I am due a medical at the end of this year, it’ll cost £81 and it lasts for five years. The only additional cost will be renewing my licence and the new digi card when I apply for one.
I also hold a hackney carriage licence which is renewable every three years at a cost of £200 plus a CRB check at a cost of £34 and of coarse the obligatory medical which is another £81. I cannot combine the two medicals as my hackney carriage licence medical is due now and my HGV medical is due in December. I pleaded with the DVLA but as my first medical is more than six months before my 45th birthday, no dice 
Now I’m not complaing but many HGV drivers moan about the cost of keeping their licences once they are over 45, it costs about £130 including the new digi cards for five years. My hackney licence costs over £300 every three years no matter how old I am! 
I think the caziest thing is I can earn twice as much in a truck as I can in a taxi, I keep asking myself why I keep lashing out all this money. Am I really mad 
Cottswold medicals is the place to go. Less than £40(or thereabouts). And if they can do LGV then surely they can do Hackney Carriage. And if you went for a second within such a short period of time, then surely a ‘negotiated’ discount is not out of the question.
I’ve also recently seen a link to a Government site for ‘unfair practices’ (or whatever it was). I’ll try and dig it out.
I’ve no quibles with their prices, just their locations, my nearest one is Northampton, not worth the cost in fuel to the possible saving plus a full days earning lost compared to an hour or so at local doctors
Looking at their site, they do taxi medicals as well.
Sundowner:
I think the caziest thing is I can earn twice as much in a truck as I can in a taxi, I keep asking myself why I keep lashing out all this money. Am I really mad
is your truck gold plated?
taxi in New Forest: £600-800pw 5 days inc fri/sat night
truck £500-600pw 5 days
best cab earnings i managed in one week was£1053.00 for a seven day week
still prefer the truck,listen to radio,no complaining fares,no vomit on fri/sat etc.
Hi Mark
I live in a pretty rural location and wages are fairly low with a lot of manual and low skilled jobs in this area, so people only really use taxis when they have no choice, average earnings being about £300 (after expenses) on a good week, that could possibly be over a 70 or even 80 hour week. We even get quiet friday nights around here.
Trucks in this area do pay a basic of around £350 for 50 hours, go slightly further afield ( Felixstowe/Ipswich/Norwich ) that goes up to around £400 gross for 50 hours
we have two big cab companys around ere,both ave 12 drivers each,those that work mon-fri days earn 400+ others 700-800 on avg
as for buses we have those but very few people use them, when cab will carry your shopping to the door.
as for truck wages they vary from area to area ,big comp or small one,ave is £7-9 depending on what work you want to do.