Rob Finlayson, Manager, City Cars Glasgow shares his thoughts:

Every so often a story surfaces from Glasgow licensing and regulatory committee that makes people across the industry stop and shake their heads.

A driver accused of switching off his meter, quoting inflated prices and demanding cash only fares, or behaving in a way that’s the exact opposite of what passengers should expect from a regulated, licensed professional driver.

And whether it’s a Hackney or Private hire driver it really doesn’t matter. Behaviour like this, damages the entire trade.

The public don’t distinguish between plate colours, booking channels or dispatch systems, they just see a “taxi” and their trust rises or falls based on the experience they had with the last one.

What concerns me most about incidents like these isn’t just the behaviour itself, but the pattern.

All to often these cases involve not just a singular complaint but several. Sometimes five, six or even more, before decisive action is taken.

In what other regulated transport industry would someone be allowed to repeat the same misconduct half a dozen times before the suitability for the job is seriously questioned.

This isn’t a driver problem. It’s an enforcement and licensing problem

A FRAGILE TRUST TOO EASILY BROKEN:

Public confidence in the taxi and private hire industry is already more delicate than many of us would like to admit.

Passengers expect transparency, fair pricing, and professionalism. They expect regulations to mean something, that licencing conditions aren’t just suggestions or guidelines but enforceable standards.

When someone repeatedly ignores those standards and yet continues to be permitted work long enough to accumulate a string of complaints the entire systems integrity is called into question.

Every time it happens thousands of decent hardworking drivers end up paying the reputational price.

Which is a real shame, because Glasgow also has some of the highest standards and strongest examples of professionalism anywhere in the UK Companies like Glasgow Taxis who have spent decades building public trust for reliability and integrity and passenger safety.

They have been a consistent benchmark for service not just in Glasgow but across the country. And something I’ve always tried to raise my own company’s standards to. They don’t deserve to have their reputation take the collateral damage from people who have no business being in the trade.

THIS ISN'T ABOUT HACKNEY or PRIVATE HIRE:

It’s important to be clear, both sectors have cowboys, both sectors have outstanding professionals.

The public judges us collectively though, not individually. A poor experience with a black cab affects how they book private hire next time.

A bad experience with a rideshare colours the way the public views the entire for hire ecosystem. We share the same cities, the same roads, and a lot of the same customers, whether we like it or not our reputations are interlinked.

SHOULD ONE COMPLAINT BE ENOUGH?

No one is suggesting that every minor misunderstanding should result in a licence being revoked, but when behaviour is deliberate, overcharging, refusing to use the meter and deliberately misleading passengers.

One substantiated complaint should trigger immediate investigation and if required, Action. Training, monitoring, temporary conditions to your licence, whatever is necessary and appropriate to protect the public from rogues in our trade. 6 complaints is not an aberration: it’s a system failing to act.

If we want to protect the public we need to protect our standards, Decent drivers deserve better, Operators deserve better, and the public most certainly deserve better.

A licensing system that gives endless second chances to the wrong people ends up making life harder for the decent people of our industry.

There are solutions available, Faster, and firmer intervention, Clearer guidelines and training for new entrants to the trade and more initiative-taking enforcement from our councils and police forces. Better use of data and frankly a willingness to act before patterns of behaviour escalate need to be the norm.

Trust in this industry is hard won by our drivers and easily lost. The tens of thousands of drivers across the UK who play by the rules shouldn’t have to carry the weight of those who don’t.

The longer we allow repeat offenders to keep operating the more damage we collectively absorb, reputationally, commercially and culturally.

If we want a strong, credible and respected industry then we cannot allow a handful of individuals to burn through the trust the rest of us work so hard to earn.

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