{"id":1967,"date":"2014-10-22T14:09:50","date_gmt":"2014-10-22T13:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=1967"},"modified":"2014-10-23T13:19:07","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T12:19:07","slug":"safe-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=1967","title":{"rendered":"Safe ride?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday (Tuesday October 21) peers in the House of Lords pushed a Bill through, which Unite believes will put public safety \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safety in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

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Clause 12 of the deregulation Bill will allow firms to sub-contract bookings to operators in a different district.<\/p>\n

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Meaning you could book your taxi with a private hire firm you regularly use and feel safe with \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for a driver from a completely different firm that you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know to turn up.<\/p>\n

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In an opinion poll by the Local Government Association (LGA) 80 per cent of women said they would be concerned if they booked a journey with one firm and a different one turned up. And now that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what could happen.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn London, there were 25 sexual assaults by minicab drivers every week and last year there were 287 assaults,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Tommy McIntyre, Unite national taxi rep.<\/p>\n

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This Bill has been opposed by Unite and other taxi trade unions, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, the Survivors Trust, all 19 police commissioners, the Institute of Licensing and the LGA. But the government clearly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t listening.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know if the firm that turns up is actually licensed,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Tommy. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bSo in reality you would just be getting in to a strangers car. How is this safe?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Being able to pass jobs from one operator to another would make local licensing enforcement impossible. Currently only the licensing officers from a licensing authority area have the power to take enforcement action against the vehicle and driver.<\/p>\n

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Clause 12 could result in vehicles and drivers working hundreds of miles from their licensing authority.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou could be licensed in Liverpool and work in London,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Tommy. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt will be impossible to police \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in fact the police back us up on this.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further concern if clause 12 isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stopped when it reaches the House of Common\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s is the growth of mega-car firms like Addison Lee and Uber threatening smaller firms survival.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe call on MPs to seriously rethink this issue when the Bill returns to the House of Commons,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 added Tommy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You may be interested to know that women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safety is apparently not a priority for the Lib Dems. Sixty three out of 65 voted in favour of deregulation of taxis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday (Tuesday October 21) peers in the House of Lords pushed a Bill through, which Unite believes will put public safety \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safety in jeopardy.   Clause 12 of the deregulation Bill will allow firms to sub-contract bookings to operators in a different district.   Meaning you could book your taxi with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[33],"wps_subtitle":"Safety fears as taxi Bill pushed through Lords","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}