Drive 09 limo show set to be a controversial one
This weekend the limousine industry braces itself for this years UK limousine and chauffeur show entitled Drive 09. Being held for a second year at the Transport research laboratory in Berkshire the show is set to spark major controversary amongst the current limo industry and I emulate ‘current’ whereby VOSA take seat to answer to the recent new limousine laws coming into effect from 1st October 2009. There has been so much debate around the industry there is even a new website dedicated to Save UK limos.
Drive 09 show
So what are all these new laws about? Apparently all limousine operators need to have an operators licence along with the relevant SVA / COIF certificate for each of its vehicles. What has caused the outrage is that at present there is only one small company in the whole of the UK who can achieve a COIF on a Hummer, secondly there seem to be major objections to the pricing of the conversion and thirdly there is a waiting list in order to get your Hummer COIF’d. From the operators point of view it is not viable to hold trading from 1st october whilst awaiting COIF certification whilst also paying out a huge sum of money for the conversion. Companies will undoubtedly go down and of course jobs and livelihoods dimnished. Not exactly great timing in the height of the credit crunch.
From our personal point of view we are all for regulation, certainly if it will set a professional standard for future. However, there must be grace provided from VOSA in order for companies to be able to have an appropriate, commercial channel to get what is required done. Considering COIF’ing of Hummers has only been commercially available by one company over the last 6 months or so, has grace been provided? The NLCA (National Limousine and Chauffeur Association) have always stated you can run a 16 passenger limousines through the current schedule 6 operation as long as it has been operated on properly. Over the last two years companies have already spent approx. £6,000 through Digital Tachographs, Speed limiters and other schedule 6 factors in order to meet compliance. The Digital Tachograph is another matter whereby it has not been commercially available for operators, two companies could provide this service and tat was from 2009. So where does this leave the genuine limousine operators who are trying to run a professional company and who have been running their operation through the advice of the official national limousine body?
We will be interested to hear your feedback….
The HummerHummer team x