Tag Archives: Cross-border
Wolverhampton’s signage ban more virtue signalling than substantive safety
There’s potentially quite a lot of material relating to Wolverhampton City Council’s decision to ban operator livery signage on its 30,000-strong fleet of private hire vehicles working the length and breadth of England. Therefore maybe best to concentrate primarily on … Continue reading
Opportunistic Wolves v civic-minded Knowsley?
The cross-border conundrum has been a press staple for several years now, at least when local journalists turn their attention to ‘taxi’ issues. The vast majority of such reports relate to Wolverhampton City Council, with the 40,000 private hire drivers … Continue reading
Don’t mention the private hire sector…
For trade anoraks like me, one feature evident in commentary when Uber first appeared more than a decade ago was a failure to even acknowledge the existence of the private hire trade. Therefore London-centric opinion pieces in the press would … Continue reading
The myth of the Wolverhampton cross-border cabbie commuters
One common theme in the genre of press articles about ‘taxi’ drivers in particular towns and cities objecting to cross-border working is that the drivers licensed elsewhere aren’t local to the area, and are portrayed as commuting in from elsewhere. … Continue reading
More disinformation being touted about Uber at Gatwick
Shock, horror, but there’s been no online press articles about the Gatwick Airport dispute for at least a week now. And, as opposed to the earlier stuff about widespread and self-evident illegality involving Uber cars licensed by Transport for London … Continue reading
Bedford buck-passing on cross-border bandits?
Several examples of exaggeration and total nonsense relating to cross-border illegality and enforcement have been highlighted on here recently. These generally emanate from members of the trade, but also from elected politicians and councillors. However, paid licensing officials might normally … Continue reading
Uber virtue out of regulatory necessity
Uber’s PR schtick was prominently on display during a recent council committee meeting in York to decide on a licence application, as reported by York Mix. For example: Matthew Freckelton, head of cities for Uber[…]“Uber only uses drivers and vehicles … Continue reading
Formulaic uber-confusion on cross-border stuff
The pun on the word uber (small case) is always a bit hard to avoid around this kind of stuff, but in this case it derives from a local press article about Uber and the cross-border issue, which has recently … Continue reading
Wolverhampton frying pan to meet Blackpool fire
Predictably, Labour politician Chris Webb seems to have rowed back significantly on his claim from a couple of weeks ago, when the newly elected Blackpool South MP said: “Blackpool is experiencing the scourge of unlicensed taxis in our treasured seaside … Continue reading
Bordering on boilerplate
Another couple of days, and another couple of local articles on the Uber/cross-border/Wolverhampton stuff, or whatever. And with the usual jumble of inconsistent of misleading terminology, such as taxi/private hire/hackney carriage/ride-hailing, blah, blah. For which the local press shouldn’t necessarily … Continue reading