A TAXI drivers' leader is backing moves to improve driving standards among a town's cabbies.

Rashid Rahman, treasurer to Middlesbrough Hackney Association, said the council's plans for an advanced, vocational test should ensure that only experienced drivers with "the knowledge'' get the job.

Councillor Oliver Johnson, Middlesbrough's commissioner for the environment, said: "In any trade or profession, there is always a small minority of people whose standards or competence cause concern, and the advanced test would be a useful contribution to the safety of the travelling public and help drive up standards in the trade.

"It could also be used to assess drivers who have totted up nine penalty points.

"It is certainly something we will be raising with the trade in our discussions with them.''

The new advanced test for taxi drivers is being promoted by the Driving Standards Agency and is being piloted in several areas.

Mr Rahman said: "We are very much for it: the reason being, they were giving out badges right, left and centre including badges for people under 21.

"We don't like these youngsters who have just started driving getting a badge and with a nice, shiny, new car driving at 70mph through the town.''

Some taxi drivers, strangers to the town, get behind the wheel of a taxi "not knowing their way about, their A to Z. This is our trouble,'' he said.

Coun Johnson said the council intended to pursue the idea of advanced tests with neighbouring councils and the taxi trade.

He said: "The law says that to get a taxi badge a driver just needs to have held a full licence for a year. In Middlesbrough, we insist on an applicant holding a licence for three years and other authorities impose other conditions.

"But there are no national standards and the fact remains that, while there are special tests for lorry drivers or bus drivers, there isn't a similar qualification for taxi drivers.''