Who’s to blame?
I’ve already pointed the finger at TfL and specifically the PCO because they have seemingly lost control of an already desperate situation. They’re not the only ones at fault in this debacle though, some of the large chauffeur firms who operate a numbers game also have to take a long hard look at themselves. I’m fully aware that a number of companies do indeed have good quality control processes in place when it comes to driver selection, but for too many others it’s nothing more than getting bums on seats and sending them out onto the streets untrained and professionally ill equipped to maintain the industry standards of the past.
The customer also has to take some responsibility because it’s their choice has to whether they want to pay the bare minimum for a ‘driver’ or a more sensible rate for a ‘chauffeur’. It’s been economically tough for a few years and budgets have been squeezed but the corporates can’t continue to use that excuse indefinitely.
I’m certainly not the only chauffeur whose heard horror stories from clients about their experiences with London drivers and the various companies who employ them, but instead of putting up with it these passengers need to take their genuine concerns to those responsible for booking their transport and insist that they go back to employing the services of high quality chauffeur firms, with high quality drivers.
Unfortunately, the big boys with their multi-vehicle private hire fleets offer the convenience many customers want in the fast moving business world and the days of being willing to pay a good daily rate to have a professional chauffeur with their S500 sat outside your office in case they were needed have long gone.
The major problem is the line between the chauffeur and private hire industries is now blurred beyond recognition and the middle ‘E-Class’ ground could either get you a really good quality, old school chauffeur or an unkempt, and sometimes unsafe ‘person at the wheel’ who barely speaks English and is totally reliant on the sat nav.
We’d all love every licensing authority to put rules in place which distinguish between chauffeurs and private hire but short of decreeing that ‘you’re only a chauffeur if you’ve got a long wheelbase car’, (which is of course both impractical and non-sensical), I’ve really no idea how we could be separated and considered more ‘elite’, if that’s the right word.
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