Safety First! Verify Your Taxi.

As a parent of 2 siblings that are now at the age of socialising with their friends late into the night and therefore returning home after normal public transport has ceased, I was delighted to come across an app for iOS devices called Driver Check, available free from the App Store here (truth be told my daughter told me about it!) a service from Irelands National Transport Authority.

The main purpose of this app is to enable Irelands taxi users to verify that the taxi they are about to use is in fact registered and that the driver is licensed to drive the taxi. There are four ways for the user to check this-

• enter the taxi registration number
• enter the driver licence number,see an ID photo of the authorised driver, displayed on roof-sign and on door signs .
• enter the  vehicle licence number, displayed on the ID card on the dashboard of the vehicle
• tap scan and scan the QR image printed on the vehicle which is located on a disc on both the front and rear windscreens.

If after using one of these methods the driver and vehicle information don’t add up the user can easily submit a report to the Irish Taxi Regulator but more importantly go to the next taxi on the rank! According to the N.T.A.  70% of taxi vehicles are registered with the database and members of the public are being asked to assist making this 100%. It is up to taxi drivers to register!

One nice extra is the ability for users to email details of there trip to a friend or parent.

According to the App description this app covers rural locations (can’t verify, sorry) and cities such as Dublin, Cork (verified) Galway, Limerick (verified) and Waterford (verified).

We would be very interested to hear from users of this app from locations that I haven’t personally verified.

Have you used this app and found that a vehicle or a driver was not registered?