Mr Left Hand meet Mr Right Hand

 

Sean Ridley parked his taxi in a taxi rank and got out to help his elderly passenger to carry her bags from the supermarket to his cab. When he got back to his taxi minutes later he had been ticketed for parking on a taxi rank. Now he has a clearly marked and taxi with a light on the roof, a meter the whole package. The Council's contractor says that the rules are clear; the taxi rank is for vehicles waiting for passengers not for parking so if the taxi was seen without a driver and no driver was observed nearby then it would be ticketed. However the observation process seems in this case to bit very thorough but at the same time strangely casual. The contractors say that the taxi was first seen unattended when one of their staff drove into the area to check for illegal parking. It was then formally observed for just one minute and then ticketed and seen to still be parked 15 minutes later. So on the one hand Mr Ridley claims that he was only absent from his taxi for as long as was necessary to assist his passenger to the vehicle. The contractor says that the vehicle was unoccupied for at least 15 minutes although they only recorded a one minute observation. Right and left hand? The Council expects the taxi drivers to go the extra mile to help the elderly.