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<strong>Call</strong> <strong>Sign</strong> <strong>May</strong> 20<strong>06</strong> Page 37<br />
Mailshot continued from<br />
page 36<br />
tinually being rejected, but I’ve never<br />
really been one of those who worried<br />
about where I was going to, provided<br />
that my last trip had some sort of going<br />
home facility to it. Sometimes we reject<br />
out of fear – and I include myself –<br />
because we just don’t like certain trips<br />
and those aren’t necessarily “out of the<br />
way” ones either. I’d be interested in<br />
why some jobs that stay in town are constantly<br />
rejected. With no traffic and<br />
hand on heart, would you run from St<br />
John’s Wood to Maida Vale to cover a job<br />
to Kilburn? If you say no to that, would<br />
you run from Belgrave Square to Sloane<br />
Square to cover a trip to Kensington? If<br />
you have two different answers to the<br />
above two trips, I’d be interested in why<br />
and whether a no destination policy<br />
would terrify you? And to save anyone<br />
asking, no one has told me that one is to<br />
be brought in …Ed<br />
Loof Lirpa?<br />
About 10 days ago I was having coffee with<br />
a friend who works at City Hall (in accounts)<br />
and before long the conversation turned to<br />
transport. My friend said that he had heard<br />
that there were talks about plans to make<br />
the bendy buses even longer by adding an<br />
extra section in the middle, probably starting<br />
with route 401. I dismissed this as too far<br />
fetched, but on Thursday I was on a bendy<br />
bus and got speaking to the driver who said<br />
that yes, indeed, within six or seven weeks<br />
there would be a specialised driver training<br />
course starting up.<br />
Perhaps <strong>Call</strong> <strong>Sign</strong> can contact TfL and<br />
either get an official denial or be first to<br />
break the news. Let's hope that there is no<br />
foundation to this.<br />
Laurence Kelvin (W88)<br />
I received Laurence’s email on the<br />
morning of April 1 and treated everything<br />
that day with suspicion! That suspicion<br />
was raised even further when I<br />
saw the route number - 4/01. I also<br />
received two other dodgy-looking<br />
emails at the same time. One was from a<br />
driver who also sent a photo of his pet<br />
armadillo, Cabby, while another came<br />
from a non-DaC lady driver who told me<br />
that for medical reasons she was going<br />
to have to go topless while driving her<br />
cab (her skin wasn’t breathing correctly)<br />
and was I interested in photographing<br />
her as she intended entering the<br />
next Taxi Driver of the Year competition!<br />
…Ed<br />
Back to fixed prices<br />
In reply to Mr Rice’s reply (April Mailshot<br />
To Finz or not to Finz) and especially in<br />
regard to why I don’t do fixed prices, can<br />
someone explain to me why prices are<br />
mailshot<br />
being fixed within the London postal area? I<br />
don’t live in hope that it times out on the<br />
meter.<br />
Patrick Noble (S55)<br />
Brian Rice replies: The point I was<br />
endeavouring to convey to you, Patrick,<br />
is that you cannot be in a position to<br />
complain about fixed prices when you<br />
do not actually do them. Consequently,<br />
as the trip would never be offered to<br />
you, you would not be in a position to<br />
judge whether the FP was good or<br />
bad. Why do we have FP's? Well, for a<br />
start the client wants them and the vast<br />
majority of our members are prepared<br />
to do them, even though as a company<br />
so far as we can, we resist them.<br />
EC5 – cut down on<br />
wasted mileage?<br />
I've been a DaC member for almost three<br />
years and I understand the reasons for the<br />
Finsbury Square rank, but I think that now<br />
you’ve taken the (temporary) decision to be<br />
able to book into EC5 without the need of<br />
the Finz, wouldn't it be even more efficient<br />
to dispatch all EC5 work (except fixed<br />
prices) as directed, but giving a pick-up<br />
address with the reject option? It seems inefficient<br />
to have one cab running from the far<br />
