Sunderland taxi drivers clashing with enforcement officers on list of complaints

Sunderland City Council’s Licensing and Regulatory Committee, on January 30, looked at new data linked to hackney carriage and private hire licensing matters.

The annual report monitored licensing performance and activity across the city between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022.

Over the year, 346 new licensing applications were considered in total, including 67 hackney carriage drivers licences and 82 private hire drivers licences.

Other licences included vehicle licences, operators licences and transfer of ownership licences, as well as 971 renewal applications.

As part of the annual report, details were published about complaints related to licensed drivers in Sunderland.

A total of 40 complaints were submitted over the year, with around two thirds of complaints seeing some form of formal action.

Around 13 complaints were related to behaviour or attitude, with one example including “three separate instances of three drivers being abusive towards civil enforcement officers when carrying out their duties, while the taxi drivers were waiting on taxi ranks”.

Another example listed in the report included a “driver sounding his horn and gesticulating to the complainant”.

Around 14 complaints were linked to driving ability or skill, ranging from “erratic driving” and a driver parking across two parking bays, to drivers “performing a U-turn” or “pulling out in front of [a] complainant”.

A total of nine complaints were linked to fare / card payments, including claims one driver would not accept card payments, as well as four complaints about refusal of fare or not accepting bookings.

Some examples of refused fares were linked to alleged customer behaviour, including one case where a driver “refused to take three customers as they were being aggressive and shouting at each other before attempting to getinto the vehicle”.

Of the complaints across 2022, a total of 12 complaints saw “no further action”, due to insufficient information to investigate further or “no evidence of any wrongdoing”.

However, a total of 23 verbal warnings and five written warnings were given out, with “information recorded on the respective driver’s file”.

Only one case was linked to a “badge and licence [being] surrendered”.

In 2022, a total of five licensed drivers went before councillors on the Licensing and Regulatory Committee, which meets at City Hall.

This led to three written warnings being issued, including two “severe warnings” and one three-month suspension of a private hire driving licence.

The most serious ruling saw one “non-immediate revocation” of licences to drive hackney carriage and private hire vehicles.

The introduction of the Licensing and Regulatory Committee’s annual report links in with Government guidance and the Department for Transport’s ‘statutory taxi standards’ document.

A report presented to councillors this week added one of the “key lessons learned is that it is vital to review policies and reflect changes in the industry both locally and nationally”.

Future annual reports from Sunderland City Council will detail previous figures to help monitor changes and trends going forward.

The report for 2022 can be found on Sunderland City Council’s website here:https://committees.sunderland.gov.uk/committees/cmis5/Meetings.aspx