Letter to the Editor: Why can’t the States stop illegal lifts?

One such individual – a father of three – states that ‘the money he makes allows him to buy food for his children’. Yet he admits that he is in receipt of income support and implies that the money he earns from this illegal activity is not declared to the relevant authorities.

We suggest that if his job is poorly paid and he enjoys driving and working weekends, he obtains his taxi-cab badge as all my members, and all bona fide taxi-cab drivers, have to do and apply to become an employed part-time driver with a private- hire cab company, who often need extra staff at the weekends – the same as many other law-abiding citizens do.

As it is, on the face of it, this man is cheating on social security, income support and income tax and lying to his car insurers by failing to inform them of material facts pertaining to the use of his vehicle, thereby rendering his policy void and leaving his ‘paying’ passengers and other road users who come into contact with him without recourse to his insurance cover. If apprehended and convicted, he faces the possibility of many thousands of pounds in fines and a lengthy spell in prison. What of his wife and children then?

In the same article you quoted one half of a husband-and-wife team, who said ‘the money is not important… it keeps me out of the pub’. Then in the next breath they said they took £210 over a bank holiday weekend – not exactly petrol money. Despite their plea of altruism, they are still breaking the law – their insurance does not cover them and they do not have the necessary licences.

Another individual you included was a 24-year-old female who wanted to do extra work and make extra money without any commitment to an employer. If she enjoys driving around the Island then we suggest that there are many pizza and other fast-food takeaway businesses that are always in need of delivery drivers – at least it would not be an illegal activity.

All of the people mentioned above may, as they see it, have good reasons for providing lifts but the fact remains that what they are doing is against the law and carries serious consequences if they are apprehended or if things go wrong.

Our members, like all other licensed taxi-cab drivers, have invested time and a considerable amount of money in their jobs. They, too, need to make a living. They, too, have families to feed and rent or mortgages to pay. They, too, like to be of service to others. But these illegal drivers, and the lack of will on the part of the relevant authorities to do something about the situation, is making doing the job a joke.

Why is it beyond the ability of five States departments – Infrastructure, DVS, the police, Social Security and the Taxes Office – to work together to put an end to this iniquitous activity? Can it be that difficult to apprehend the culprits when the same car registration numbers appear with monotonous regularity on these websites and in the same locations offering these lifts?

Our message to the authorities is, come on! Start working together and show commitment to stopping this dangerous and illegal racket that is robbing legitimate taxi-cab drivers of their rightful income and almost certainly robbing the Island of its rightful share of revenue, to the detriment of all law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.