a policeman in the street, I asked if he could confirm that cyclists’ helmet camera footage was acceptable. He said that he too was amazed and had never heard of it!”
Debbie, who has been with DaC for 15 years, went on to tell the magazine that she now has a camera in her taxi and had contemplated passing over footage of any cyclist that jumped a red light! But she added that with their advantage of not needing registration plates, they all looked the same from behind! And besides, that would probably be a full time job!
“I assume that the cyclist who passed the footage of my cab over to the police just didn’t like taxi drivers and has probably done it before,” said Debbie, “but I doubt that an all-out war between us would do anyone any good.
However, I’d like to warn all Taxi drivers that with so many cyclists having helmet-cams, this may be just the thin end of the wedge.”
TfL announces proposals to enhance safety and customer service, including a formal English language requirement for drivers
Mayor asks TfL to investigate the removal of the Congestion Charge exemption for private hire vehicles
Mayor secures commitment from the Government to promote legislation to enable TfL to regulate pedicabs in London
TfL press release…
Following a review of private hire regulations in London, including a hugely successful public consultation that attracted over 16,000 responses, Transport for London (TfL) has today set out proposals to modernise the Capital’s private hire industry. The measures, which will be put to the TfL Board for approval in March, will enhance standards of safety and customer service in light of the impact of new technology and the rising numbers of private hire vehicles in London. Key proposals include:
A formal English language requirement for drivers.
Guaranteed fare estimates for customers in advance of their journey.
The provision of driver and vehicle details to customers, including a photo of the driver, before the start of each journey.
Private hire operators to ensure that customers can speak to someone in the event of a problem with their journey.
Even more robust ‘hire and reward’ insurance requirements.
Improved record keeping and real-time provision of driver and vehicle information to TfL to make enforcement even easier and more effective.
Welcome advances in technology and new business models have fundamentally changed the way in which the private hire industry operates in London – giving customers greater choice and convenience. These changes have also led to unprecedented growth in the numbers of drivers and vehicles. The number of private hire drivers has increased from 59,000 in 2009/10 to more than 95,000 today. This has contributed to wider challenges for London such as growing traffic congestion, illegal parking and areas of poor air quality.
In discussions with central Government, the Mayor has been pushing for legislation to enable TfL to restrict overall numbers of private hire drivers and vehicles. The Mayor believes that more must be done to address the congestion and air quality impacts of increasing numbers of private hire vehicles, which now outnumber taxis in central London during the day. Whilst the Government has been reluctant to pursue such legislation, the Mayor has asked TfL to investigate the impact and feasibility of removing the Congestion Charge exemption for private hire vehicles in central London to tackle pollution and reduce congestion*. TfL estimates that the number of private hire vehicles circulating within the central London Congestion Charge zone has increased by over 50 per cent in the last two years.This means that 1 in 10 vehicles entering the zone is now a private hire vehicle.
In addition the Mayor has secured a commitment to progress separate legislation to enable TfL to regulate pedicabs, helping to tackle fare abuses prevalent among some pedicab drivers, whilst tackling the congestion they cause in central London, particularly in the evenings.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “New technology has revolutionised the private hire industry in recent years, bringing with it quantum leaps in terms of faster, better and cheaper services for customers. However it has also meant a rapid increase in the number of private hire vehicles on our streets, an increase that is responsible for causing congestion and has the potential to worsen air quality in central London. Private hire vehicles now represent over 10 per cent of vehicles entering the Congestion Charging zone on a daily basis and I have asked TfL to investigate the impact and feasibility of removing the Congestion Charging exemption for private hire vehicles with a view to cutting congestion in central London. I am also delighted to have secured a commitment from the Government to take forward new legislation that will finally enable us to regulate the pedicab industry that has operated free of any real authority for far too long.”
In addition, and subject to approval by the TfL Board, TfL will alter the structure of licence fees paid by operators of different sizes to better reflect the costs of compliance and enforcement activity. This will provide further financial incentive for operators to maximise the efficiency of their operations and minimise the number of vehicles they use across London as a whole.
