Glasgow’s strictly enforced Low Emissions Zone stopped an abandoned car being towed away from a taxi rank for four days while an LEZ-compliant tow truck was found.
Taxi drivers and other motorists in the city have been forced to replace or retrofit their vehicles to meet the city’s LEZ standards and face fines for failing to comply.
Glasgow City Council gave taxi drivers an additional 12 months to upgrade older cabs, but the rising price of new vehicles means it has been a struggle for many to be able to switch in time and funding to retrofit existing vehicles was quickly taken up.
Enforcement
Despite protests from the city’s taxi drivers, Glasgow City Council stuck to its guns and the Scottish Daily Express reports that the council has issued £4 million in fines in the first year of operation.
Under the scheme, drivers of non-compliant vehicles – those that don’t meet Euro 4 standards for petrol (built before 2006) and Euro 6 for diesels (built before 2015) – must pay £60 a day, with fines doubling for each additional fixed-penalty notice up to a maximum of £480 for cars.
The LEZ was introduced in June, 2023, with only newer, cleaner vehicles being allowed to enter without being fined.
So when taxi drivers complained about an abandoned car blocking space at the city’s Central Station taxi rank, they didn’t think it would be long before it was towed away.
But they found out that the city’s LEZ-compliant vehicle-lifting truck was unavailable, and it was removed as soon as a sub-contractor could be appointed.
Following the rules
The council did the right thing in waiting for a contractor with a compliant vehicle to remove the car, otherwise it would have broken its own rules and would have had to fine itself.
While the irony of the situation was not lost on many of the city’s cabbies, the incident also raised serious issues, which were highlighted by the Unite union’s Glasgow Cab Section.
A spokesman told Glasgow Live the council “told the taxi trade we’d had long enough to prepare for the LEZ when they hadn’t done so themselves.
“On top of that, they left an abandoned car on a taxi rank outside Scotland’s busiest train stations for four days. Surely a security risk in itself.”
Response
After photos of the black Toyota Auris blocking a space in the rank were shared by the union on social media, the spokesman noted: “Suddenly a sub-contractor turned up to remove it”.
A council spokeswoman said: “The vehicle has been removed and we apologise for the delay.
“The council has one LEZ-compliant uplift vehicle as part of our fleet, which is entirely proportionate given the zone area covers one square mile.
“In the event our own vehicle is unavailable, an external contractor is authorised to uplift vehicles on our behalf.”
The council did everything in line with its own rules, but this situation highlights the frustration taxi drivers in the city feel with regard to the LEZ scheme.
Replacing or retrofitting a vehicle take time and money and many divers still paying off finance on existing vehicles and are not in a position to replace them for newer, more expensive models.