east side of the city to the far west side to a<br />
pick-up and another cab doing the same<br />
thing in the opposite direction. Surely this<br />
would get cabs to clients more quickly and<br />
cut down on driver’s dead mileage?<br />
Kevin Molyneux (B20)<br />
Keith Cain replies: Kevin, the point you<br />
raise regarding disbanding EC5 has been<br />
spoken about many times. It does make<br />
a lot of sense to dispatch the work into<br />
its original zone and I have requested<br />
this from our programmers to be done.<br />
Unfortunately, all work associated with<br />
EC5 will remain masked and nonrejectable<br />
because 30 /40 years experience<br />
tells us our service levels to clients<br />
after 21:00 hours is far better operating<br />
this way. I have asked for an update on<br />
this and was advised that we hope to be<br />
in a position to test it by the middle-to<br />
the end of <strong>May</strong>. If all goes well, it will be<br />
implemented straight away…<br />
Going home – or the<br />
happy hour!<br />
On reading your lead article on ‘Going<br />
Home (<strong>Call</strong> <strong>Sign</strong> Editorial, April 20<strong>06</strong>),<br />
perhaps this successful proposition should<br />
be renamed Happy Hour! Please explain<br />
what part is ‘going home’ and what represents<br />
cherry picking, because as this successful<br />
proposition stands at the moment, it<br />
represents a cheats charter! A driver can put<br />
in Code 3 and cherry pick for 60 minutes.<br />
He or she can log onto EC2 and get an<br />
uncovered list of all jobs in all EC zones plus<br />
all back-up channels – SE1, E1, and N1 etc<br />
including all A/D jobs. Then at the end of an<br />
hour of looking at jobs going to Essex, Herts<br />
etc but wanting to go to SW London for<br />
instance, he or she can just decide to go<br />
back to work as usual! Surely, if all drivers<br />
played this game we would have a massive<br />
backlog of late and uncovered jobs and the<br />
bid channel would be full! So where does<br />
this leave the DaC drivers who are out there<br />
to work, knowing nearly all the jobs are<br />
being viewed by the cherry pickers?<br />
This successful proposition regarding<br />
Going Home represents a dangerous recipe<br />
for disaster and will result in a bad service,<br />
ie late cabs, which equals lost accounts,<br />
which equals no work! As many of you<br />
know, ComCab thought it had all the angles<br />
covered and sold Going Home as one of its<br />
plus points for joining ComCab, but this system<br />
was abused and look what happened to<br />
that circuit then. So maybe DaC should consider<br />
hanging fire on its new premises until<br />
it has had a chance to audit the effect the<br />
new Going Home system has on its service.<br />
Be lucky all of you and drive safely. From<br />
just another concerned old git…<br />
Graham Ellis (S95)<br />
You obviously agree with my Editorial<br />
comments on the subject, Graham, but<br />
the price we pay for belonging to a<br />
democratic organisation is that we must<br />
accept even that which we do not agree<br />
with if the majority vote in favour. As I<br />
also said in that piece, my real objection<br />
was that neither the proposer nor seconder<br />
turned up to explain their proposition.<br />
And yes, if what you say is the<br />
case, then this proposition will cause<br />
problems as against the old system of<br />
having one crack at getting something<br />
going your direction. Perhaps a better<br />
system would be for the Board to decide<br />
this type of procedure after asking for<br />
driver’s views rather than having it<br />
changed via a proposition and then<br />
changed back the following year? …Ed<br />
Agreeing with the Ed<br />
I agree with your April Editorial. Anyone<br />
putting forward or seconding a proposition<br />
should be compelled to put it forward in<br />
person.<br />
Martin Freeborn (C67)<br />
Thank you Martin. I’ve had quite a few<br />
phone calls supporting my view and (so<br />
far) none against, which beggars the<br />
point – who voted for it? …Ed
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