Drubbing for Griffin

[MOCAŠ]

No, not the odious Nick but the bothersome John, head of upstart minicab firm Addison Lee.

Last week he instructed his drivers to use bus lanes illegally with alacrity, with the company covering any fines incurred. On Thursday the high court ordered him to withdraw this instruction (yet oddly ruled that the company could still cover drivers' fines), and kicked the issue into the long grass. Yesterday came the news that Addision Lee's lucrative government contacts would not be renewed when they expire this month, after it was questioned whether such contracts ought to be placed with a company that was deliberately promoting law-breaking.

This all comes hard on the heels of some further account cancellations by people who were appalled by Griffin's insensitive stance last week on cyclist deaths. Yes, we all know that many cyclists take ridiculous chances, but when the head of a taxi firm suggests that the death of a few cyclists is inevitable, he'd better expect a backlash.

Time for him to pipe down before he does a full Ratner?

 

[st13phil]

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that TfL would gain the High Court order they wanted.

I agree that Griffin seems to have let his mouth run away with him somewhat over the last couple of weeks, but he does have a valid point regarding the discrimination between hackney carriages and private hire vehicles over bus lanes. He has a valid point about incompetent and kamikaze cyclists, too.

 

[Colin_b]

Whole thing was a publicity stunt, with added crassness.

 

[st13phil]

On Thursday the high court ordered him to withdraw this instruction (yet oddly ruled that the company could still cover drivers' fines), and kicked the issue into the long grass.

Actually, having just done a little more research on the ruling, Addison Lee were not ordered to withdraw their instruction (as TfL wanted) but rather to not repeat it - a subtle but significant difference.

And far from kicking the issue into the long grass, Mr Justice Eder only granted the injunction temporarily, and ordered the courts to speed up Addison Lee's application for a judicial review of legislation that prevents private hire vehicles from using bus lanes, saying, "The situation is time-critical as the London Olympics and peak tourist season approaches."

So not actually a drubbing at all.

 

[MOCAŠ]

he does have a valid point regarding the discrimination between hackney carriages and private hire vehicles over bus lanes.

Discrimination is a dirty word.

Private hire vehicles are not taxi cabs, so they cannot justifiably demand entitlement to the same operating conditions. Unlike black cabs, they have to be booked from pickup point to destination, for a set fare agreed in advance.

Black cabs are more like the buses whose lanes they are allowed to share, in that they offer an on-demand service. Also, as the fare depends not only on the distance covered but the time taken, it's in the fare-payer's interest (rather than just the company's) that the journey be completed in as short a time as possible.

 

[MOCAŠ]

So not actually a drubbing at all.

The drubbing came in the form of the loss of government contracts.

However, the private hire vehicles will never be allowed to use bus lanes. The best Griffin can hope for is that black cabs will also be banned from using them - a dog-in-the-manger outcome that I hope does not transpire.

 

[neilrr]

I've never seen an Addison Lee vehicle in the L lane of a motorway. They are always in the middle or RH lane regardless of the conditions or traffic.

I wonder if he told them to do that too.

 

[Frugal]

Having skimmed the text of High Court judgment, there are no very big surprises here but I'll be interested to see the how AL's points on EU law are dealt with in the next round: Transport for London (TfL) v Griffin & Ors [2012] EWHC 1105 (QB) (26 April 2012)

 

[300CE]

I've never seen an Addison Lee vehicle in the L lane of a motorway. They are always in the middle or RH lane regardless of the conditions or traffic.

I wonder if he told them to do that too.

I also think that he tells them not to use their mirrors either - in my experience, their drivers are an absolute menace and i always approach them with extra caution when commuting in on the scoot.

 

[Stratman]

Reading the judgement, paragraph 3d of AL's notice, "It denies free and fair competition in providing an unfair advantage to one group of commercial operators over others.", could open a whole can of worms.

At the moment, jet aviation fuel has extremely favourable tax treatment. Aircraft which are used by courier firms get the benefit of this, whereas road haulage firms have to pay enormous amounts of tax on their fuel. Is this not a case of treating one group of commercial operators more favourably than another?

Anyone with a haulage firm fancy a cheeky enquiry to the EU?

 

[christopherwk]

It this were to ever come about, I wonder how this would be enforced?

Would it just be private hire vehicles licenced by TfL allowed to use their bus lanes?

Must the private hire vehicle need to have a passenger on board to use the lanes? Can they use the bus lanes on the way to a pick up? What if they just dropped off and about to make their way home, can they use the bus lanes to get home, and what about private use?

How would TfL know? Similarly to congestion charge, private hire vehicles licenced by TfL are exempt from paying the congestion charge, though on the licence (paper part) it says "the vehicle is only exempt from the charge when undertaking private hire bookings", though as far as I am aware, it is never enforced (it would probably be too time consuming and costly anyway), therefore a private hire driver could use their private hire car on their day off during the week to park up in Cavendish Square (or Knightsbridge when the congestion charge was enforced there) use the bus lanes to get there and do their Oxford Street shopping?

There were cases of people licensing their cars as private hire vehicles just to get exempt from the congestion charge (good value at £114 a year, even greater if they get to use bus lanes).

Naturally, I'm in favour of this, however if this were to be pushed through, I probably won't use the bus lanes very often anyway as you'll soon get stuck behind a bus at a bus stop and have to pull into the traffic anyway. Even if the times when the bus lanes aren't in operation (10am to 4pm - for some of them), I also tend not to use them as often there are 20 min parking bays along some of them as well as loading restrictions are lifted during those off-peak hours so you'll come across a van un/loading in the bus lane and again you'll need to pull back into the stream of traffic.

 

[trapperjohn]

Blimey never knew what you had to know to be a PHV chauffeur.