a taxi service's obligations?

muddlemand

I agree, !!!!!!, but nothing to lose by asking.

pendragon_arther

daytona0 wrote: »

That's life for you...


IF you were driving your son to school then what is to stop a major pile up from happening on the motorway, causing a 30 minute delay? Who would you blame then?

Similar principal applies to the taxi service, along with buses and trains and planes and tuk tuk vehicles etc. Some things are outside of the taxi companies' control, and the best solution is to plan to be early as apposed to possibly late.

I agree. It was very probably a helicopter crashing into the motorway that caused the delays that morning. OP, you have to take account of every eventuality.

foxtrotoscar_2

muddlemand wrote: »

I agree, !!!!!!, but nothing to lose by asking.

...and when the teacher gets held up and arrives late who will you blame?

arcon5

Taxi for 730
Driver turns up 15 minutes early
Gets to exam 30 minutes early, exam at 9am

So it took 1hr15 and another day he was 15 minutes late and got there minutes to spare, taking 1hr 15.

This is of 3 journeys, suggesting 1hr MAX is not the case.

Book the taxi earlier!

But the taxi company are seriously failing you. Ask to speak to the manager. A taxi company I worked for, if the bookings was regular and they had a customer put through to them for recurring late shows, they'd take the bookings from being automatically dispatched to manually dispatched - so the controlled can make sure it's sent to the best driver in good time.

muddlemand

foxtrotoscar wrote: »

...and when the teacher gets held up and arrives late who will you blame?

It was never about blame. It's about my legal rights as a paying client, and the definition of 'punctual'.

I found the Council's regulations and the driver is required to arrive punctually, but there's nothing to say what counts as unpunctual. Half an hour late = late, surely, but 25 minutes - 20 minutes - 15 minutes... etc. I wouldn't call 2 minutes late.

If it's not the driver's fault, it's certainly not the client's fault. It is not about fault or blame! It's about who pays. If you are a delivery service and the parcel doesn't arrive, the company takes the loss of payment for shipping, they don't say "But it wasn't our fault!" and make the customer lose the payment. This is equivalent.

I had no intention of pursuing them for Tuesday when my son did make it to the exam, but obviously it made us anxious and I wanted to find out where I stood, in case the worst happened next time. Lots of times we could go after a company who screw up, but most people don't and I certainly don't when no harm's done in the event.

In answer to your specific question, if that happened and my son had to re-sit, I wouldn't expect to pay the re-sit fee (£150 as I have said). A teacher that does this run regularly can be expected to have a sensible idea of how long to leave when it's important, and a taxi service which is PAID and knows the town, the ring road, the rush hour, and the way traffic fluctuates, can definitely be expected to have a good idea of that.


It was never about blame, but I've had more people respond to this thread with a blaming tone towards me for expecting the get the agreed service when I pay for it, than responses that actually addressed my questions. (And thank you to those who have!)

muddlemand

arcon5 wrote: »

Taxi for 730
Driver turns up 15 minutes early
Gets to exam 30 minutes early, exam at 9am

So it took 1hr15 and another day he was 15 minutes late and got there minutes to spare, taking 1hr 15.

This is of 3 journeys, suggesting 1hr MAX is not the case.

Book the taxi earlier!

But the taxi company are seriously failing you. Ask to speak to the manager. A taxi company I worked for, if the bookings was regular and they had a customer put through to them for recurring late shows, they'd take the bookings from being automatically dispatched to manually dispatched - so the controlled can make sure it's sent to the best driver in good time.

Actually it took 60 minutes the first time, when the driver arrived here 15 minutes early - didn't set off till 7.30am as booked.

Luckily we only needed three bookings, and the lateness only happened once. I booked them all in the same phone call, and they assigned one driver for all three trips. I suspect that after being early the first time, he "relaxed" and left himself less time to get here, but we'll never know.

Half of my annoyance was with the girl on the phone when I called about it. She didn't think of apology, only protesting that she didn't know how it had happened, and she repeatedly explained how their computer system worked which really wasn't what I needed to hear. (It pops up on their system 50 minutes before the time booked, ie 6.40am for our 7.30am pick up.) She didn't even reassure me that there was any way of preventing it next time. If they do have a way of dispatching a booking manually, either she didn't know that, or it didn't cross her mind.

muddlemand

And a final update. Today the guy arrived 5 minutes early (8.15 for 8.20am), my son got in the car one minute later, and got there 8.05am. A 50-minute drive.

Luckily it was nice weather so he went for a walk.

I'm having horrendous internet problems this week, so I'm only going to reply to future posts if it won't be repeating what I've said already.

wealdroam

muddlemand wrote: »

And a final update. Today the guy arrived 5 minutes early (8.15 for 8.20am), my son got in the car one minute later, and got there 8.05am. A 50-minute drive.

Arriving ten minutes before departure?

Impressive.


p.s. no need to reply.

SeduLOUs

muddlemand wrote: »

In answer to your specific question, if that happened and my son had to re-sit, I wouldn't expect to pay the re-sit fee (£150 as I have said).

I've said it before but feel it is worth repeating that the exam boards I know and have dealt with would not view 'traffic' or a 'late taxi' as a valid exceptional circumstance, particularly when the time it was booked for was cutting it a bit fine even for normal traffic. You may find that he would not be allowed to resit at all.

A failed GCSE cannot easily be quantified in monetary terms, and no matter what actions you successfully take against the taxi firm it will never shake the thought that it may have been avoided if you'd just booked the taxi for an hour earlier to be on the safe side.

muddlemand

SeduLOUs wrote: »

I've said it before but feel it is worth repeating that the exam boards I know and have dealt with would not view 'traffic' or a 'late taxi' as a valid exceptional circumstance, particularly when the time it was booked for was cutting it a bit fine even for normal traffic. You may find that he would not be allowed to resit at all.

A failed GCSE cannot easily be quantified in monetary terms, and no matter what actions you successfully take against the taxi firm it will never shake the thought that it may have been avoided if you'd just booked the taxi for an hour earlier to be on the safe side.

Sorry, SeduLOUs, I've only just noticed this.

I do not agree that 90 mins was "cutting it a bit fine even for normal traffic" with the drive, for 12 years, being 60 mins at worst. For you, I'll repeat myself since your reply was before I said I was not repeating myself any more:

muddlemand wrote: »

The drive is maximum an hour, not "at least" an hour. My ex did this drive for 12 years, to work, in the same morning rush hour; it never took him more than an hour, through gales, trees down, accidents etc.

I do agree that a "failed GCSE cannot easily be quantified in monetary terms", but a re-sit would ALSO cost me £150-ish which is why I was so worried. I don't know the cost of a re-mark. When we booked the exams, my ex was going to do this driving as he was living and working in that town. Having moved, he isn't even contributing to this £75 for the taxis, and it is a really big deal on my budget.

But the real point is that when we don't get what you pay for, we shouldn't pay, and I was asking where the borderline is between getting what I was paying for and a failure to provide that service. I suppose I'll never know. Does arriving 28 minutes later than agreed count as not what I paid for? I'd say it does.