A Glasgow private hire driver has been handed an eight-week suspension after licensing committee members found he had been illegally picking up passengers without a pre-booking — a practice known in the trade as “pirating.”
Muhammad Janaghir was brought before the city’s licensing committee following a December incident reported by the council’s taxi and private hire enforcement unit. Officers witnessed a man speaking to Janaghir through his front passenger window and approaching the car. When the driver was challenged, he told enforcement officers he wasn’t actually working at the time because he was having trouble logging on to his Uber app.
Officers were not convinced. They immediately warned him that carrying passengers without a prior booking was a breach of his private hire car driver’s licence conditions.
Councillors on the committee accepted the enforcement unit’s version of events and voted to suspend Janaghir’s licence for eight weeks.
The issue of pirating is an ongoing problem in Glasgow and one the licensing committee takes seriously. Under the terms of a private hire licence, drivers can only collect passengers who have made a prior booking — only licensed hackney carriage (black cab) drivers are permitted to pick up passengers hailing from the street or at a taxi rank. Pirating undermines that system, puts passengers at risk by invalidating insurance cover, and cuts across legitimate trade that plays by the rules.
It’s a reminder that licensing compliance isn’t just a box-ticking exercise — and that enforcement officers are actively watching.
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