As we all ring in the New Year, some limousine companies will be waking to the realisation that they can no longer legally operate unlicensed limousines. Because from the 1st January 2008, all companies offering stretched limousines for hire must be fully licensed before they can offer limousines for hire, the only exception is where the limousines are used exclusively for weddings. The introduction of these new rules is to bring some regulation to a hitherto unregulated industry and afford some protection to the travelling public, as has always been the case with private hire companies and Hackney cabs.  This change follows amendments made to the Road Traffic Act 2006.

In the past, many limousine companies used the so called “seven day rule” to allow them to operate as a limousine hire company. This was sometimes because the limo company could not be bothered to go through the hassle and expense of licensing their business, vehicles and chauffeurs, but also, and more commonly, as a direct consequence of their local authority either refusing to licence stretched limousines or introducing conditions that made it virtually impossible to comply. Invariably there were neighbouring local authorities that had a completely different interpretation of the rules relating to private hire, in relation to left-hand drive stretched limousines. The Government introduced the amendments to ensure that there was a common framework for limousine companies in relation to private hire and to introduce some regulation to a hitherto unregulated, burgeoning industry.

Fortunately for existing operators, the Government announced a delay to the introduction of the amendments to provide existing operators ample time to make the necessary arrangements to licence their business, vehicles and their chauffeur, in fact, the industry have had close to 18 months notice. Of course some limousine companies may already have ‘voluntarily’ licensed their business for private hire, if their local authority supported such applications and the business owner wanted to operate their business in a regulated and completely legal way.

So, given the industry has known about these changes for nearly 18 months, there is no excuse for any company to be operating an unlicensed limousine business and any that do, should be viewed in exactly the same was as an unlicensed mini-cab operator would be.

Of course those limousine operators that have invested the time and money into becoming licensed can rightly expect swift and decisive action from the enforcement officers against any limousine operators who continue to trade without an appropriate private hire licence. In the past the Police, local authorities and VOSA have failed to have a coordinated approach to this issue. Now, following the change to the Road Traffic Act, the public and the industry is entitled to expect these Government agencies to do their jobs.

No doubt there will still be some operators that whine about the amount of time they have been given to conform, but 18 months is a long time, plenty of notice for an operator to go through the necessary steps to licence their operation, vehicles and chauffeurs. Therefore they deserve no sympathy, if they have not licensed their business, then they are not entitled to trade and if they do, the Government agencies must prosecute all cases with vigour.

Many in the limousine industry have argued for regulation and they now have it, whilst not perfect, it is a good start and you can expect the vast majority of these operators to both welcome and conform to the new requirements. Others may feel that the costs were prohibitive and decided to exit the business; this means there may be less capacity in 2008, however, this is likely to be short lived as the professional operators expand to fill any void. Nonetheless, there will still be a hardcore of operators that consider the law is not for them and fail to licence, these people should be pursued, reported and prosecuted to the full extent of the law until they have all been closed down and until this has been completed, the Government agencies will have failed in their statutory obligations to the public and the private hire industry.