On Wednesday I missed getting a job to Manchester by a few seconds.

This is what happened... I was second place on the Lancaster Road rank, I’d been there for ages as it was teatime and town was quieting down.

In my wing mirror I could see a lady approaching with a case and just a few yards behind her was two women pushing a pram.

Now I’ve mentioned before, a customer carrying a suitcase always rouses curiosity among the drivers who don’t get that job, because suitcase jobs are often decent jobs. I mean let’s face it, who wants to faff about with a bus when carrying luggage?

So anyway, the case job reaches the first placed cab, “damn blast” I thought to myself, and then the pram job reached my cab. I always get out and open the door for the customers during the daytime, as does the driver who was in front of me.

So we’re both out of our cabs helping our customers in, I turned to my colleague and did a thumbs up and down gesture as to enquire if he’d got a  ‘good en’.

Now I’m not a jealous sort, but blinking hell could I have done with my pram job turning up 30 seconds earlier!

If they had, then first placed cab would’ve gone to Gammull and I would’ve gone to Manchester!

What a sickener, eh!  I even said to my customers that I’d just missed out on a long job.  Not to worry, a job to Gammull Lane is a good job any time of the week.

I’ve been doing this job for three years now and I’m still waiting for that mythical mega job, they seem to be as rare as a Wetherspoons boozer in Saudi knocking out cheap ale, but hey, I’ll get one one day.

There’s talk of introducing compulsory CCTV in all Hackney Carriage Taxis in Preston.

From what I’ve been told, if this gets the go-ahead, the footage from the CCTV will only be retrievable by the authorities.

This doesn’t sound good at all to me. This sounds like the Police getting another 200 CCTV cameras, mobile ones at that, but at the expense of the taxi drivers!

If this does get the green light, Preston won’t be the only authority that has introduced compulsory CCTV in taxis. Southampton council decided last August that all 263 Hackney Carriage taxis and the 450 private hire vehicles in their city must have digital security cameras fitted.

Now don’t get me wrong, CCTV in taxis benefits both the driver and the passengers, unless of course either one is up to something dodgy. But to make this compulsory and the cost of it to be the taxi drivers’ burden is just wrong in my opinion. For starters, if you pay for something, you would expect to be able to access it, would you not? And secondly, if someone wants something, you would expect them to pay for it, no?

We will have to keep a close eye on this subject, but from the talk among the cabbies so far about this, I can tell you the council and the police will face robust opposition to this idea, if true.

Speaking of Mark Selley, he has asked me to put in this bit of writing as a guest entry, on his behalf.

I said I would oblige but I must stress that his interpretation of ‘that conversation’ is slightly inaccurate, but nevertheless, the conversation was akin to a scene from the Chuckle Brothers, so here goes.

I’ve corrected his appalling spelling by the way.

Saturday night, brief conversation on the CB radio between LEP Taxi blogger and a colleague, it was like eavesdropping on two delegates at a Village Idiot conference!

To ensure anonymity, we shall call them Paul G and Paul S. Evidently, Paul G has a customer in Fulwood who needs picking up;

Paul G "Anyone in Fulwood?"

Paul S "Where is your job?"

Paul G "Fulwood, where are you going?"

Paul S "Where is your job?"

Paul G "Where are you going?"

Paul S "Where is your job?" 

Paul G "Where are you going??"

        Brief pause...

Paul S " dunno where my fare is going, home or maybe her place!"

        Brief pause

Paul S " Withy Trees, I'm going to Withy Trees (Fulwood)"

Paul G " its ok, I'll pick the job up myself I'm only a minute away!"

The conversation was like Burnley FC in 2010.........pointless!

 I know what you are thinking reader, but you are wrong, we don't have the Chuckle Brothers driving Hackneys in Preston!

Apologies to any Village Idiots offended by this story!

Mark S

Ifs & Buts

Well, after my rant about the Lane Ends pothole, I’m embarrassed to say that the council have resurfaced over it... the very next day after it took out my cab.

It was certainly a day too late for me, but nevertheless, they’ve fixed it.

I’m not taking back my harsh words, as I feel the road was left in that state for far too long, but it’s good to see something is being done.

I know the world is a history of ifs and buts, but if that road was repaired a day earlier, I probably wouldn’t have lost a Friday night’s takings, which usually equates roughly to a quarter of my weekly wage. That’s some pay-cut to take for one of the leaner months of the year, especially as it was a busier than usual Friday.

I’m angry and mad, why am I so angry, I’ll tell you why!

