Birmingham minicab accident claims for PHV drivers and passengers

The Birmingham City Council Licensing Section: who regulates Birmingham minicabs

Birmingham private hire vehicles are licensed by the Birmingham City Council Licensing Section. The unit's postal address is Birmingham City Council, Licensing Section, P.O. Box 17013, Birmingham, B6 9ES, and the standing email for licensing correspondence is licensing@birmingham.gov.uk. The section sits inside BCC's wider licensing function but is a discrete unit dealing exclusively with hackney carriages, private hire vehicles, drivers and operators. The statutory frame is Part II of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 - sections 46 to 80 - under which the council acts as the licensing authority for the metropolitan borough.

In practical terms that means three things for a collision file. First, every regulatory question runs through the section, not through Transport for London or the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. Second, the council's published conditions of licence - not generic national guidance - set the deadline by which a collision must be reported. Third, an appeal against any plate or badge decision goes to the Birmingham Magistrates' Court under section 77 LGMPA 1976, not the First-tier Tribunal. The licensing section's published policy document of record is the Hackney Carriage and Private Hire Licensing Policy adopted in 2023, with the operational rule book being the Private Hire Combined Driver and Vehicle Licence Conditions.

The Birmingham PHV trade: scale, Conditions of Fitness and approved vehicle types

Birmingham's private hire fleet is one of the largest outside London. A 2015 BCC licensing factsheet recorded approximately 4,500 private hire vehicles plus approximately 1,300 hackney carriages active under the council's plates; the trade has materially grown since the launch of Uber and competing apps in the city. The Department for Transport's taxi and private hire vehicle statistics series does not publish robust per-authority counts because the central database is fed by individual councils on differing update cycles, but BCC's own quarterly committee reports remain the practical primary source for current fleet size.

The council's published Approved Vehicle Types for Private Hire list dictates which models can be plated. Conditions of fitness include colour and livery rules (the BCC plate is a yellow rear plate, distinct from Wolverhampton, Sandwell or Solihull plates), tinting restrictions, signage, interior camera permissions, the mandatory presentation of the BCC table of fares inside the vehicle and a body-style restriction excluding two-door cars and certain modified vehicles. A vehicle that loses its conditions of fitness after a collision - for example by structural damage that affects panel alignment, by airbag deployment that cannot be reset to factory specification, or by paintwork that no longer matches the approved livery - will fail the BCC re-inspection and must be repaired to standard before the plate is restored.

The 72-hour Birmingham collision notification rule

The single most important deadline in a Birmingham PHV file is the 72-hour rule under the BCC Private Hire Combined Driver and Vehicle Licence Conditions. The driver must notify the Licensing Section within 72 hours of any accident or road collision that causes damage which materially affects the safety, performance or appearance of the vehicle, or the comfort or convenience of passengers. The notification must state how, where and when the collision occurred. The vehicle and/or evidence of the damage and/or repair work may then be required to be presented to a council-appointed vehicle examiner. Failure to report inside the window is a recognised ground for suspension or revocation of both the vehicle plate (section 60 LGMPA 1976) and the driver badge (section 61).

The 72-hour rule is materially different from the position taken by some other West Midlands authorities - Wolverhampton's conditions, for example, use a different wording and a different inspection regime. Birmingham drivers operating cross-border into Solihull, Sandwell, Walsall or Dudley remain bound by the BCC rule because the plate is BCC's; the receiving authority cannot enforce its own deadlines on a vehicle it did not plate, but the licensing authority of the home plate retains full disciplinary jurisdiction wherever the collision happened. A Birmingham PHV driver involved in a non-fault collision on the M40 outside Warwick must still notify BCC inside 72 hours.

The practical workflow is to send a single email to licensing@birmingham.gov.uk inside 72 hours stating the plate number, the date, time and location, a one-line factual narrative and the current roadworthiness of the vehicle, with the police reference where police attended. CityGrip drafts that notification at intake so the driver does not lose the plate while focused on injury, vehicle recovery and the insurer chain.

Birmingham Clean Air Zone Class D: the £8 PHV daily charge

The Birmingham Clean Air Zone is a Class D zone in force since 1 June 2021. It is the most inclusive class in the national CAZ framework - it charges non-compliant cars, vans, taxis, PHVs, HGVs, buses and coaches alike. Non-compliant cars, vans, taxis and PHVs pay £8 per day; non-compliant HGVs, buses and coaches pay £50. The zone is bounded by the A4540 Middleway and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, enforced by ANPR cameras on every entry route. Minimum emission standards are Euro 6 for diesel and Euro 4 for petrol.

