AUTHORITIES POWERLESS TO REGULATE RICKSHAWS

The London Taxi learns, via a letter to the Joint Taxidriver’s Committee, that the authorities are, in terms of present legislation, unable to regulate the rickshaw industry which has proliferated in Soho and other parts of the West End.

Traffic Commissioner C.S. Heaps states in the letter that his powers extend only to motor vehicles, despite the fact that the rickshaws had previously been deemed to be ‘buses’ when the issue was taken to the Public Carriage Office.

While Commissioner Heaps expressed his appreciation of the anxieties faced by the taxi trade over the profusion of rickshaws, his legislative powers precluded him from exerting control over Them at this stage. He has, in the interim, forwarded the correspondence in the matter to the Buses and Taxi Division of the DTLR, with a request for a review of the current position.