'Weakness in the system': Newfound Cabs says St. John's city council should police taxi industry

The manager of Newfound Cabs says St. John's city council needs to do more to ensure overall safety in the taxi industry.

"I don't see why the city ever got out of policing the industry," Derek Hayter told CBC News. 

"It set a standard, an entry point for everybody, regardless of what company. Now it's left up to the individual company. I think that's the weakness in the system."

A CBC News investigation revealed Wednesday that the City of St. John's has some of the least stringent rules in Atlantic Canada for the taxi industry.

• CBC INVESTIGATES | Who's driving your cab? St. John's taxi trade put to the test
• CBC INVESTIGATES | No criminal background check, no worries: How I became a City Wide Taxi driver

​Newfound Cabs says it is setting a standard, spending $60,000 to date on training for drivers and requiring up-to-date criminal record checks for anyone who goes behind the wheel of a taxi. 

Hayter said all of their drivers have to provide a criminal record check, a vulnerable sector check, and a clean driver's abstract.

"The oldest conduct sheet in [our] file right now is about the middle of May," Hayter said.

"We'll look at it a couple of years down the road. Again, the time will come again to refreshen things up. Every couple of years, that's not a bad idea."

Hayter said all drivers at Newfound Cabs go through first aid training, as well as training with the Coalition for Persons with Disabilities, the CNIB and the Hard of Hearing Association. Newfound Cabs has 11 accessible vans in its fleet. 

"The monitoring of our drivers is a 24-hour thing," Hayter said. "The owners of the company are generally out in the daytime. I come in in the afternoon, I'm out 'til after midnight." 

In the new year, Hayter said, the company is looking at putting together a program for issues with sexual assault, robbery prevention, dealing with intoxicated passengers and people with mental health issues. 

He stresses there are very good people in the taxi industry, and those drivers who do wrong are "the exception, not the rule."