“London Chauffeur News – by Le Tour Worldwide”

Gas repair works on the Western Avenue A40 London near Park Royal are taking longer than anticipated and may go into next week. The works that started a few days ago needed a lane closure to be put in place into both directions. Drivers coming in from Oxford to London may find it easier to use the North Circular Road to circumnavigate their way around the traffic through the back roads via Willesden lane if going to North and North West London and use the Hanger lane exit onto Gunnersberry Avenue in Ealing and onward to Chiswick or Acton and Shepherds Bush Green if going to South West London’s Kensington and Chelsea.

Councils in England and Wales are lobbying the Government to allow them to increase the set penalty charges for illegal parking of cars in the boroughs. The criteria they are relying on is that the penalty charge prices for illegally parked cars at the moment are not high enough to deter car drivers from parking illegally. Car parking prices have seen dramatic price increases over the last ten years in England and Wales but the actual penalty charges remained the same. In London, illegally parked cars can be fined £60.00 whereas in Cambridge and in Cardiff the fine is only £23.00 and £35.00 respectively. Parking for the whole day can cost a lot more than that so motorists are willing to take a chance on illegal parking hoping that they will get away with it in areas where traffic wardens are not operating in big numbers. This becomes more difficult in the big cities such as London, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham where it is almost one traffic warden for every ten cars. Cities like Bristol, London, Birmingham and Manchester would possibly come to a standstill had there not been a vast amount of traffic wardens patrolling the streets and issuing such fines. As for the local minicab, car service drivers and chauffeurs who will always take that chance hoping traffic wardens will use their discretion and give them a five minute grace, increasing these fines and making them stick may result in many professional drivers of the minicab and chauffeur industry actually quitting the job because for some this will become too expensive.

London chauffeur and minicab companies can appeal and challenge many parking fines and win the appeal on the grounds that these minicabs and chauffeur driven cars are licensed by the Public Carriage Office and are carrying out private hire duties and without parking illegally sometimes they wouldn’t be able to do the job according to their clients’ requirements. Some traffic wardens in London’s Westminster Council know this and are happy to work with the London chauffeurs and use their discretion but insist on the drivers of the chauffeur driven cars to be staying in or near their vehicles. Westminster Council areas include Knightsbridge,Mayfair and Soho where many chauffeur driven Mercedes Benz S class cars can be seen serving the elite of society.

A Bristol court today awarded a civil partnership couple about £1800 each for being refused a room in a Devon / Cornwall Bed and Breakfast.

Mr Steven Preddy and Mr Martyn Hall from Bristol had booked the room in the hotel near Penzance / Cornwall over the phone some time before the date and were not aware of the Devon hotel policies regarding gay or unmarried couples. Upon their arrival they were refused the room by Mr and Mrs Bull, the owners of the Devon hotel since 1986. London radio station LBC’s broadcasters Nick Ferrari and James O’Brien were taking a lot of calls today from a mixture of people of which a lot were complaining that this was all done according to the Devon hotel owners Christian beliefs. A suggestion that the owners of the Devon hotel were set up by the couple with the help of the a gay rights organisation was refuted by the judge presiding over the case stating that there is no evidence indicating to a conspiracy or entrapment.

This case sets the precedence for the future where hoteliers may have issues with gay couples or unmarried couples even if heterosexual as was the case here today. A case like this would be unheard of in a bigger city such as London where the Bristol couple would have been met with much more tolerance.

The anti touting campaigns run from time to time in Central London are not getting 5% results while they are run in the unprofessional and inadequate manner they have been accustomed to.

It is widely known that the anti touting team has been increased from 34 to 68 members of staff but even 200 members will not suffice if the old style methods continue to be used. What is lacking amongst many issues is the use of modern technology already available for the information gathering before stopping any car. The many cameras in the West End and Central London pick up information and evidence of private hire cars including minicabs and chauffeur driven sedans, saloons and people carriers every day. Touting takes shape in many forms and it seems that the teams are concentrating mainly on the lone driver of a Mercedes Benz E or S class and the Toyota Previa or other Japanese type of people carriers working from outside certain venues in Central London. This can be easily proved by collating evidence from Congestion Charge and Westminster cameras of the regular movements of such cars in and out of the West End and Central London beyond a shadow of a doubt that such vehicles are working 3-5 nights per week.

A different form of touting is the lone small operator and/or owner driver (not operator) who takes bookings through his mobile phone and has several cars/jobs running at any given time more than is permissible under his operator license if licensed at all. This kind of illegal activity can be eradicated if modern technology like “number plate recognition” and a central database with all operators, the cars used and all bookings (referenced without complete detail) were to be available to the teams who should only stop cars that don’t appear on such a database once a vehicle identity has been established. This could speed up the operation by 500% saving time and money and getting more solid convictions rather than touts being let off for lack of evidence.

