I went with a driver recently in Chapel Allerton. He didn't know how to get out of my street to get to the ring road to go from my house to West Park. He didn't know Leeds, he said he was a stranger to the city. He was also a stranger to English, he didn't understand English. I had the most terrifying ride of my life at 70 mph along the ring road when he found it.
Responsibility

I do feel the licensing authority at the Civic Hall should have some responsibility for this because it does seem to me that if a prospective private hire driver goes in as long as he is breathing and putting one foot in front of the other then there are very few tests that they take. Also who are the people who actually go for the test? It might be somebody completely different who happens to look like the private hire driver.

Whilst I'm on this subject I do think you ought to look at the discrepancy between Hackney carriage and private hire fares. If you go with private hire you can be charged anything. If you go with Hackney carriage that's controlled and I do feel that someone at some point should look into this and make sure fares are equal across the city.

My final comment is that the owners of the taxi firms must be held responsible in some respects because they are only concerned with the fee that they get from each driver for the use of the base station. Currently my local private hire company charges £100 per car per week and the owners are very greedy. So obviously they want to employ as many drivers as possible. It doesn't really matter where they come from, whether they speak English. The rumour going round at the moment is that this particular company set on a driver that brought his own interpreter with him. It might be a joke, but it's no joke when you are trying to get into a cab and somebody doesn't speak English.
Mrs Carcone, Allerton Grange Gardens, Leeds