a taxi service's obligations?

stevemLS

If you go to your district council webside and search for "Private Hire Licence Conditions" you should find it - that is what I did!

muddlemand

stevemLS wrote: »

If you go to your district council webside and search for "Private Hire Licence Conditions" you should find it - that is what I did!

Thank you! I found Guidelines, a 37-page pdf, and it's all about condition of the vehicle, being insured, etc etc - except under an appendix of causes for penalty points, a 2-page list which includes:

29. Failure to attend a hiring punctually 3 3
33. Any other breach or unsatisfactory behaviour 1-6 1-6 1-6 1-6

And that's all. Not very explicit... Oh well. :rolleyes: With luck I won't need to make a complaint anyway, I really don't want to get into that. But I will phone AGAIN tomorrow to reinforce the message that they MUST not let us down next time, which is the last time and the day after tomorrow. Until next year.

SeduLOUs

I think you need to rearrange for a much earlier time. The taxi may not get there through no fault of their own - an accident on the motorway, or the taxi breaks down.

I'd be booking it for 6am personally to give lots of leeway to start phoning someone else if they haven't showed up by 6.30, and to give a safety margin if the motorway is blocked with traffic and you need to go round the back roads.

I have an exam at 2pm this Friday in a venue 25 miles away for which I'm getting a train. I'm getting the train at 9.30am.

I'd rather be ridiculously early and have loads of time to make sure I know exactly where I'm going, then spend the rest of the time sat in a Starbucks or similar than stood on a platform an hour before fretting that if the train is late I might miss the start.

unholyangel

muddlemand wrote: »

Thank you! I found Guidelines, a 37-page pdf, and it's all about condition of the vehicle, being insured, etc etc - except under an appendix of causes for penalty points, a 2-page list which includes:

29. Failure to attend a hiring punctually 3 3
33. Any other breach or unsatisfactory behaviour 1-6 1-6 1-6 1-6

And that's all. Not very explicit... Oh well. :rolleyes: With luck I won't need to make a complaint anyway, I really don't want to get into that. But I will phone AGAIN tomorrow to reinforce the message that they MUST not let us down next time, which is the last time and the day after tomorrow. Until next year.

Try the taxi operator conditions.

Or failing that put in a complaint to the taxi forums at your local council and they'll investigate it. If the office has a GPS system, they should be able to provide the council with information on the cars previous hire (showing that he left in good time), what route he took and where exactly he was every 30 seconds (so would easily be able to show he was stuck in traffic if this is the case).

muddlemand

@ unholyangel: It's good to know that can be done (at least in some places). I'll only pursue a complaint if we do actually lose out tomorrow - yesterday was an all's well that end's well stressy time, at least he may have dropped a grade but I think he'll still pass. But it does sounds like there are various avenues if I do have to follow through.

SeduLOUs wrote: »

I think you need to rearrange for a much earlier time. The taxi may not get there through no fault of their own - an accident on the motorway, or the taxi breaks down.

I believe that in that kind of case, the exam board would look kindly on it and we wouldn't have to pay for the re-sit/re-mark if it came to that. We're not talking about that kind of one-off unforeseeable thing, though, only ordinary traffic. Getting here so late, even though the driver had said he'd allow more time and not less after the first trip, can't be explained really.

(Being home ed, the exam entrance fees - and re-sit/re-mark fees - aren't subsidised as they are through schools. Seems unfair since he's still in full-time education as the law requires... but anyway, I did know his wouldn't be subsidised, but was surprised that entrance fees are about £150 per exam. Hence I really don't want to be paying for any of them twice. )

SeduLOUs

muddlemand wrote: »

I believe that in that kind of case, the exam board would look kindly on it and we wouldn't have to pay for the re-sit/re-mark if it came to that. We're not talking about that kind of one-off unforeseeable thing, though, only ordinary traffic. Getting here so late, even though the driver had said he'd allow more time and not less after the first trip, can't be explained really.

I still wouldn't be willing to let it come to that personally. I presume, like with me, there is only one resit opportunity. So if you miss the first exam you're then on your 'last chance'.