For PHV operators the council maintains a central Vehicle Checker that records each vehicle's compliance status. Where a Birmingham-plated PHV is non-compliant, the £8 daily charge is a regular and material trading cost. Where a non-fault Birmingham PHV driver is taken off the road and a credit-hire replacement is required, the replacement vehicle must itself be CAZ-compliant - placing a non-compliant courtesy car would expose the driver to £8 per day in real non-recoverable charges and would not preserve the driver's earnings. CityGrip confirms CAZ compliance in writing to the third-party insurer before any replacement vehicle is despatched on a Birmingham file. The Birmingham CAZ is a separate regime from the London ULEZ; a vehicle that is ULEZ-compliant is not automatically CAZ-compliant under Birmingham's slightly different rule set.

Birmingham operator landscape: A2B / Veezu Midlands, TOA, Star Cars and the apps

Birmingham's private hire trade is concentrated around a small number of legacy operator brands plus the major UK apps. The relevant Companies House identifiers for the principal Birmingham operators are:

• A2B Radio Cars Limited (CH 02652297) - historically Birmingham's largest single PHV brand, founded in 1991 and registered at 52 Blucher Street. Joined the Veezu group in 2016 and the trading entity was dissolved on 26 August 2025. The A2B brand survives operationally inside the Veezu Midlands platform.
• Veezu Midlands Limited (CH 11215958) - the principal Veezu Group operating company for the Birmingham fleet, incorporated 20 February 2018. Veezu Holdings Limited (CH 09378357) sits above it in the group structure and Veezu Limited (CH 03927808) is the original group company.
• T.O.A Cars (Radio System) Ltd (CH 11555222) - trading as TOA Taxis, based at 100 Vivian Road. TOA is Birmingham's principal hackney-carriage operator with a long-established black-cab fleet and a complementary PHV arm.
• Star Cars & Coaches Ltd (CH 04072203) - registered at 718 Chester Road, Erdington, B23 5TE. Incorporated 15 September 2000, a family business with a PHV-and-coach combined fleet.
• Birmingham Cars Limited (CH 09925864) and Birmingham Cars Ltd (CH 12282254) - separate companies trading under similar names in the city's PHV market.
• Uber, Bolt and FreeNow - the three main app platforms operate in Birmingham as licensed operators in their own right, holding section 55 operator licences. Uber London Limited (a TfL-licensed entity) is not the Birmingham operating vehicle; the Birmingham platform operator is the corresponding Uber UK entity holding the BCC operator licence.

When a Birmingham collision file opens, identifying which operator took the booking is the first task. Section 56 LGMPA 1976 deems the booking contract to be with the operator who accepted the booking - and that operator carries the section 55 record-keeping duty. For a non-fault passenger, the operator is part of the defendant pool. For a non-fault driver, the operator's accident record is evidence both of the trip status and (under cross-border sub-contracting) of which operator's sub-contract chain the work sat inside.

Birmingham 8-year first-plate / 12-year renewal age policy and the approved MOT stations

Birmingham operates one of the stricter PHV vehicle age policies in the West Midlands. The council's Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Emissions Standards and Age Policy sets two age tests. A vehicle presented for first licensing as a Birmingham PHV must be under 8 years from the date of first registration; a vehicle older than 8 years will not be granted a first plate. On renewal the cap is 12 years from first registration - from 1 January 2020 a vehicle older than 12 years cannot be relicensed at all, save for the wheelchair-accessible vehicle and certain hackney carriage dispensations specified in the policy. For imported vehicles the age runs from first registration in the country of origin if that is earlier than UK first registration.

Inspections are not carried out at a single council-run test centre. BCC's Licensing Section publishes an Approved MOT Station List for Hackney Carriage and Private Hire - a small number of garages specifically authorised to carry out the supplementary inspection that BCC accepts for new and renewal plates. The widely used Birmingham Test Centre site at the M6 Group complex in B7 is on the list, as is The Auto Workshop. Drivers should book in advance - peak-time queueing around quarterly renewal windows can run to two to four weeks. Fees are set by the council's Licensing and Public Protection Committee and were varied with effect from 1 April 2024; the current schedule is published on the council downloads page.

The post-accident interaction with this regime is that a vehicle returning from a serious collision must pass the supplementary inspection - not just a routine MOT - before BCC restores the plate. The independent engineer's report instructed during the third-party claim is therefore not a duplicate of the BCC examiner's check; it is the document the bodyshop uses to repair to standard and the document the driver tenders at re-inspection. CityGrip routes the inspection schedule so the engineer's sign-off, the bodyshop completion certificate and the BCC re-inspection happen in order.

