dieseldog999:
+1…i was in the taxi trade for years,both public and private hire…according to myhermes etc then great theoretical earnings are to be made…same pish as uber.
The trouble is, that people will get a cab home in the small hours of Saturday or Sunday, there’s no traffic on the roads so you can whizz round, and 20 minutes later you drop them of and relieve them of £20, so they think there must be a small fortune in it. They don’t visualise sitting around for two hours in the week and then doing a £4 fare.
There’s also the private hire licence, the vehicle licence, two MOT’s a year, and the car gets absolutely trashed. I’ve met some lovely people while driving a cab but you do also encounter a lot of people who could politely be described as “the dregs of society”.
+1…my ideal choice of taxi would have been a jcb with a mattress in the front bucket. the general pondslime of society stand there ■■■■■■ out of their brains.pint in 1 hand,pizza in the other with a ■■■ hanging out of their mouth,then take umbrage at you when you dont let them in…the majority of the work is for ■■■■■■ up disrespectful dregs.
The last time I got a cab in my home town was to pick up my car from a garage in an outlying village where it had just been MOT’d, about this time last year. I was in the car for 25 minutes, so add 15 minutes for the driver to get from the last job,or to the next one, and the job took 40 minutes of the driver’s time. The fare was £5.90, I gave him £7.
So when he is busy, running from job to job, he is grossing £10.50 an hour, out of which comes diesel, H&R insurance, the circuit fee, the driver licence, the vehicle licence, two MOTs a year, four services a year, wear and tear on the car, accountancy fees etc etc etc… I get £10.50 an hour as a limper, plus paid holidays, out of which my only expense is £2 a day in fuel to get to work and back.
Certainly I wouldn’t have spent £25,000 on a truck, as well as getting an Operator CPC and an O licence if I thought I could earn as much by spending £2,500 on a Skoda Octavia.
Honked:
I guess at least some of you will have been on the cabs. I am toying with the idea of private hire (Manchester area) and looking for any words of wisdom - good or bad.
Getting itchy feet.
I can’t stress enough what a bad idea this is, I spent a year and a half as a taxi driver. It is a nightmare I worked through a company so I didn’t have to buy and insure a car myself but no taxi company will employ you directly. You will be self employed. This is so that they don’t have to pay you minimum wage, holiday pay etc. Oh and hours, you won’t get flexibility unless by that you mean putting in extra hours. you will be expected to work every hour possible and then some.
I worked out that after paying car hire and diesel I was averaging £5.40 an hour!!! That’s before tax and ni are deducted and other expenses such as accountant licencing fees for the council, medicals (far more frequently than hgv drivers) dbs checks (formerly crb) and equipment such as pens pads coin holders note checkers receipts etc. It is a long and expensive process too, depends on licencing authority but I needed medical (same cost as hgv and needed every three years) enhanced dbs check (took four months of chasing police forces even having to take it up with mp’s and police commissioners! !) Driving test (yes a proper dsa, one not all councils require it but most do) knowledge test (the council conduct this test and charge you for the privelage) licence fee (depends on council but will be hundreds) and all this is before you earn a penny. You will be spending 90% of your time waiting for work be it through the radio or off a rank. As has been said wait an hour get a tiny fare (pay company’s percentage and diesel) then at the back of the que for another hour! I was working some 70+ hours a week so you can imagine how much I missed of my kids lives in just that year and a bit, asleep when I left and asleep when I got home out all night Saturdays so the only day I was home with them (sundays) it was me that was asleep. Also all these truck drivers that think they aren’t respected have no idea!
I passed my C and was going to carry on in the taxi until I did my C+E but one day I was about 9 hours into my shift and worked out I had averaged £2.40 ph, parked up hit the agency’s and never looked back. Sorry for the length of this reply but I could go on and on about how bad it is.
Around here due to the kiddie fiddlers scandal it’s £800+ Per car for the camera serveillance system fitted and a 6 month waiting list to have them fitted at an approved centre before the council will licence the cab.
There’s outrage ATM with cabbies getting vehicles licenced in Ripponden district where the rules are more lax and plying for trade here
I did PH /Taxi work for 3 years in Coventry,to many at it,especially at w/ends when the part timers are out in force pirating.
You struggle for work Mon /Thurs come out at w/end hoping to make your money up but there`s that many out your no better off.
High Insurance costs plus Council testing to get your “plate & badge” you need “bread &butter” jobs like schools and contracts to keep you going when the cash jobs are a bit sparce
switchlogic:
Ive liked into it, the economics do stack up
Well, that’s up to you but there have been numerous posts on this thread from people who have done the job and who have struggled to earn even the minimum wage. If they cannot manage that when working 60-70 hours a week, I’m not quite sure why you think you could earn good money at it doing the odd shift here and there, when your weekly standing costs will be exactly the same as theirs.
