Taxi drivers protest at 'unfair' fines

Taxi drivers are becoming frustrated by a lack of taxi ranks in downtown Auckland and say they are being unfairly ticketed when picking up and setting down passengers.

Sunny Malhotra, a driver for VIP Taxis, said the problem often occurred when he responded to phone bookings.

"If you park on a broken yellow line it's illegal," he said. "But if I am called to pick you up at the Chancery, for example, where will I pick you up? I will have to wait on a broken yellow line."

He said city council parking wardens often issued tickets without observing why a taxi was parked in a certain place.

The Auckland City Council's acting parking group manager, Rick Bidgood, said parking wardens were not required to spend time observing a dangerously parked taxi before issuing a ticket.

"If there is a traffic safety issue happening they don't have to observe at all."

Co-Op Taxis driver Amarjit Singh said he had also received tickets when making pickups in areas where no ranks were available.

"It's absolutely unfair that we should receive a ticket in that situation," said Mr Singh. "There should be a taxi rank in front of every major building in the city."

Another VIP Taxis driver, Plamen Florov, said the problems began a few years ago when many of the central city ranks were replaced with bus stops and loading zones.

He has been issued with four tickets in the past four months, none of which he considered justified.

Mr Bidgood said only 3 per cent of taxi drivers received frequent infringement notices.

"[That 3 per cent] are parking half on the footpath, half on the road, over broken yellow lines and close to sets of traffic lights."

Mr Florov said the council's plan to introduce taxi rank permits and a demerit point system targeting "rogue drivers", would only make the situation worse if some companies found their access to the ranks limited.

"The council is trying to get rid of the small companies," he said. "It's like a kind of apartheid."

He said banning "dodgy drivers" from using the ranks would not stop them from coming into the central city and parking illegally, but he agreed something had to be done about the problem.

"There are a lot of dodgy drivers parking all over the place and they just don't care."

Mr Bidgood said he was aware of a lack of downtown taxi ranks during the "peak entertainment hours" between 1 and 3am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The council had turned some bus stops on Karangahape Rd into temporary taxi ranks after 11.30pm.

"We're looking at doing this across the city, targeting the specific entertainment areas."

He said it was crucial that taxi ranks were away from residential buildings, as noisy late-night partygoers could disturb residents.

New Zealand Taxi Federation executive director Tim Reddish said that it would be "unfair and unreasonable" if a driver was ticketed when making a genuine pickup or drop-off.