Garrett Emmerson, TfL’s Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport, said “Londoners have given a very clear indication of how they would like us to shape the regulation of the private hire industry to deliver improved safety and customer service. We had an overwhelming response to the consultation with 16,000 responses and all of the proposals we are taking forward received majority support. We also discussed the proposals in detail with the trade over several months. The final package includes formal English language requirements for drivers, guaranteed fares quotes for customers before their journeys, easier process for customers to complain if they need to, and more information given to customers about the car they are about to get into. This will create the environment for a flourishing private hire industry and wide choice for customers alongside London’s iconic and world-class taxi service.”
In total, TfL proposes to take forward 13 of the proposals as set out in the public consultation and a further five amended proposals. Three proposals will be investigated further before decisions are taken. The following ideas will not be taken forward:
Operators having to provide booking confirmation details to passengers at least five minutes prior to the journey commencing.
Operators having to offer the ability to pre-book up to seven days in advance.
Operators being prohibited from showing vehicles as available for immediate hire, either visibly, for example by signage on the street, or virtually, for example via an app.
Private hire drivers only being able to be registered to a single operator at any time.
TfL will now undertake a further four-week regulatory impact assessment consultation on proposed changes to private hire regulations. The results will be put to the TfL Board with final decisions being taken at the Board’s meeting on 17 March.
Given that technology is continuing to evolve at such a rapid pace, further changes to the private hire regulations are likely to be needed in the near future. Therefore, TfL will keep the regulations under review to ensure that they keep pace with the changing industry and support a modern and thriving trade.
In addition to these new measures, the Mayor and TfL are already taking action to improve service and safety standards in the trade, including:
Introducing an enhanced topographical test for new private hire drivers, requiring drivers to demonstrate enhanced map reading abilities and English language comprehension.
Introducing a new complaints system so that customers can contact TfL if they have received poor service from a private hire company or driver.
Introducing mandatory disability equality training and other improved training for drivers.
*Any change to the exemption for private hire vehicles would require a variation to the Congestion Charging Scheme Order which is subject to statutory consultation requirements.
ENDS
The full list of proposals being taken forward to the Board for decision following consultation is as follows. Each of these proposals received majority support during the formal consultation.
Operators must have the facility to provide a booking confirmation to passengers containing the photo ID and details of the vehicle being used to discharge the booking where passengers are able to receive that information
TfL will no longer issue licence variations to private hire operator licenses to add a late-night or temporary event operating centre.
Operators will be required to provide specified information to TfL at specified intervals including details of all drivers and vehicles registered with them.
Operators must record the main destination for each booking before the journey commences
Operators to retain all records for a period of 12 months
TfL to control the names under which operators offer private hire services to the public
Private hire drivers to be required to demonstrate a certain standard of English, with particular emphasis on ability on spoken communication – in line with the Home Office requirement for a B1 qualification when applying for citizenship.
Individual licence applicants to provide National Insurance numbers to TfL
A driver’s private hire vehicle licence to be considered for revocation if their private hire driver’s licence is revoked
TfL will liaise with the Home Office on introducing DBS checks on private hire operator staff that have face to face contact with the public
TfL to stop accepting payment for licence fees by postal order and cheque
Drivers to carry or display a copy of insurance details at all times
Introduce new operator licence fee structure to better reflect operator licensing costs based on operator size. The specific revisions to the licence fee structure will be consulted on separately
Amendment of regulations to give TfL the power to control advertising displayed inside, from, or on the outside of a private hire vehicle
Operators will be required to notify TfL before changing their operating model
Operators must ensure that customers can speak to a real person in the event of a problem with their journey
Private hire operators must provide an estimated fare prior to the commencement of the journey
Private hire drivers will be required to have hire or reward insurance in place at all times while registered to an operator
The proposals that will be considered further are:
Requirements for security measures for operators who use apps to allocate drivers to a fare to prevent the app being used by a person other than the licensed driver
The feasibility of introducing a requirement for operators to indemnify their customers against any failing of their driver to provide hire or reward insurance
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