Also the teams should have members from the benefits agency working with closely with them because there are so many benefit fraudsters working in the private hire industry with the knowledge of the operators who do not show these drivers on their records. Major operations of illegal activities such as the many cars brought in from Germany every year to work illegally serving the wealthy Arab clients visiting the city of London can be quashed with information on how and who paid the congestion charge (if paid at all) and how and who paid for parking tickets if and when paid at all as has been widely reported that many foreign cars avoid paying because they simply can get away with it (normally the driver responsible).

Sharing relevant information between the different agencies such as the PCO, TOCU, DWP and Customs and Excise is the only way to clean the streets of London from the many forms of touting which is affecting the legal individual drivers and the licensed private hire operators of the city of London.

A recent demonstration by some black cab and taxi drivers in the West End of London with the intention to cause as much disruption to traffic has been another nail in the coffin of the hackney carriage industry in the Capital. The black cab drivers participating are of a breakaway group calling themselves the UCG (United Cabbies Group). The demonstration started and was clearly a showcase of how incompetent this group of people can be especially when there was no real justification for what they were striking about. The signs they were holding did not say enough about their cause and in the absence of any understanding by the public, the London taxi drivers were making more of a nuisance of themselves to the dismay of the Metropolitan Police and the general public.

The group of very low accumulative IQ were demonstrating against the booking booth for private hire vehicles near Leicester Square and all the satellite offices legally licensed by the PCO (Public Carriage Office) in London’s posh VIP nightclubs and venues.

Their accusation, which is worthy of a court case in itself, is that customers using these facilities are likely to be raped by the legally licensed minicab driver who is booked through a legally licensed private hire or car service company to take them home. As mentioned, this shows how little intelligence some, if not all, these London taxi drivers have.

Now at a time of still living the nightmare that is called “John Worboys”, the last thing that these dimwits should be using in their case is the word “rape”. How could they be so stupid as to suggest that a legal and licensed minicab driver whose name and address is known to the legal and licensed car service company who are putting the client in his car will want to be so stupid and rape this individual? Only a taxi driver could naturally think like this.

The taxi trade has been on its knees since the City of London bank and financial institutions collapsed and since then the black cab and taxi drivers have been using every trick in the book to try to get back some of the work that they have refused to do for years when they had it very good and were earning a lot of money just working a few hours in the day with corporate roadshows and clients.

The private hire industry is advancing by the day and customers favour more and more the car service in London for their small trips and the more professional London chauffeur service for airport transfers and As Directed Roadshows for a few days hire.

Anyone doing an airport transfer today from London Heathrow into Central London will see for themselves how the statement above can be easily established without any University studies taking place on the topic. It was the sheer stupidity of some of the London Black Cab companies and Taxi drivers that led the way for a nice traffic jam being created on the M4 which is the main motorway that connects London with Heathrow airport and stretches far beyond connecting Londoners to cities such as Reading, Swindon, Bristol,Newport, Cardiff and Swansea. Once again the London Black Cab drivers and at least one London Taxi Company kept the pressure up for the agencies concerned with the use of the bus lane between Heathrow airport and Chiswick or Hammersmith London to do something about private hire cars, minicabs and some roadshow London chauffeurs using the infamous bus lane to get their clients into the financial district of the city of London. After a long nasty campaign which saw the boss of one of the biggest car service and minicab companies in London challenging the authorities and succeeding in court by having the judge judging in his favour to the dismay of the London taxi drivers and quashing over 200 tickets.

After the court case there was only one logical solution to the fabricated and alleged problem which was to allow private hire, car service and chauffeurs who work for London companies serving London clients to use the red bus lane and all parties would be happy. Unfortunately the long debate and quarrel over this issue left the authorities in an awkward decision and the decision was made to allow all cars including private cars, taxis and minicabs from other cities coming to London to use the bus lane. Now everyone has to sit in the traffic thanks to the very low IQ of the London taxi trade.

More and more London minicab and car service drivers are taking up the many training courses available to them to raise the standards in the private hire and car service industry in London . The NVQ is teaching drivers about safety for both driver and passenger along with vital information gained as to how to deal with other road users, emergencies and the police. A good understanding of the law in the UK is gained too, such as that private hire drivers do not need to supply a baby seat for their clients or wear a seat belt when they have a passenger on board. Neither of those laws make much sense but they have been evidently written a long time ago and are hard to change.

