I wonder if any of the backroomers are cabbies, or might know the answer to this one.
I was very nearly run of the road last night by a psychopathic private hire car driver (and by 'almost' I mean 'about 6"') during one of the miost irresponsible and insane overtaking manoevres I've ever seen - I've never come that close to being roadkill in my life. Fortunately, I'd just dropped of a couple of passengers a few minutes before, but the thought of them getting involved too makes my blod boil..
During the chaos, I only managed to get the private hire number (at least I assume it was - it said '83' in large numbers on a plate in the rear window along with the licence number, rather than being displayed externally), the 'Y' of the registration, and the fact that it was a silver Transit minibus.
Does anyone know if private hire car numbers are unique to the company, the city, the county, or even the country? It's not much to go on, but I'm determined to see that the company knows their driver almost caused a serious collision, whether they choose to do anything about it or not.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Won't the local council be able to trace the Taxi number of the taxi plate?
They may not tell you the taxi company, you may just have to make a complaint to the council.
Ben
On my 3rd Citroen. Saxo, Xsara, C5.
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I've just checked now and managed to find a generic number for the council's licensing department, so I'm going to give them a buzz tomorrow when they're open - cheers for the advice :)
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Private hire numbers are usually unique to the licensing authority - this may, depending on the area, be the city council, borough council or even (I think) county council.
If you live locally to where the incident occurred, the relevant licensing authority will be displayed on private hire and hackney carriages and, while you probably won't find anything as direct as a phone number, you should at least be able to work out a central point of contact for the authority.
In this case, I would concentrate not only on the taxi company, which probably won't care, but also on the local authority as drivers' licences are renewable.
As it is a minibus, there is a strong possibility that it was on a longer run to an airport or night out, so you may be unlucky and find it has come from a neighbouring area or even one further afield, which will make it more or less untraceable.
Finally, please don't take this as criticism of your driving, but when someone overtakes you and you don't think they have the space they need, defensive driving suggests that you brake and back off to give them the gap.
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Thanks for the advice, and no offence taken - I agree completely :) I did take defensive measures, which was the only thing that prevented a serious accident. When you say driver's licenses are renewable, does that mean that the license number is related to the driver and not the car? If so, would the vehicle license number displayed on the plate be transferred as if driver frequently changes vehicle?
The driver in question was tailgating me very closely across a notorious 2-into-1 lane junction, but didnt show any signs of overtaking. He then moved out to the right lane approaching a right hand turn as the road became single lane, but then floored it to bring his van halfway alongside my car, and more or less completely on the opposite side of the road. At this point he realised that there was a car approaching him head on, and started to swerve left and right whilst still accelerating. If I'd have braked at that point he would have struck the back corner of my car, as we were approaching a kink on the runup to a roundabout, so I slowed for a second until he was completely alongside and then braked hard to get out of the way. No sooner had I done so, than he swerved into the place where I was a second before, missing my front wing by a few inches. He then rolled down the road in front rather shakily before changing lane at the last minute and swerving off round the roundabout without indicating.
Lunatic is not the word...
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K
Vehicle requires to be licensed with local authority and gets a unique plate.
Likewise Driver has to be registered and he gets a Badge ID No.
www.tinyurl.com/rifs
gives advice re Wrexham but this virtually the same elsewhere.
Note question 6.
DVD
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Ahh, that makes a lot more sense now, cheers - it'll give me something to go on when I call the local council's licensing department later today.
Ta! :)
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Just an update to close this thread off:
Finally managed to trace the taxi to Harborough District Council after a bit of phoning around - it turns out that each district maintains a log of it's own licenses and that there isn't a mechanism within Leicestershire to cross reference those numbers. The administrator in the licensing department was very helpful, took all the details, and actually knew the stretch of road personally (along with the particular bad driving habits that are displayed there). She did state, as I expected, that it's hard to make a case of an isolated event, but that notification of the complaint would be sent to the driver and that it would be kept on his record to cross-check against future incidents.
So yeah, have let off a bit of steam and am feeling a bit better. Cheers for the help folks :)
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