Month long cab enforcement saw 166 vehicle inspections with a number of fixed penalty notices issued

Nottingham‘s Community Protections Taxi Enforcement Team completed a total of 166 inspections on hackney carriage and private hire vehicles throughout August as lockdown began to ease.

Out of the 166 vehicles inspected, 8 were found to have defects which required ‘Defect Forms’ to be issued and logged, with drivers ordered to get any issues fixed immediately.

A total of 6 ‘Fixed Penalty Notices’ were issued on the spot to drivers, with two cases of a driver smoking in a licensed vehicle.

In addition, 2 ‘Driver Improvement Penalty points’ (DIPPS) were issued. The DIPPS penalty points scheme was introduced by Nottingham City Council three years ago as a non-statutory enforcement tool designed to enable authorised officers of the city council to issue penalty points to those drivers licensed by the council who persistently fail to meet the required standards.

Each licence will receive a points allocation specific to the level of their responsibility. The council said issues have been raised in the past by the trade in relation to over-ranking, violation of traffic orders and illegal parking.

In addition to August’s enforcements, September has already seen drivers issued tickets for driving with tyres below the legal limit tread.

The Taxi Enforcement Team used their official Twitter account to highlight the finds, commenting on one case: “Last check of the night and it’s not a good one.”

On the other they wrote: “Inside edge core exposed. Tread down to below 1.6mm.”