Do you remember me writing about the ancient road surface at the Lane Ends junction a few weeks back?

Well, after all this time nothing has been done to sort it. The huge pothole at Lane Ends, which must be a world record by now, only took out my cab tonight.

This crater-like hole has grown larger since I wrote about it and despite the promises from County Council to fix the roads since the big freeze, naff all has been done.

Tonight being a Friday, I hope you can imagine just how much of a ‘pay-cut’ I’m taking this week, all thanks to the ineptness of the authorities.

Basically what happened was,... I was travelling back to town at a low speed, as I came toward the giant pothole I had no option other than to drive over it, as there was on-coming traffic.

The front wheels went over it no problem, but when the back wheels went over it I heard a big bang.

I thought to myself “that didn’t sound too healthy”, so I pulled over and had a butchers under the cab. Upon close inspection I realised my weekend takings weren’t going to materialise.

The suspension springs had snapped, leaving the cab lopsided and when I went around a right-hand bend the chassis rubbed on the tyre.

It was good night Vienna for me.

I got on the blower to Mrs Taxi to meet me at the garage which does the repairs for me; she turned up and took me home.

So, instead of dwelling on my misfortune I decided to make my own silver lining by heading to the Mad Ferret pub, to watch the most excellent band, One English Pound.

 Mrs Taxi dropped me off and she arranged to come back and pick me up at 12:30AM.

The pub was busy and the concert over the road at 53Degrees had finished and there was at least a thousand people wandering around.

This was a bad night to be off the road, clearly.  My personal phone was ringing with taxi requests, there was the concert at 53Degrees which attracted a lot of people, and it was the end of the month which is PAYDAY for most folk.

From what I could see, the concert at 53Degrees had attracted a crowd of undesirables, loads of people off their faces on what I would presume to be drugs.

The likelihood is, if I was working, I wouldn’t have stopped for any of the concert goers, as almost all of them looked like trouble (from what I saw).

Last night at 7PM I headed for the Friargate taxi rank, this rank only becomes a taxi rank at 7PM, prior to that time it’s a short stay parking bay open to any vehicle.

When I got there it was full of cars, so I squeezed on at the front and sat patiently for a job. At 7:06PM a traffic warden turned up, he noted all the vehicles which were now officially parked on a taxi rank, and waited the grace time of 7 minutes before he started issuing parking tickets.

After he’d issued the tickets I beckoned him over for a chat; I asked him why they (the parking wardens) don’t enforce the parking restrictions at the Church St rank. He told me that presently they can’t ticket cars on that rank because there’s a signpost missing stating that it’s a taxi rank. Oh dear, talk about red tape.

The main Church St rank is infested with cars whose owners’ don’t have any regard to the by-laws. Cars parking on that rank, especially at busy times, cause absolute mayhem to the traffic flow on that street.

All over town the ranks are being used as parking places by ignorant drivers, yet the parking enforcement team, as far as I know, don’t work later than 8PM.

In any other ‘city’ of any worth, I’m pretty damn sure a vehicle causing an obstruction would not only be issued a ticket, but towed away as well. I think we need that sort of thing here in Preston; I’m not talking about towing away cars that have overrun their time on the parking meter or parked on yellows on a quiet street, I’m thinking tow away cars that are causing an obstruction. Something needs to be done because as it is now, it’s simply nothing more than a free for all.

Personally I would love to see the city centre pedestrianised, only allowing access to service vehicles and taxis. That would pee on the chips of all the boy racers who love to drive through town blasting out their junk music and revving their engines like it’s some sort of mating call. Idiots!

Monday night I had a strange experience; what happened was, I was first turn on the Friargate rank watching the world go by. I noticed in my wing mirror a man who looked familiar to me, walking toward the front of the rank. I thought to myself “is that Beano from school”, but as he got closer I realised it wasn’t my old school mate. The man went into the takeaway next to the rank and I couldn’t help but stare at him due his likeness to my old mate, who incidentally I’ve not seen for months.

While transfixed on this character in the takeaway my taxi door opened; I turned around to greet them, it was five blokes carrying snooker cues. One by one they climbed in, each receiving a “how do mate” from me, well the first four did, the last guy in received an “OH MY GOD!” from me.

You never guess who it was?... Yup, it was my old school pal Beano!

I couldn’t believe it; I said to them I was only just thinking about Beano seconds earlier and now he’s in my cab. I told them that a guy who looked like Beano had just walked down the rank and I pointed him out to the lads in the back. They laughed and agreed they looked similar.