A London cabby, taxi or black driver is allowed under these old laws to urinate against his wheel with a police officer giving him his back to protect the general London public from the view. With more and more London taxi and private hire drivers taking these courses it is advised that also the police brush up on some of the laws that concern the private hire and taxi industry to avoid such incidents as the one that happened in one of the London boroughs recently. NVQ training will give the drivers and chauffeurs more respectability and the London Olympics will benefit when the standards become more professional and competitive.

The saga of John Worboys the London rapist London Taxi drivers doesn’t seem to go away too soon even though he has now been sentenced to a minimum of eight years.

Evidence has emerged from at least another 19 women who fell victims to this evil and sex mad London taxi driver and it is thought that in total there will be as many as 102 women who have been attacked by this vicious monster hiding under the umbrella of the trustworthy “London Black Cab driver” image.

This comes at a time where some London taxi drivers are complaining about satellite office for minicab companies in Central London where passengers are likely to become rape victims by the drivers who are on record for taking them home. The difference between a black cab in London and a private hire driver (car service or chauffeur) is that the black cab driver can pick up anyone from the street and end up raping them whereas the legal minicab driver is not allowed to pick on the streets of London unless it has been booked with his office prior to the journey and therefore can be traced. The question that remains is: how many Worboys are there today hiding under the honourable image of “A London Black Cab”.

Just like the West End Of London private hire booking booth that has been the issue that many London taxi and black cab drivers have demonstrated about, a Hackney Carriage Taxi driver from Dartford in Kent has taken his case to the National Private Hire Association, Dartford County Council and the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Mr Clarke of the Dartford Taxi Association and a Kent licensed hackney carriage taxi driver himself believes that there is cause for concern that a ticket booth in Market street is becoming a minicab rank and that work that should be served by the taxi drivers is being taken illegally by minicab drivers. This case is not dissimilar to the over exaggerated case that the different London Taxi drivers and Cabbies associations have taken upon themselves to demonstrate about by bringing some of the streets in the West End and Central London to a standstill. Expectations are on the up for similar cases to be happening in other major UK cities where police and councils have approved such arrangements for booking booths to clear these city centres rapidly from weekend revellers. The private hire companies in cities such as Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol and Brighton have a tremendous part to play with clearing drunks off the streets of these UK city centres avoiding costly policing and court fees as a result of fighting and vandalism. Dartford Council is investigating further.

After the cancellation under immense protest by the LTDA ( London Taxi Drivers Association) of the Central London Minicab booking office in Whitcomb street, Westminster City Council have decided with the PCO (Public Carriage Office) to tempt more London taxi drivers to work the late night shift by literally stuffing their mouths with gold.

The scheme involves fixed but over inflated prices between £20 to £50 for journeys not exceeding 3 miles sometimes. These extortionate prices are almost double what a minicab company in Central London’s Soho and Covent Garden will charge and it is going to backfire in the face of the London taxi trade and the authorities whose idea this was in the first place. The scheme is likely to drive even more customers into the hands of minicab companies in Central London but will be thriving business for the illegal touts who work the West End and Central London and are able to offer much cheaper prices than the black cabs and taxis.

Traffic is building up this evening on the A40/Euston Road from Eversholt street all the way to entrance to Regent Park. Police have closed the Road by Euston train station and motorists are being diverted towards Russel Square. Eye witnesses have stated that a motorbike that is in the middle of the road looks like it has some serious damage to it and that it seems it was involved in an accident with a London black which was also stationary at the scene just outside Euston train station. Passengers travelling on the Eurostar from London’s St. Pancras International train station to Paris and Brussels had to leave their Taxis and chauffeur driven cars and walk for up to one mile to catch their prebooked trains. It is said that the rail and air network are fully booked until over the next few days and anyone missing his train from London’s stations or flight from Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton or Stansted may struggle to get to their destination before christmas.

Chauffeur and minicab companies in London and the home counties have seen a substantial increase in the enquiries received for chauffeur driven off road and 4X4 vehicles that are operated by some private hire companies in London. The reason being is that many city workers living outside London in Kent, Surrey and Essex would not have been able to get to their homes in a normal saloon / sedan due to the adverse weather conditions that the Greater London area has endured two weeks ago. Out of the 143 off road and 4X4 vehicles registered by the PCO (Public Carriage Office) for private hire use on the TFL (Transport For London) website 63 are Range Rover Vogue and Sport, 45 are Mercedes Benz ML, 12 of both the BMW X5 and Audi Q7 each and Porsche showing 5 registered. Most of these vehicles are likely to be used by chauffeur companies in London and not minicab and car service companies due their high value and premium hourly rates. Le Tour Worldwide is one chauffeur company in London that operates a chauffeur driven Range Rover Vogue Supercharged for their clients.