Winseer:
Yeh, I’ve seen some Limo Operators offering £25k jobs out working 5x10 hours Wednesday-Sunday PM if memory serves… (last year) Everything from ferrying high school kids about on their last day to Weddings.
For someone like me though, that’s a lot of bulling up each day to earn a lower wage than I’m already on alas. Some interesting stories ferrying the half-cut ladies home from Royal Ascot though!
If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t want to work through the whole night, and £25k will do you - look 'em up these Stretch Limo operators in particular… You could even argue at interview that “Hey, with a HGV licence, I’m not going to struggle getting one of THESE around a tight bend!”
Stretch limo drivers and operators frequently find themselves coming a cropper with DVSA for items such as maintenance and driving licences (some require a PCV to drive), and DVSA regularly target them with a vengeance. Having left the horror of truck driving behind I went out with DVSA on a Friday night ‘sting’ operation on Pall Mall a few Christmases ago where various limos were pulled and given the works. That was a real eye-opener, because some of the things that they were getting up to are scarcely believable had I not seen them myself.
Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that for £25k plus the odd tip is beyond me.
Harry Monk:
The last time I got a cab in my home town was to pick up my car from a garage in an outlying village where it had just been MOT’d, about this time last year. I was in the car for 25 minutes, so add 15 minutes for the driver to get from the last job,or to the next one, and the job took 40 minutes of the driver’s time. The fare was £5.90, I gave him £7.
So when he is busy, running from job to job, he is grossing £10.50 an hour, out of which comes diesel, H&R insurance, the circuit fee, the driver licence, the vehicle licence, two MOTs a year, four services a year, wear and tear on the car, accountancy fees etc etc etc… I get £10.50 an hour as a limper, plus paid holidays, out of which my only expense is £2 a day in fuel to get to work and back.
Certainly I wouldn’t have spent £25,000 on a truck, as well as getting an Operator CPC and an O licence if I thought I could earn as much by spending £2,500 on a Skoda Octavia.
The last time I used one was having got off the last train from London at 0130hrs on a Friday morning. Private hire, was with me almost straight away so must have been parked up nearby waiting for a fare. It is 12 miles from the station to my house and takes around 20 minutes at that time of the morning, and then the same back again for the taxi. He wanted £15 for it; I was expecting £25 at least.
There is no way that there is anything other than a pittance in it, unless there are two or three drivers ‘car sharing’ and working it 24/7. Around here they are cutting each others’ throats by promising no increases after midnight or on Sundays.
Olog Hai:
The last time I used one was having got off the last train from London at 0130hrs on a Friday morning. Private hire, was with me almost straight away so must have been parked up nearby waiting for a fare. It is 12 miles from the station to my house and takes around 20 minutes at that time of the morning, and then the same back again for the taxi. He wanted £15 for it; I was expecting £25 at least.
As I said earlier, I used to reckon on a third of my takings ending up as wages, so your driver would have earned £5 for 40 minutes work (although as you say he had probably been sitting around waiting for a job- let’s say 20 minutes) so £5 an hour for working at two o clock in the morning.
Need to work nights/weekends to earn decent money, public will do your head in, car will always break down on a busy friday night, not on a quiet monday night, crooked controllers who look after their mates, no holiday pay, no sick pay.
Don’t do it, I did it for years before having had enough and going to do my class1, I’d done private hire, public hire, last thing was bought brand new 8 seater minibus, for airport work and people want you to do it for peanuts, idiots out there to undercut your price along with airport parking prices and bloody traffic jams they are a nightmare, especially Manchester mate, went back to it while other half was pregnant to give us flexibility with appointments and wanting time with her and baby when he came along, now was renting a car when I went back plus paying taxi office their running in fee and fuel it was costing me £350 a week, now when you look at that as if you can run around on £10 a hour that’s 35 hours you’ve worked for sod all, so call it 3 12 hour shifts or 3 1/2, 10 hour shifts, leaving you the remaining part of your working week to earn some money for your family, or you can sit in a truck earning X amount per hour from the very first hour of your shift, I would never go back to it, and yes before it’s said I did it for years in the past, that was when it was worth doing it just went downhill more and more each year, every time some one took redundancy they thought oh I’ll buy a nice motor and go taxi driving, adding more and more drivers into a already over filled pond.
