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Cabbies joined protesters Grant Davis and Tom Conti
Protestor Clayton Dillon |
'We'll refuse fares' threat as cabbies bring traffic to halt
Protest over parking tickets causes gridlock in streets around Town Hall
CABBIES protesting at the number of parking fines dished
out in the borough are threatening to refuse to take passengers
to Camden.
Members of 1,000-strong London Cab Drivers Club, which represents
black taxis, brought gridlock to roads around King’s Cross
when they staged a demonstration on Thursday.
Some 300 cabs circled the streets surrounding the Town Hall
in Judd Street.
Hampstead-based actor Tom Conti was among protesters who carried
placards accusing Labour councillor John Thane, Camden’s
environment chief, of behaving like a “pirate”.
Drivers Club chairman Alan Fleming, 67, of Agamemnon Road, Fortune
Green, believes Camden’s 105 roadside cameras result in
unfair fines for taxi drivers.
He said: “If you put so much as half a wheel over a yellow
junction box you get hit with a ticket.”
He added: “Camden Council is covering up for the incompetence
of its overspending by using drivers as a milch cow.
“They are putting pressure on drivers which could ultimately
cause accidents. If Camden doesn’t do anything soon, drivers
are going to build up an image in their mind about the area
that could put them off working in the borough.”
Cab drivers have accused Camden of being the worst borough in
London for handing out fines.
But the council claims that, in 70 per cent of appeal cases
where a parking fine is disputed by a driver, the council is
found to be in the right.
Dressed as a pirate, taxi driver Grant Davis, from Bromley,
south-east London, said: “It has become a joke. You can’t
drop off or pick up without getting a ticket through your letterbox
a week later. We can’t understand why we are being persecuted
and I know of people who have been getting tickets at three
or four in the morning.
“It could get to the point where drivers are too worried
about getting a ticket to take women back to Camden late at
night.”
Driver George Vyse said: “Councils like Camden see fines
as extra revenue. They say pay it now or we’ll double it.”
Mr Conti, co-founder of London Motorists Action Group, said:
“All people who drive in London are affected by this, not
just taxi drivers. But the whole point of a black cab is that
they can take you where you want to go, drop you off, hang on
while you take cash out of a cash machine and they are being
penalised for doing their job.
“There are things I would rather be doing today than this
and none of these taxi drivers here today should have to give
up fee-paying time but it has come to this.”
Camden Council’s assistant director of environment Alex
Williams admitted there was a “strength of feeling”
among cab drivers over the borough’s parking policy.
He said: “Our job, through effective parking enforcement,
is all about keeping London moving. Cab drivers, more than most,
receive the benefits of this.
“Motorists who receive a parking ticket have a right of
appeal to an independent adjudicator and we win more appeals
than any other central London borough.”
He added that there had been a 13 per cent reduction in parking
tickets in the last year due to “more motorists understanding
and complying with parking rules”.
Cab drivers say the worst spots for tickets are the stretch
of Euston Road outside King’s Cross railway station, a
junction box at the corner of High Holborn and Kingsway and
the nearby junction of Southampton Road and Theobalds Road.
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