Driving Experience

Flyonthewall

scooby088 wrote: »

OP how old are you? if under 25 then it's the insurance which may see you being rejected for these kind of jobs.

Just under, but plenty of people under do have driving jobs. With pizza delivery and similar delivery jobs it often says about using your own car so insurance wouldn't be a problem. Plus from my CV they shouldn't know my age.

CKhalvashi

colino wrote: »

Check out your local taxi/private hire operators to see if they need more drivers. One of the few driving jobs that most people can walk straight into. It will convince you if you want to drive for a living!

I don't think so!

We bought a taxi firm around 8 years ago, and the amount of checks that me/OH have to go through each year is stupid.

A Private Hire license may be one you can get more easily (assuming no criminal record and good general sense of direction), however in our area, all cars need to be under 5 years old at the time of licensing, they need to be kept immaculate, if customer complains, you get more grief than it's worth from licensing, many operators aren't looking for new drivers at the moment etc etc etc.

Ask around, if there's demand, get license, start by renting a car from another driver or in a company car, see where you go, and always ask about fees.

In the same town:

Company round the corner takes £120/week for owner/driver, and 50% for a company car. You're responsible for fuel.

We charge £180 (Skoda Superb)/£240 (VW Transporter) per week.
We charge 30p/passenger mile for cash work (12-18%)
You get 1 point per job in the day for cash
You get 2 points at night for cash

We charge 24% for account work
You get 3 points (24 hours) for account

For every 60 points you get, you get £60 off the car
Hit 180/240 in a week, you get the car for nothing for the week
Hit 1000 in a quarter (76 a week), you get the car for nothing for a week

And we have a computer that works it out, and automatically pays account work on a Friday afternoon. The drivers like it, as whilst they're slightly worse off overall, they've got a brand new car, replaced every 3 years, and if anything goes wrong with them, it's our problem, not theirs.

CK

scooby088

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Just under, but plenty of people under do have driving jobs. With pizza delivery and similar delivery jobs it often says about using your own car so insurance wouldn't be a problem. Plus from my CV they shouldn't know my age.

If you have your own car make sure it covers business use too as just normal fully comp won't cover you for working.

Flyonthewall

scooby088 wrote: »

If you have your own car make sure it covers business use too as just normal fully comp won't cover you for working.

Yeah, I can easily add business cover to it

colino

Private Hires are obviously different all over the country. Right now the largest company has a standing advert in the local paper offering either the full deal (you supply yourself + licenced car) and pay weigh-in, or just shifts on other peoples cars. The latter one is a breeze, have a licence for 12 months, supply two passport pictures, fill in the form and pay the fee and bingo, if you pass the police report, they hand you a licence. Strangely though, the cars themselves have to meet a very high standard, the council just don't care who are driving them!

arcon5

Don't both with cab driving, long hours for !!!! poor pay as well and expensive and lengthy licensing requirements with local council and county council (if undertaking county contracts).

The money is being made by the operators and garages, not the drivers - who in many areas barely achieve NMW equivilent.

(speaking as somebody that has worked in the industry for collectively over 3 years)

CKhalvashi

colino wrote: »

Private Hires are obviously different all over the country. Right now the largest company has a standing advert in the local paper offering either the full deal (you supply yourself + licenced car) and pay weigh-in, or just shifts on other peoples cars. The latter one is a breeze, have a licence for 12 months, supply two passport pictures, fill in the form and pay the fee and bingo, if you pass the police report, they hand you a licence. Strangely though, the cars themselves have to meet a very high standard, the council just don't care who are driving them!

Trust me, they do in many cases.

I seem to have continually been on 9 points for a few years (I've got a clean license at the moment for the first time in about 10 years), and I've always been called into interview to discuss the offences.

It isn't as easy as it was, and I was reading an article by Cab4Now, who I drove with at Addison Lee for a short time, and he's stated that in the last 30 years, the industry has been cleared up considerably. I haven't been driving long enough to know.

It's not as easy as 'get badge, get car, get plate', as I've seen insurance premiums for new drivers to the industry hitting £10k in recent years, and this is another downside to the system we have (which to an extent, does replicate Addison Lee's).

'10' plate Octavias (the car of choice for many, although we're using the larger Superb) are still going for £6k, so if you're under about 30, new to the trade and are working as an owner driver, you can be looking at £20k in startup costs, 10% of your money going in fuel, and another 20% going to the company you drive for.

We use £1/mile as a rough guide (taking into account that 50% of the time you're empty), so on 40,000mi a year (the average of our company and the company around the corner, for a 50-60h week, including Fri/Sat night), you'll spend £10k in insurance, a minimum of £5k in radio rent, £3k in maintanence, £1k in plating and £5k in fuel. Over 3000h a year, that's £5.33 an hour, or less than minimum wage. You've then got taxi finance (if you go down the route), and the cost of replacing the car every 5-6 years (£1000 a year), putting you on £5 an hour. Because you're self-employed, you've got no right to minimum wage.

Doesn't look attractive, does it? And unfortunately, in the last 5 years, the £300 days have long gone. A driver for us (near an airport, and plenty of airline transport contracts) can earn £25-30k on our system on 60h a week, and around the corner about £30-35k for the same; it depends on a lot of factors, but right now, the cab game ain't one to be in!

CK

Flyonthewall

Thanks for the info

Pay doesn't bother me. After all, been looking at take-away delivery jobs and they hardly pay well lol.

However, it does seem that getting a taxi job wouldn't suit me and is not going to be an easy job to jump into to get driving experience.

So are there any other options?

Tallaght

The only driving jobs seem to be 100 + drops a day delivery driver.

Flyonthewall

Tallaght wrote: »

The only driving jobs seem to be 100 + drops a day delivery driver.

They're not the only jobs, just the most advertised. I considered multi-drop delivery driver jobs, but I'm not sure I'd really be making any money at all, I'm not sure my car is suitable if I have to use my own car and I'm not sure how well I'd be able to deal with any heavy deliveries.

I'd go for such a job if none of them were an issue.