Birmingham PHV accident hotspots: A38, A45, A34, A4540 and Spaghetti Junction

Birmingham PHV collisions cluster on a small number of arterial corridors. The A38 Bristol Road southbound corridor carries the airport-bound trade out of B1 through B5, B15, B16, B29 and B30 to the M5 J4, and concentrates a high volume of student traffic at the University of Birmingham (B29 Selly Oak) and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Major Trauma Centre fringe. The A45 Coventry Road eastbound from B5 Digbeth through B10 Small Heath, B25 Yardley and B26 Sheldon to Birmingham International Airport and the M42 Junction 6 carries the airport trade in the other direction and is the city's single most concentrated PHV volume corridor. The A34 Stratford Road through B11 Sparkbrook and Sparkhill - one of the city's highest-density PHV trade districts - sees a recurring bus-pull-out, frontage and pedestrian-conflict casualty pattern.

The leisure-economy corridors of Broad Street and Hurst Street in B1 and B5 generate a distinct late-night PHV claim profile - short-distance pickups under queueing conditions, frequent door-opening conflicts, taxi-rank disputes and friction between licensed PHVs and unlicensed pedicab and rideshare touts. The A4540 Middleway, doubling as the Clean Air Zone boundary, concentrates a rear-end shunt pattern at signal-controlled junctions where drivers brake for the ANPR camera approach. The M6 J6 Spaghetti Junction interchange and the A38(M) Aston Expressway tidal-flow operation produce the highest-energy collisions on Birmingham PHV files - National Highways CCTV from the junction camera array and gantry-sign data is pulled inside the 14-day disclosure window. The A45 / A452 Sheldon airport approach and the M42 J6 NEC interchange round out the airport corridor profile.

Cross-border working into Solihull, Sandwell, Walsall and Dudley

Birmingham PHVs work cross-border every day. The metropolitan borough boundary runs against Solihull MBC on the east (the NEC, Birmingham Airport and Chelmsley Wood sit administratively in Solihull), Sandwell MBC on the west (Smethwick, West Bromwich), Walsall MBC on the north (the B43 Pheasey fringe) and Dudley MBC further west, with Bromsgrove District Council on the south (B45 Rednal). Before the Deregulation Act 2015, the cross-border position was heavily restricted - a Birmingham PHV could not lawfully accept a booking that began outside Birmingham. The 2015 Act amended LGMPA 1976 sections 55A and 55B to permit cross-border sub-contracting between licensed operators, opening up a lawful route for a Birmingham-plated PHV to complete a journey that originates in or terminates in any of the neighbouring authority areas, provided the booking runs through a properly licensed operator chain.

The practical effect on accident files is that a collision in Solihull involving a Birmingham-plated PHV is still a BCC regulatory matter - the 72-hour notification, the section 60/61 plate-and-badge powers and the section 77 appeal route all attach to the BCC plate, not to Solihull's licensing register. West Midlands Police is the police force for both authorities (the West Midlands Combined Authority area is policed as a single force), which simplifies the section 170 RTA 1988 reporting route. The third-party insurer cares about the location of impact for purposes of jurisdiction and recovery; the licensing authority cares about the plate. CityGrip records both in the file from day one.

Birmingham case examples (illustrative composites, not real persons)

A45 Coventry Road airport-bound collision. A Birmingham-plated Veezu PHV is travelling eastbound on the A45 toward Birmingham International Airport at 04:45 on a Friday with a confirmed passenger booking. A third-party car emerges from a side road in B26 Sheldon and strikes the PHV's nearside front wing. Damage is moderate but the wing distortion affects the BCC livery and the front fog lamp. The driver is non-fault. CityGrip's intake at 06:00 logs the booking reference from the Veezu dispatch system, notifies licensing@birmingham.gov.uk inside the 72-hour window, instructs an independent engineer that morning and places a CAZ-compliant Birmingham-plated PHV replacement vehicle for the continuation of the airport trade. The plate is restored after re-inspection at an approved MOT station on day twelve.

Broad Street rank dispute incident. A Birmingham PHV on a Bolt booking is rear-ended at low speed by an unlicensed pedicab in the Broad Street B1 corridor at 02:10 on a Saturday. The PHV driver suffers a soft-tissue neck injury (whiplash). Limited body damage but the passenger declines to give contact details after the dispute escalates. Police are called; a West Midlands Police incident number is allocated. The driver makes a section 170 RTA 1988 report inside 24 hours, notifies Bolt through the in-app safety toolkit, and notifies BCC inside 72 hours. The whiplash injury claim runs through the Official Injury Claim portal under the Civil Liability Act 2018; the property claim runs against the pedicab operator's insurer (where one exists) or against the MIB under the Uninsured Drivers' Agreement 2015 where none does.