I don't personally see an accident on the roads as one-off or unforeseeable, and I don't think the exam board would either. I don't know who his exam board is, but for my exam 'exceptional' circumstances are exampled in the guidelines as death of a close family member, or a hospital admittance of the person sitting the exam affecting the exam itself or the vast majority of the revision period. Any other reasons for non-attendance results in a fail with no resit opportunity at all.

Taxis are just a business, and your exam is not their top priority. Yes, they 'should' be on time, but no business gets everything perfect everytime, and there are many factors beyond their control that may make them late on the day.

The best plan is to plan for the worst. Assume the taxi will be significantly late. Assume the traffic will be awful. Book the taxi for a time accordingly.

pulliptears

Ignoring your Taxi issue for a moment have you spoken to the school he's taking the GCSE's in?
I work in secondary and I've seen our staff drop everything to pick up kids for GCSE's (usually those who need a bit of chasing!), but the point is the school will probably be willing to help you with transportation.
If a staff member is passing they might collect him for you and as staff are in school early the issue of being late for the exam will be avoided. Obviously with him being home ed the relationship build up between you and the school isn't there, but you might find them very accommodating.

Worst case scenario we have allowed up to an hour for lateness in extreme circumstances. If your son has a mobile and can phone ahead and pre warn them it can be handled.

muddlemand

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Taxis are just a business, and your exam is not their top priority. Yes, they 'should' be on time, but no business gets everything perfect everytime, and there are many factors beyond their control that may make them late on the day.

Yes, I know "should" isn't guaranteed and we're just a number. That's why I was asking what comeback we have if they don't fulfil their side of the contract, and at what point the cut-off is between reasonable lateness to unreasonable lack of effort.

muddlemand

pulliptears wrote: »

Ignoring your Taxi issue for a moment have you spoken to the school he's taking the GCSE's in?
I work in secondary and I've seen our staff drop everything to pick up kids for GCSE's (usually those who need a bit of chasing!), but the point is the school will probably be willing to help you with transportation.
If a staff member is passing they might collect him for you and as staff are in school early the issue of being late for the exam will be avoided. Obviously with him being home ed the relationship build up between you and the school isn't there, but you might find them very accommodating.

Worst case scenario we have allowed up to an hour for lateness in extreme circumstances. If your son has a mobile and can phone ahead and pre warn them it can be handled.

Firefox just ate my reply...

That's a good thought, thank you - I'll try it. Too late this year as tomorrow is the last occasion, but I will need to sort this out next year.

I doubt we'll have any luck but nothing to lose by asking. When my ex's car was off the road, someone had to make quite a big detour to pick him up. It's not that no one commutes like that, but round here, no one lives very close to each other because we're mainly villages. But nothing to lose by asking. The vibe at that place is friendly and pleasant (in fact he has decided to go there for sixth form and further on the strength of walking about the campus; it's college rather than school and he's younger than anyone who attends there!)

Your last sentence is reassuring as that's the attitude I expected from when my mum was teaching, but I know my "experience" through her is out of date. And that wasn't a rural area.

Also when I was taking my own O Levels, I was half an hour late to one paper but they let me in, and rather than re-sit I got a re-mark (which changed narrowly failing to narrowly passing). The school paid to have it re-marked - because my reason for being late was a teacher who'd kept me talking! And they did know that the fail wasn't in character.

(I don't know if anyone asked for a re-mark because they were distracted when I came in. But after all, that's no worse than someone going out with a nosebleed, which I've seen. And in my finals, everyone was standing on desks to close windows halfway through, when the heatwave broke and a huge thunderstorm suddenly attacked. :eek:) We weren't allowed any longer for that interruption!)

Hear, hear to your sig, by the way.

System

pulliptears wrote: »

Ignoring your Taxi issue for a moment have you spoken to the school he's taking the GCSE's in?
I work in secondary and I've seen our staff drop everything to pick up kids for GCSE's (usually those who need a bit of chasing!), but the point is the school will probably be willing to help you with transportation.

The child is not a student at that school so I doubt that they would go out of their way to pick up what amounts to a private exam attendee