People who live in the suburban areas of the capital of Wales express their fury to public taxi services who refuse fares for short distances within the Cardiff boundary.
Cardiff residents’ complaints about taxi services in the capital have been arisen lately with people saying that taxi drivers often refuse short- distance fares.
Cardiffians, especially these who live in the suburban areas of the capital continuously express their discontent about hackney carriage services, mainly for fares from the city centre to the closest suburbs and the reverse.
“I’ve been on my own, 2am, and can’t get a cab to take me as I’m only 10 mins from city centre and a low fare. It’s a disgrace”, Dani B. tweeted,after having experienced a denial from a taxi driver in Cardiff.
People’s posts on social media, especially on twitter, express their fury towards public taxi companies and drivers who refuse them a fare without reasonable excuse, because according to their complaints, public taxi operations prefer to serve people for longer distance fares.
“I’ve just tried to get a taxi home from town but both these, amongst others, have refused to take me because I only live In Splott. I’m now walking, alone, in the dark. Absolutely ridiculous!”, wrote a young woman, just a few months ago, who lives 10 minutes far away from the city centre.
Bivin Mathew, who lives in Heath, with his wife reported an incident happened last Christmas saying: “My wife had to walk home to the Heath after her works do because taxis refused the short trip over to ours. This despite waiting in a rank for ages. She tried flagging several down who would stop, ask for address and then drive away.”
Most of people’s grievances are especially about services during rugby and football match days in Cardiff, leading them ordering taxis who work for private companies, such as ‘Uber’, as “drivers normally don’t know the end destination till the pickup, so normally guaranteed rides.”
Private hire vehicle’s company are in a high rise in the UK, as they are considered to be more reliable and they are mostly preferred by women especially during night hours.
Many UK universities, such as Cardiff University have introduced the ‘safe taxi scheme‘ for emergency cases, which allows students to call a private taxi company that co-operates with each university, have a ride without paying the fare at that point but instead, they can pay the fee in their student’s union after a couple of days.
The scheme has been highly useful in many cases for international and non-local students, but as far as residents who do not study in Cardiff is concerned, then also private taxi companies seem as a dead-end.
Most of people’s grievances are especially about services during rugby and football match days in Cardiff.Cardiff Council, the official responsible for providing driving licenses to both taxis and hire vehicles, is trying to raise public’s awareness about using taxi services, explaining with a press release the differences as far as law is concerning, between taxis & private hire vehicles.
“It is an offence for a driver of a taxi to refuse a fare that starts and ends within the Cardiff boundary without reasonable excuse e.g. the customer is drunk or abusive.If a Hackney Carriage driver has refused to take you because the fare is too short, or if the driver/vehicle (hackney carriage or private hire) does not meet your expectations, you can report this to the Licensing Section of Cardiff Council. We ask all those who wish to report these matters to be willing to give evidence at Committee.’’
“We ask everyone who wants to make a complaint against a driver and is willing to give their evidence to committee, to contact us so we can take action. We do need some details, such as the driver number (on the badge on the windscreen), or the license plate, the registration plate – try and get a photo of the registration plate if you have a smart phone, the date, time and where the incident happened and report it to licensing@cardiff.gov.uk’’, said a spokesman for the Cardiff Council, as a try to eliminate people’s dissatisfaction and complaints.