M6 / A38(M) tidal-flow PHV motorway claim. A Birmingham PHV is on a return airport trip on the A38(M) Aston Expressway at 17:30 on a weekday with the tidal flow set inbound to the city centre. A third-party HGV changes lanes without indicating; the PHV is forced into the central reservation. Substantial body damage; the driver suffers minor injuries. National Highways CCTV from the A38(M) gantry array and the Spaghetti Junction camera array captures the lane direction at the moment of impact, settling the otherwise contested liability question. CityGrip pulls the CCTV inside the 14-day window, instructs an independent engineer for the structural inspection, and arranges a CAZ-compliant Birmingham-plated like-for-like PHV replacement while the vehicle is off the road for structural repair and BCC re-inspection.

Related Birmingham and UK PHV pages

Each linked page deepens one part of the Birmingham PHV claim picture. Where the BCC plate is the relevant authority, the local-authority PHV page covers the wider England-and-Wales position; where the platform is Uber or Bolt, the per-platform pages cover the operator's published insurance layer. The Birmingham city hub gives the broader non-fault accident picture across all 42 B postcode districts.

• UK Minicab / PHV accident claims (hub)
• Birmingham non-fault accident claims (city hub)
• Local authority PHV licence and accidents
• Local minicab firm accident claims
• Uber accident claims
• Bolt accident claims
• Private hire accident claims
• Credit hire

Six-step Birmingham PHV post-accident notification flow

1. Step 1

   Make the scene safe and comply with section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988

   Stop, set hazards, check the passenger and exchange names, addresses, vehicle registration and insurer details with every driver involved. Where injury is present, where details are not exchanged at the scene, or where an animal listed in s.170(8) is hurt, the collision must be reported to West Midlands Police as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 24 hours. For non-injury collisions the West Midlands Police online collision reporting service is the route. Spaghetti Junction (M6 J6) and any M6, M5, M42 or A38(M) Aston Expressway live-lane incident is handled under the National Highways and police protocol - do not exit the vehicle in a live lane.

2. Step 2

   Preserve evidence - photographs, dashcam, BCC vehicle examiner expectations

   Photograph every vehicle position, registration plate, damage panel and the road environment before vehicles are moved. Extract and back up the dashcam clip within 24 hours - the BCC vehicle examiner will expect contemporaneous evidence if structural damage is recorded. On the A38(M) Aston Expressway log the lane-direction at the moment of impact, because the tidal-flow operation reverses lane direction twice daily and is a recurring liability dispute. Save the file with date, time and a one-line description of what happened.

3. Step 3

   Report the collision to your platform operator (Uber, Bolt, Veezu, A2B successor, TOA, Star Cars, FreeNow)

   Open the in-app safety toolkit on Uber, Bolt or FreeNow, or call the operator's incident line for Veezu Midlands Limited, the A2B successor entity, TOA Taxis or Star Cars & Coaches. The operator's own licence under section 55 LGMPA 1976 requires it to keep an accident record and to investigate. Notify inside 24 hours - most operator onboarding terms in Birmingham match the broader UK norm. Keep the operator's reference number; it will be requested by BCC and by the third-party insurer.

4. Step 4

   Notify Birmingham City Council Licensing Section within 72 hours

   Email licensing@birmingham.gov.uk and post to Birmingham City Council, Licensing Section, P.O. Box 17013, Birmingham, B6 9ES, inside 72 hours. State the plate number, the date, time and location of the collision, a brief narrative and whether the vehicle is currently roadworthy. Attach scene photographs and the police reference number where police attended. The 72-hour duty is set by the BCC Private Hire Combined Driver and Vehicle Licence Conditions; missing it is a recognised ground for plate suspension or revocation under section 60 LGMPA 1976.

5. Step 5

   Notify your hire-and-reward insurer and arrange a Birmingham-licensed replacement PHV

   Your hire-and-reward insurer (Zego, Inshur, Markel, Acorn or the Aviva-backed scheme) requires notification regardless of fault, normally within seven days under the policy wording. For a non-fault driver, instruct a credit-hire provider to source a Birmingham-plated CAZ-compliant like-for-like PHV - a standard private courtesy car is not lawful for paying-passenger work under section 143 RTA 1988 and is not CAZ-compliant where the route includes the inner ring road. The replacement must hold its own BCC plate or, for cross-border journeys, the operator's pre-booking chain must satisfy LGMPA 1976 section 55B.

6. Step 6

   Document loss of earnings and instruct an independent engineer

   Pull six to eight weeks of platform earnings statements (Uber Pro, Bolt Drive, FreeNow, Veezu and the operator dispatch system), bank credits, fuel receipts, BCC plate fee invoices, vehicle finance or rental statements and the latest HMRC SA302. Deduct operator commission, fuel, fixed-cost apportionment and Class 2 / Class 4 NICs to produce net hourly take. Instruct an independent engineer to inspect the vehicle before the at-fault insurer's engineer sets a reserve - and crucially, before the BCC re-inspection - so the structural sign-off, the third-party valuation and the BCC plate restoration all align on one factual record.