No Stopping For Mini Cabs

What’s the difference between a black cab and a licenced mini cab?

Well there’s the cost, the level of conversation, the space in the back, the additional copy of the A to Z and of course the no stopping in a red route rule.

We only know this because we read today about the Hackney mini cab driver facing almost £1,000 in fines for stopping in red routes. Something that the black cabs can do and the private mini cabs can’t. Now bearing in mind that this is only for dropping off and picking up fares, something we would guess to be an integral part of the cabbie’s job, this does seem a little unreasonable. Perhaps more so when we read that many of these fines were accrued whilst helping disabled people to and from their homes, a plight that blights the pockets of thousands of mini cab drivers each year. Now we wouldn’t care to question the wisdom of TFL’s ban, but in the light of such evidence it does seem like the GMB’s call for the ban to be revoked might just be a nice thing to do.

But in case they don’t here are a few suggestions to help out cabbies who have fares that are trapped in the red route of doom.

Simply refuse to take any one who lives on a red route

• Ask your fares to move house
• Tie a wheelbarrow to your roof so you can park safely and wheel your fare home
• As above but with one of those nifty little hover-boards from Back To The Future
• Invest in an enormous adamantium fishing rod
• Stop being a cabbie and become a parking warden instead