Taxi Rank frustrations!!

Maybe this has been done before, but it still needs to be sorted. The Taxi-rank at Barkers Pool attracts those drivers who have radios in their cabs but also hedge their bets by waiting on the rank just to give themselves an extra chance and pick up the job whichever comes first, radio nor rank. I have no qualms with that but.......for one they tend only to wait in the outside lane in order to pull out easier if called for over the radio job, and in some cases because they are more concerned with their position on the radio circuit, they use the rank as a convenient parking place. That means they are not interested in moving their cabs forward in time leading to delays and frustration when others arriving after them can't keep a tally of who was first etc. If they move down in time then confusion is avoided.
Here is my example, where my cab is parked in the left hand lane and all the others with radios are parked in the outside leaving the inside lane empty. Now the cab at the very back would now have to park on Balm Green thereby committing a parking offence. This situation has already lead to heated exchanges between drivers when the offending party has taken offence at others tooting their horn at them to move forward. If these guys are reminded of a certain byelaw and instructed to abide by the rules of how to use a rank we may avoid confrontations between drivers.

We have covered this before in Drivers Etiquette, even in the licensing circular. Unfortnunately the Taxi Licensing Officers can not advise drivers about the "unwritten rules" of the rank etiquette. What we can say and is that it is within the bye-laws at number provides for this, also the Town Police Clauses Act Section 64 in relation to obstructing other licensees then any driver who commits offences under these Acts is liable to action being taken by Officers. What we do find in similar cases drivers are reluctant to support action against other drivers by way of statements etc.

The Byelaw 12(b) provides for just this situation sir, it says; 'from time to time when the carriage in front is moved off or moved forward to cause his carriage to be moved forward so as to fill the place previously occupied by the carriage driven off or moved forward'

By not abiding by the rules at the frustration of their colleagues, aren't some of these drivers contravening the byelaws?

Yes they are, and if enforcement officers were to witness this type of behaviour then they would have the powers to take further action. If the obstruction was seen by a non authorised officer and reported then the thrid party witness would have to supply formal witness statements to satisfy court evidence standards. They would have to be willing to attend hearings or court to give evidence from that statement.

As I have stated before this is down to individual drivers and having the respect for others doing the same work as.