Public Hire

Drivers of older, more-polluting vehicles in central London have had to pay the Congestion Charge, Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and/or Low Emission Zone (LEZ) charges, which has already had an impact on professionals such as taxi drivers. 

But from today, the ULEZ scheme has been expanded to include the whole of Greater London within the M25 – adding a further 5 million people.

Range is everything when it comes to EVs and is a big issue for taxi drivers every day – will they be able to take a fare wherever they want to go and what happens if they need to charge on the way?

These problems will disappear as battery technology improves and electric vehicles will be able to travel further on a single charge, which is good news for people who earn their living on the road.

As technology and innovation continue to drive the taxi industry forward, drivers and fleet owners need to make sure they have the right taxi insurance in place for the work they do.

The traditional industry model was black cabs or Hackney carriages, which required public hire insurance, and private hire vehicles or minicabs, which needed private hire insurance.

There are times when fleet taxi insurance is a better option for taxi companies than taking out public hire insurance or private hire insurance for individual drivers.

A fleet usually includes five or more vehicles used for either private or public hire and can include a mixture of cars and vans. This gives them the flexibility to be able to cater for all types of fares from short trips to longer trips.

An illegal taxi driver who picked up fares across Liverpool city centre was asked ‘was it worth it?’ after being banned and fined hundreds of pounds.

The Liverpool Echo reports that Liverpool City Council officers observed Mruan Elkehya posing as both a private hire driver and public hire driver over a period of two months.

As the drive for cleaner motoring continues, taxi drivers are already ahead of the curve when it comes to using less-polluting vehicles.

The Government’s Taxi and private hire vehicle statistics, England: 2023 report, which was published last month, offers a fascinating insight into the makeup of the taxi and private hire fleets.

Over the past 18 months, Just Stop Oil protesters have brought roads across the UK to a standstill with a variety of demonstrations.

These have included gluing themselves to roads in towns and cities to block traffic, protests on motorways causing huge disruption, as well as slow marches through London which hold up traffic.

There have been calls for national taxi legislation to ensure standards across the UK, as well as closing loopholes that benefit some taxi drivers over others.

One of the biggest issues has been legislation which allows taxi licences to be issued by one authority while the driver is actually operating in another. A consequence of this loophole has been that some drivers have benefitted from some licensing authorities charging different fees.

Our advice to every taxi driver is to take out the best taxi insurance policy they can afford that offers them the most protection.

Whether they run a black cab and need public hire insurance, or need private hire insurance for their PHV, they should always try to take out the policy that offers them the most protection.

Taxi drivers understandably look for the cheapest taxi insurance deal they can find – but that doesn’t mean they are getting the best cover.

There is a lot of truth in the saying you don’t know how good your insurance is until you need it. If you keep paying low premiums for years and never make a claim, you will be happy with your choice of cover.

Taxi drivers can ask passengers to pay their fare at any point during a journey – even before the ride has begun.

The biggest reason for this is to stop passengers leaving without paying or refusing to pay the full fare for a journey which, to be clear, is theft. They are using a service they know they have to pay for but are cheating the driver out of the rightful fare.

Taxi drivers know how important it is to have the right insurance to protect their business.

By law, all cab and private hire drivers must have third-party taxi insurance as the minimum cover. This is the lowest level of insurance and means that if they at fault for a crash, the other parties involved will be covered, as well as any passengers in the cab.