Many clients have insisted on a chauffeur driven Range Rover Vogue as opposed to any other off road or 4X4 vehicle because of the ability of this car that far outdoes that of any of the the other models when conquering snow filled lanes in places like Surrey, Kent and Esssex. The Vogue is also the closest seating feel that a passenger could get to the widely used Mercedes Benz S class.

Many of the big insurance companies in the UK that have for some time insured chauffeur driven cars are pulling out of that sector of the market for good due to heavy losses incurred over the last few years with claims going into tens of thousands of pounds per claim. Chauffeur insurance specialist companies such as NIG are not renewing their existing policies nor are they taking on any new taxi, private hire or chauffeur insurance policies for the future. Another company QBE will only accept renewal on existing chauffeur insurance policies but is turning down any proposals for new business. There are some new entrants coming into the market for chauffeur insurance but most of them are quoting ridiculous prices sometimes reaching up to three times as much of what the former companies were charging. Not only are they increasing the premiums on the chauffeur and minicab insurance but the added extras which made these packages so attractive are starting to disappear or have an extra charge attached to them. The PCO licensed loan / replacement car that used to be offered to London chauffeurs is now a chargeable extra. Many companies are refusing to give out open policies for any driver/chauffeur over the age of 25 or 30 and want named drivers only even with the high chauffeur insurance premiums increase.

The new pricing for private hire insurance will affect the industry badly and it is expected to drive the legal, law abiding licensees to cutting corners like keeping the car on a private insurance policy with the hope that they can get away with. Owner drivers who are working on their own with a chauffeur driven Mercedes Benz S class will never have to worry about this “little technicality” because the PCO inspectors are never thorough enough with their onsite or offsite inspections which should include talking to the clients/passengers at Heathrow and asking very simple questions as to what phone number they have rung to book the car and/or what the London chauffeur company they have booked this with is called.

It is understandable that the PCO licensees will look to cut this expense since the anti touting operations run in central London only target the minicab tout who is doing 20 jobs per night from the West End and not the chauffeur tout who is driving a brand new uninsured chauffeur driven Mercedes Benz S class which the authorities find very intimidating and hesitate to stop especially when it is registered in Germany or France. An operation run by the London Metropolitan police has been set up for this kind of offence due to these cars entering the UK and not paying speeding fines, parking tickets or the London congestion charge but until all the agencies start working together on this issue we will be in a harsh competition battle with people that shouldn’t even be driving on the UK roads.

The John Radcliffe hospital was today dealing with at least five injured people from an accident that happened at 23:00 last night near junction 7 northbound between High Wycombe and Oxford. The accident involved the Oxford Tube Coach travelling from London. The five patients had to have surgery mainly for broken bones. Twelve other passengers have been discharged with minor injuries.

The bus travelling from London to Oxford overturned near Thame between London and Oxford on the M40 motorway which connects London with cities such as Birmingham. Thames Valley Police say there were no other cars involved which prompts the question if the coach driver actually fell asleep. The coach driver was one of the injured people who were taken to the Oxford hospital.

Six Ambulance attended the scene and the Fire Services had to stabilise the coach in order for not to slide down the M40 embankment any further. It is believed that the coach driver took the wrong turning off the M40 when he crashed at junction 7 instead of turning off at junction 8 which is the usual route for the London to Oxford Tube Coach. The M40 stayed open both from Birmingham to London and from London to Birmingham but police had to close the slip road northbound at junction 7 for safety.

A spokesman said it was investigating whether the coach took a different exit off the motorway. The Oxford Tube normally leaves at junction eight. Visit Chauffeur London

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were in shock last night when students hurled paint at their chauffeur driven Rolls Royce on London’s Regent street in the West End. The Prince’s chauffeur driven car was about to turn into Great Marlborough street when the incident happened. He was on his way to the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium in Argyle street. The students managed to get close enough to the prince’s car that this has now become an official investigation regarding how efficient the security was around his chauffeur driven Rolls Royce. Both the Prince and his wife Camilla Parker Bowles had to be driven out after the event in an unmarked police van.

The London Metropolitan Police has warned drivers to stay away from Central London from midday today due to the road closures in place for the fourth UK students tuition fees demonstration. Thousands of students, some from as far as Cardiff and Manchester, are expected to be taking part in this demonstration on the day the MPs are voting on this very issue of increasing tuition fees. Shops and Government buildings may be under threat yet again after the recent student demonstrations have caused some considerable damage.