Winseer:
Yeh, I’ve seen some Limo Operators offering £25k jobs out working 5x10 hours Wednesday-Sunday PM if memory serves… (last year) Everything from ferrying high school kids about on their last day to Weddings.
For someone like me though, that’s a lot of bulling up each day to earn a lower wage than I’m already on alas. Some interesting stories ferrying the half-cut ladies home from Royal Ascot though!
If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t want to work through the whole night, and £25k will do you - look 'em up these Stretch Limo operators in particular… You could even argue at interview that “Hey, with a HGV licence, I’m not going to struggle getting one of THESE around a tight bend!”
Stretch limo drivers and operators frequently find themselves coming a cropper with DVSA for items such as maintenance and driving licences (some require a PCV to drive), and DVSA regularly target them with a vengeance. Having left the horror of truck driving behind I went out with DVSA on a Friday night ‘sting’ operation on Pall Mall a few Christmases ago where various limos were pulled and given the works. That was a real eye-opener, because some of the things that they were getting up to are scarcely believable had I not seen them myself.
Why anyone would want to subject themselves to that for £25k plus the odd tip is beyond me.
Good post. I’d love for you to elaborate - there’s clearly a lot of things I’d not even considered here. I was only looking at the money (as usual) because I’m not afraid if the job requires “going the extra mile”, providing I can still plan the rest of my life around that.
switchlogic:
I’m planning to get a decent car to do Uber in when work is a bit slack or want a spot of extra money. The joy of that is that how much, how often & how long you work is entirely up to you
Same with every private hire. Uber are not exclusive to self employment and flexibility, their drivers face the same problems as every other private hire driver…how much you actually have to work. LOADS!
if someone pink operates the taxi company then nowadays its a money laundering front the same as tanning salons,hand car washes and the like…apart from that,then the taliban operated ones will never be undercut as they know how to work the system and run for peanuts to still make plenty.
thats just the way it is.
ive seen companies bought over by druggie front men while the main dude is in jail so they can make use of the money coming in…apart from some odd niche market placement,then your just going to be a busy poor man…super duper uber will just appeal to some because its been invented on the magical internet…but itl only be myhermes for punters and not parcels.plus working for uber will mean you will always have the added bonus of a licensed taxi panning in your windows for pirating his fare.
the credit monies pay for the lot,and the cash is undisclosed cash.
for my annual accoutancy sums,i had 12 bags with recipts…and a page listing outgoings…
my accountant put through enough to let me live with 80-100 on top for grub,and flung away the unwanted recipts.you cant burn diesel if your not earning.
£200 to him,and £150-£200 for a years tax every year…cash is king.
public hire can be worthwhile though it usually costs a fortune in cash to buy the licence if theres a limit on them from the council…private hire is just chasing pennies.
just look and see what culture your local taxi drivers are and you will know if its a goer or not.(most likely not).
at least if you can pay to work from some airports,you can have a wash and sh ave in the wudu.(you may need to google that) i had to with great disbelief until i saw it for myself at birmingham airport…
jimcab:
Every fare you do for uber…you pay them 25%
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i rest my case.foolish busy poor men. get the insurance,get the work,cancel the insurance,and pirate away merrily till caught,then hope you dont get caught for using your brothers licence etc…and fade into obscurity whilst getting on with it using your other brothers name…assuming youve no licence either.
dieseldog999:
if someone pink operates the taxi company then nowadays its a money laundering front the same as tanning salons,hand car washes and the like…apart from that,then the taliban operated ones will never be undercut as they know how to work the system and run for peanuts to still make plenty.
thats just the way it is.
ive seen companies bought over by druggie front men while the main dude is in jail so they can make use of the money coming in…apart from some odd niche market placement,then your just going to be a busy poor man…super duper uber will just appeal to some because its been invented on the magical internet…but itl only be myhermes for punters and not parcels.plus working for uber will mean you will always have the added bonus of a licensed taxi panning in your windows for pirating his fare.
the credit monies pay for the lot,and the cash is undisclosed cash.
for my annual accoutancy sums,i had 12 bags with recipts…and a page listing outgoings…
my accountant put through enough to let me live with 80-100 on top for grub,and flung away the unwanted recipts.you cant burn diesel if your not earning.
£200 to him,and £150-£200 for a years tax every year…cash is king.
public hire can be worthwhile though it usually costs a fortune in cash to buy the licence if theres a limit on them from the council…private hire is just chasing pennies.
just look and see what culture your local taxi drivers are and you will know if its a goer or not.(most likely not).
at least if you can pay to work from some airports,you can have a wash and sh ave in the wudu.(you may need to google that) i had to with great disbelief until i saw it for myself at birmingham airport…
