Taxi drivers fined €35,000 for regulation breaches

Taxi drivers were handed down on-the-spot fines worth over €35,000 last year for breaches of regulations governing the industry.

The National Transport Authority reported that increased compliance checks on vehicles and drivers in 2015 resulted in 692 fixed charges notices totalling €35,410 being issued to taxi licence holders.

The single biggest number of fixed payment notices — around 40% of the total — were related to drivers failing to notify details of the vehicle being operated to the NTA. Such a breach incurs a fine of €40.

The NTA said the registering of such information was important as it is used to support the Driver Check App which allows passengers or intending passengers to assess the details of their taxi driver and vehicles and to email a chosen third party the details for security reasons.

NTA officials carried out almost 40,900 checks and audits on taxi drivers and their vehicles in 2015. That is an increase of 45% on 2014 figures. The second most common offence committed by drivers was standing for hire in a location that was not an appointed taxi rank while 14 drivers were fined €250 each for having taxi meters which gave out inaccurate readings. Over three quarters of fixed-payment notices were paid with the remainder proceeding to court for prosecution.

The NTA said 154 cases ended up in court last year for the non-payment of fixed payment notices.

An additional 99 court cases were brought last year for breaches of legislation outside of the system of on-the-spot fines. The NTA said it was successful in over 94% of cases which resulted in a criminal prosecution.

The latest annual report also showed the total number of complaints against taxi drivers fell 2.5% last year to 928, T hat us down down from 952 in 2014.

More than half of all complaints related to the conduct, behaviour or identification of a driver.

A total of 3,086 tests to become a taxi driver were taken by 1,458 candidates last year – an annual increase of 24%.

Almost 40% were successful, although it required 2.33 attempts on average to achieve a pass mark.

However, 47% of successful candidates passed on their first attempt.