After a two year old girl was killed in a five car collision on the M25 in Essex on Saturday. Questions are being raised about the safety of the many limousine conversions on UK roads. The vehicle involved a stretch Hummer was impounded by police as was the drivers mobile phone. Maybe it's time that the whole industry was examined and brought into line with our heavily regulated taxi industry. Surely some sort of qualification should be needed to take these monsters on our mainly unsuitable roads. But it seems that anybody can drive a limo without any training or experience and unlike the taxi industry no police criminal record checks are needed. When you think that a lot of these limos are hired for the use of children going to party's and proms that can't be right. Of course we can't attribute blame to the driver in this case that has still to be investigated. The other thing that is disturbing about this case is that reports suggest that the driver was moonlighting from his job as a bus driver. Again questions need to be asked about hours worked and the lack of legislation about this involving these dangerous heavy vehicles.
12 comments:
Hi Bob, Dave from the desert here, i talked a few times when i was in Basrah. Well got my hackney and have ben driving for a couple of months, and with regard to these stretch limos, they really are a a pain. My area is mainly a wee costal town and these monsters just cause gridlock at peak times, and they drive sooooo slooow!
Anyway keep up the good blog and drive safe.
Dave.
I think those cars are vulgar.
dave:Nice to hear from you again, are you managing to make decent living driving the hack, Are you doing nights or days.
peggy: we have what must be one of the most vulgar examples down here, it's a vivid shade of pink.
Hi Bob, i;m only driving oart time just now as I'm still technically in the RAF. I drive mostly evenings, Friday and Sat 'til about 0300 hrs. No way i can make a living without actuully owning the business, but now the owner has me driving and earning money for him he seems to have gone off the boil abot selling to me. If I owned the business tho' I could make not a bad living I think. It has been more stressfull than i thought and you get some ignorant arrogant folk, but then again you get some really good laughs too. I will stick at it and see if i can prise the business into my grasps prior to November!
Happy driving! Dave
dave:Sounds like you are doing all the crap hours, most people are different again the next day when sober.
Yes, it sounds very sad, so many traffic crashes. I think it's not so easy to drive a stretch limo, driver should be very skillful. Unfortunately not all of then are very careful.
Surely such limo must not drive in narrow streets, just in broad ones. I see very often stretch limos in narrow streets, they block traffic. And such accidents also cab happen.
Hi Bob, Helen fron Vita Nova here, sorry for delay in response as you can see I haven't updated our site for a while. Would love you to write about us and will include a link to you on our site
Cheers
Helen
Hi, Bob
The two year old boy you make reference to in your blog is my beloved nephew. We're in SA but he and his mom and dad and brother lived in England. The court case started today. Just thought you might be interested to know. I haven't spoken to his Mom yet but will pop her an e-mail by mid-week. Doubt she's in the mood to be chatting. Thank you for your piece on the incident.
hi, I was really sorry to hear about this individual and accident, I drive one of these hummers over here in the UK and if they are brought up to UK law requirements then they are a safe vehicle to travel in, sadly most of the rogue operators in the UK don't want to spend the £25,000 + to make them Uk legal and due to the ignorance of the english law many operators run them illegally using a loop hole, sadly the uk public don't have a clue what they need to check about hiring one of these vehicles.
Accidents like this could easily be avoided by VOSA clamping down on these rogue operators.
You people need to chill i know a boy whos dad went to jail for it yes there was an accident but he wasnt th only one on the road and other road users dont make it easy for the limo drivers to pass or take coners so you people need to chill with the slagging off and things there wasnt only one family hurt in this what about JOHN WOOLSTONS family they have lost 6 years of his loife so chill
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