Extracts from my first solo book which I have recently published about the two years I spent driving a private hire car rather than being a clergyman. It began life as a piece of auto-catharsis and turned into a project. If I can sell some I can start recouping my costs!

15
Sheepscar – Crashing Out.
Accidents, Collisions and Scams

There are two things a cab driver of any description should never
do; firstly be involved in a collision – and secondly be involved
in a collision. This is true irrespective of where blame lies, if for
no other reason than it makes the few insurance companies still
willing to underwrite the risk of covering taxi drivers rather
nervous. The average insurance bill for drivers who run their
own vehicles is up to ten times what it would be for private
motoring, and the cost for covering the fleet of cars owned by
my company was reportedly not far short of an eye-watering
£200,000 per annum.

 Taxi and private hire drivers have a reputation for driving
too fast and too aggressively, but in my experience this was only
true of a small minority, mainly because the greater the speed
the greater the risk of collisions, and the greater the risk of a
hefty financial hit. Those who had learned the trade well had
long since discovered that avoidance of accidents was one of
the main keys to survival, and the small number who refused to
learn this lesson were almost universally among those who did
not last long in the business. As with almost any profession it is
principally the miscreants who are noticed by the general public.
It was much the same in the world of vicaring.

 There is something about a vehicle sporting a private hire
licence being driven aggressively that seems to excite anger more
readily than would be the case were the offending piece of plastic
bearing the legend “private hire” not present, and a significant quantity of the public appear ready to smear, with the broadest
possible tar brush, the reputation of all who drive for hire or
reward. In the “perception of who are bad drivers” stakes, White
Van Man and private hire drivers usually run neck and neck at
the head of the field, closely followed by motorcycle couriers
and young men in cheap sports cars. I learned very early on that
the drivers who fancied themselves as the taxi world’s James
Bond behind the wheel of a car usually had insurance premiums
to make the jaw drop and enough convictions for speeding to
make their continued existence in the business precarious to
say the least. A driver once showed me three speeding tickets
resulting from his ignorance of the placement of a new speed
camera, all issued in the space of 24 hours. A further ticket –
which was probably in the post even as we spoke – would result
in potential disqualification.

 I considered that I had little to worry about; I had not
experienced a collision where the fault was mine for some twenty
years, and my two months of professional driving had witnessed
no near misses. What was more I now had a piece of paper
confirming my expertise and more than ample competence to
drive a private hire car, and my status in the elevated stratosphere
of expert drivers was confirmed.
I could not have been more mistaken. Poignantly it was in
the same week that I passed my taxi drivers’ test that through a
sheer lack of concentration I drove smack into the rear end of
a poor female driver who wondered (literally) what had hit her.
This was no minor shunt; the victim’s vehicle looked a complete
wreck, and my front end was like something that had competed
in one destruction derby too many. There was nothing to do but
have the car recovered back to Base and await my fate, which I
feared could signal the end of the line. Shame-faced I arrived
back to be met by one of the directors of the company who
asked for an explanation for the pitiful spectacle now skulking
in the shadows that had so recently been a bright shiny company
vehicle. There was nothing to do other than to admit that it was
completely my fault and offer to cough up the requisite £500.
I then braced myself for the verbal onslaught and apocalyptic
sermon on the peril in which my new career now stood. Instead
I was greeted with the almost comforting “You’re not the first
and you won’t be the last”, following which he disappeared back
into his office and I was given another vehicle and life continued
much as before.

 What makes a collision even more likely are other factors that
load the odds against taxi and private hire drivers. Firstly there
are a not insignificant number of drivers – particularly though
not exclusively young males for whom a vehicle functions as
a penis extension – who appear to collect occasions on which
they have beaten a taxi away from the lights, or succeeded in
cutting in front of one, as so many notches on the belts of their
machismo. An inability – or an unwillingness – to exercise selfrestraint
can very easily lead to disaster. The second factor is
more sinister, and this involves the scam artists who set out
quite deliberately to cause minor accidents in which they can lay
blame at the door of the third party. As I write now the “crash for
cash” and “flash for cash” artists are hitting the headlines, and
most drivers are aware of at least some of the methods used, but
this was in the days when the crime was in its infancy, and not
well known outside the fraternity. Of the three accidents I was
involved in two fell into this category.
There are a number of variations on the scam, some more
sinister than others, but most of them involve engineering a
scenario in which the front of the victim’s car meets the rear
end of the vehicle driven by the perpetrator. Since collisions of
this nature are almost always seen to be the fault of the victim
insurance claims can be lodged worth a great deal of money, and
a taxi is a safe target because it is bound to be insured.

One of the more sinister variations consists of a car full of
people reversing at speed into the front end of the target’s vehicle,
after which there are not only four or five victims claiming
horrific neck injuries, but the same amount of witnesses more
than willing to perjure themselves in a court of law by laying
the blame fairly and squarely at the feet of the cabbie who
drove recklessly into the back of their car. Knowing that cabs
will almost certainly carry full insurance this has been seen as
a safe way of making money for some time now, though there
is evidence that the insurers are becoming wise to it and are
fighting back.
Some months later this lesson proved immensely valuable
in saving me money and grief.
 

The Collar and the Cab
 This link will take you to the publisher web site where you can order one. Or you can get one direct from  myself with free p&p - just ask.