Taxi drivers in London are having to take big diversions around the Central London to get their passengers to their destinations which is having a big affect on the prices charged. Many London taxi passengers are aware of this and seem to opt out for the private hire and minicab companies in London who charge a fixed price for all their journeys in London. Many London chauffeurs have stayed at home over the last three demonstrations in fear of their cars becoming targeted by the students in addition to the fact that many corporate clients using a chauffeur driven car service company in London would rather work from home on a day like this.

Following the bad weather that Great Britain has endured over the last few days there seems to be a lot of disruptions to the free movement of the air, road and rail ground transportation systems in and around London and the home counties.

On LBC radio London this morning many callers have been sharing their stories of how they battled against the conditions to get from one end of the city to another. One of the listeners who called in was a London chauffeur driver who is licensed by the LTPH (London Taxi Private Hire) formerly known as the PCO (Public Carriage Office) although residing in the remote part of Kent. He was working with one of his VIP clients until 1 am this morning finishing at the Berkeley Hotel in Knighstbridge. He was due to take his client to London Heathrow airport at 08:00 am that morning so took the decision to sleep a few hours in his Mercedes Benz S class which as he said ” I didn’t want to smash up an £80000 car on the way home to Kent”.

This is an incident that should be looked at closely when the LTPH/PCO lice

This incident was not going to be brushed under the carpet and got the boss of a London based minicab and car service company very annoyed due to some police officers not being aware of the laws of the UK when it comes to many issues such as the Private Hire trade which includes London chauffeurs and minicab driver alike.

The incident happened a few weeks ago when a London police from Barking patrolling the streets of the Borough stopped a minicab and questioned him over the fact that he has no baby seat arranged for his passengers. The London private hire driver replied that by law he is exempt and that he doesn’t need to supply a baby seat. The police officer arrogantly thinking that the taxi driver was lying to him gave the driver a fixed penalty and ordered the passengers to get on a London bus. The police have since been contacted about this issue and after a long investigation realised that they are in the wrong and issued an apology to the London minicab firm and to the clients who are using a car service whenever they are in London visiting from Brighton.

Car showrooms across the UK have been inundated with enquiries from motorists wishing to purchase an off road 4X4 vehicle due to the harsh weather conditions and the heavy snow that England and Wales have endured over the last few weeks. The biggest volume of sales is expected to be in and around the Greater London area including Surrey, Kent and Essex where the snow has been so heavy that some residents have been unable to leave their homes for several days due to their normal saloon cars not being able to be driven in these weather conditions.

Manufacturers such as Mercedes Benz, Land Rover , BMW, Audi , Lexus , Porsche and VW (Volkswagen) have all been concentrating on building their Off Road 4X4 vehicles with some manufacturers having up to 4 models such as Mercedes Benz’s GL , ML , G Wagon and their latest edition to the fleet being the small city jeep called the GLK.

Land Rover who has currently three models in their Range will be launching a new Off Road vehicle around November 2011 called the Range Rover Evoque. Their current models are the Range Rover Vogue which comes in both diesel and petrol supercharged, the Range Rover Sport which is also available in both diesel and petrol supercharged and the Land Rover Discovery which has the 5 passengers / 6 seater facilities

BMW and Audi are also in the market with their models the X5, X6 , X6 , Q7 and Q5 but are favoured for their on road appearance more than for their off road ability. To date it is widely known that the Range Rover Vogue is still the best off road 4X4 vehicle available on the market although some will say it is indeed the very rarely seen Mercedes Benz G Wagon especially the G55 AMG version. Visit London Chauffeur Company

London Chauffeur : Following the bad weather that Great Britain has endured over the last few days there seems to be a lot of disruptions to the free movement of the air, road and rail ground transportation systems in and around London and the home counties.

On LBC radio London this morning many callers have been sharing their stories of how they battled against the conditions to get from one end of the city to another. One of the listeners who called in was a London chauffeur driver who is licensed by the LTPH (London Taxi Private Hire) formerly known as the PCO (Public Carriage Office) although residing in the remote part of Kent. He was working with one of his VIP clients until 1 am this morning finishing at the Berkeley Hotel in Knighstbridge. He was due to take his client to London Heathrow airport at 08:00 am that morning so took the decision to sleep a few hours in his Mercedes Benz S class which as he said ” I didn’t want to smash up an £80000 car on the way home to Kent”. This is an incident that should be looked at closely when the LTPH/PCO license drivers that live up to two hours away from Central London which means their ten hour shift with a client becomes a fifteen hour day making it possibly unsafe for the chauffeur, the client who is chauffeur driven in the Mercedes Benz S class and the public using the roads and pavements.