CAB DRIVERS CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE: How passenger duties and stopping restrictions are creating a PCN minefield

For taxi drivers, stopping is an unavoidable part of the job. Unlike most motorists, a cabbie’s working day depends on repeatedly finding safe and lawful places to collect and set down passengers, at addresses chosen by customers rather than drivers.

But two recent London cases demonstrate how quickly carrying out that basic function can result in a financial penalty, even where a driver argues they were actively attempting to collect or assist a passenger rather than parking.

Personally, I’ve had to recently challenge a Penalty Charge Notice issued following an app booking to collect passengers on Brompton Road in central London.

The booking was received through one of the taxi booking apps, with the passenger selecting the address. On arriving at the requested location, I found there was no straightforward kerbside stopping point available without encountering restrictions, including zigzags and loading controls.

So I pulled in at what I considered the safest available position at the requested pick-up location and contacted the customer through the app.

The passenger was actually with a large group on the opposite side of Brompton Road, outside Boots, carrying bags. The group wanted me to perform a U-turn to reach them, but had to refuse because a signed restriction prohibited the manoeuvre. Messages sent to the passenger explained that performing the U-turn risked a fine, while I also physically pointed towards the no U-turn sign out of my driver window.

The irony was that the attempt to comply with one traffic restriction did not prevent enforcement elsewhere.

After I remained at the requested collection point while communicating with the group, the job was cancelled and I drove away.

Given I was trying to pick-up throughout and not park up, the PCN is now being challenged. This is just my story and pretty much every cabbie out there will have their own story to tell when it comes to ‘just doing their job’ scenarios.

App bookings can make picking up more complicated to the untrained eye. The passenger chooses the pick-up location, but the taxi driver arriving at that pin must then determine whether the exact location is legally and physically suitable.

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A passenger may also not be immediately visible, may be standing on the opposite side of the road or may take additional time to reach the taxi.

Driving away immediately is not always a simple answer either.

The Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Disabled Persons) Act 2022 strengthened accessibility duties applying to taxi and private hire services. Government guidance says drivers can be required to provide reasonable mobility assistance, while drivers undertaking pre-booked taxi journeys can have duties to take reasonable steps to help disabled passengers identify and find the hired vehicle.

That leaves drivers facing competing risks. Leaving too quickly could potentially result in a passenger complaint, particularly if someone requires additional assistance, while waiting for a customer at a difficult pick-up point can expose the driver to traffic enforcement.

The Brompton Road case comes shortly after another London cabbie was handed a £60 private parking charge after assisting an elderly passenger with mobility difficulties in Brentford.

Gary Taylor had taken an elderly woman with a cane home to the Brentford Lock area at around 10.30pm. He stopped on a privately managed road and helped the passenger towards her home.

Images connected with the parking charge appeared to show Taylor assisting the passenger away from his taxi.

Taylor said: “Got a parking charge of £60 for dropping off an elderly resident outside her flat in Tallow Road Brentford.

“I’ve had my appeal rejected even though clearly not parked, was clearly assisting a passenger.

“Never saw any signage explaining no parking on private land.”

The distinction between the two cases is however important. Taylor’s £60 demand was issued under private parking arrangements rather than normal public-highway parking enforcement.

Parking Collection Services rejected Taylor’s appeal. The company said that although it appreciated he was a professional driver carrying out his work, the site’s parking conditions applied to motorists using the development and that being a taxi driver did not provide an exemption.

The incident attracted criticism from Brentford and Isleworth MP Ruth Cadbury, who said she was “very concerned” about the case and described taxis as a “vital lifeline” for constituents, particularly people with limited mobility or additional needs.

Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association (LTDA) general secretary Steve McNamara also criticised the growing exposure of drivers to camera-led enforcement, arguing that London cabbies were increasingly struggling to work without being caught by penalties.

The two incidents expose different parts of the same working problem.

London’s taxi service relies on drivers being able to get reasonably close to passengers. That requirement becomes particularly important for wheelchair users, elderly customers and people with other mobility difficulties.

On the public highway, taxis have several important stopping permissions, although they are far from universal. Vehicles can generally stop on yellow lines for the time reasonably necessary to allow passengers to board or alight, subject to other restrictions. London taxis can also pick up and set down on most red routes, but cannot stop where specific prohibitions apply, including pedestrian crossing zigzags and certain solid red-line restrictions found at some bus stops.

Private land creates another layer of difficulty because those highway exemptions do not necessarily apply once a taxi enters privately controlled property.

For drivers, identifying the boundary can be difficult, particularly at night.

The risk is that enforcement starts influencing where taxi drivers are prepared to go.

If drivers conclude that entering a particular residential development, hotel forecourt, estate road or controlled access area carries too great a financial risk, the rational response is to stop outside it and require the passenger to walk to the vehicle.

That may protect the driver from a parking charge, but it can produce a considerably worse taxi service for the people most dependent on door-to-door transport.

It’s worth saying that neither case means taxi drivers have a blanket right to disregard stopping, parking or private-land restrictions. They do not.

What they do raise is whether enforcement regimes, landowners and transport authorities are giving sufficient consideration to the unusual working requirements placed on licensed professional drivers.

Taxi drivers are expected to provide an accessible, door-to-door public transport service. They are also expected to comply with an increasingly complex network of stopping restrictions, traffic controls and privately managed roads.

When simply attempting to collect a passenger or walking an elderly customer to their door can result in a penalty demand, those two expectations can collide.

For London’s taxi trade, the concern is that the cost of that collision is increasingly landing with the individual driver.