How safe is that taxi?
There are more than 100,000 licensed privatehire drivers and more than 24,000 licensed taxi drivers in London
It’s easy to jump into a cab, but who is the stranger behind the wheel..?
Picture the scene. You leave a bar or club, late at night and on your own.
There are no buses, no trains, and you can’t book a taxi.
Now you face a walk home alone, in the dark.
Then a cab pulls up beside you, offering you a lift.
The safest thing to do would be to hop in...
Or would it?
Most people who hail an unlicensed or unbooked cab will get home safely.
But, tragically, some won’t. That’s something Elaine Pickford, 55, from Swindon, knows painfully well.
Because her daughter Sian O’callaghan, 22, disappeared on 19 March 2011 after leaving a nightclub alone. Her body was found five days later. In time, Christopher Halliwell, 52, the cab driver who picked Sian up, was convicted of her murder.
‘Sian was on her own and Halliwell could see she’d had a few drinks,’ Elaine says.
‘I’m sure he used the fact he was a taxi driver for his cruel intentions.’
Elaine discovered that Halliwell was operating as a private-hire taxi driver.
But, that night, he had switched off his radar and radio signal, so his vehicle couldn’t be legally booked.
Instead, he’d been using it to search for a victim.
Halliwell – who, it later emerged had already killed another woman, Becky Godden, 20 – was known to have a criminal past, including convictions for burglary.
Yet he’d still been given a private-hire vehicle licence by Swindon Council, annually from 2000 to 2011.
Taxi regulations are confusing, as Elaine learned when she tried to get to grips with them in the devastating aftermath of losing her daughter.
‘What came to light is that not a lot of people know the difference between a taxi and a private hire cab, and what they can and can’t do,’ she says.
Taxis can be hailed from the street or picked up from a rank, as well as being booked in advance.
However, private-hire vehicles, which Halliwell drove, must be booked in advance and cannot be hailed in the street.
‘It’s not always clear in or on the vehicle if they’re a taxi or a private hire,’ Elaine says. ‘Sometimes on a driver’s licence plate there will be small lettering about what it is, but it should be more clearly displayed.
‘Each borough in the UK has different regulations and there’s no set code of practice or background checks,’ Elaine adds. During her research, Elaine discovered the Suzy Lamplugh Trust – a charity which campaigns for personal safety. Suzy, aged 25, disappeared on 28 July 1986, during the course of her work as an estate agent, while showing an unknown man around a house.
She was never found. The trust was set up in 1986 by Suzy’s parents. Today it is still working to build a society where people are safer – and feel safer – from violence.
One of its campaigns is for nationalised taxi regulations.
‘I emailed them saying who I was, and asking if there was anything I could do to help,’ Elaine says. ‘I met up with the organiser, and felt personally my case could add weight to their message. You can’t get anything stronger than what happened to my Sian.’
So Elaine has lent her voice to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust’s Know Your Rides campaign.
They want every taxi and
By March last year, the number of licensed taxi and privatehire vehicles in England increased by 16% to 281,000
private-hire driver to undergo rigorous background checks.
‘People working in schools and churches go through thorough checks but when you think about it, there aren’t many more vulnerable situations than getting into a car with a complete stranger,’ Elaine says.
Recently, the media reported that, in 2016, the number of taxi and private-hire journeyrelated sexual offences hit 164 in London alone.
‘Some taxi drivers in the news lately have been convicted of sexual assault in their cabs, some are operating as fake drivers,’
Elaine states.
‘It works the other way round, too.
Most drivers are offering a great service that really helps people get home safely and this news doesn’t help them,’ she adds.
Currently, there are Best Practice Guidelines issued by the Department for Transport for local authorities about issuing licences for taxis and private hire vehicles.
It states, It is clearly important that somebody using a taxi or private hire vehicle to go home alone late at night should be confident that the driver does not have a criminal record for assault and that the vehicle is safe. Local licensing authorities will want to consider each case on its merits, but they should take a particularly cautious view of any offences involving violence, and especially sexual attack.
But there are no hard and fast rules banning criminals from becoming drivers.
Which is why, Elaine says, her taxi-safety work with the Suzy Lamplugh Trust is so important.
‘I want positives to come from Sian’s death,’ Elaine says. ‘She was so happy and she wouldn’t want another family going through this.’
It’s hard to argue with that.