THE CHAIRMAN of the Bournemouth Taxi Association is throwing down the gauntlet by offering a critic of the town's yellow cabs the chance to take a new examination testing his own language skills and knowledge of the area.

In a letter printed in the Daily Echo yesterday a private hire driver, who wishes to remain anonymous, was highly scathing of yellow taxi drivers in town claiming they, "do not know where they are going, and cannot speak English."

Yellow taxi drivers waiting for fares at Bournemouth train station reacted with incredulous humour when shown the letter although some did concede there are a tiny minority of new drivers locally whose English and local knowledge is lacking.

Chairman of the Bournemouth Taxi Association Ashley Miller said that a new national system of testing for new drivers and re-testing for existing ones was currently being drawn up with the support of the taxi industry.

"I would suggest therefore that the author of this letter, who I'm told is a private hire driver, takes this new test once it comes into force. I would only be too happy to take it with him," he said.

"The test will analyse the English of a driver and his or her knowledge of an area as well as their ability to retain that information. If this driver thinks he has superior skills to yellow taxi drivers then this would be the way to find out.

"His criticisms are utter nonsense."

Driver, Darren Taylor, 39, said: "I've been speaking English since I was born and hope I've now got the hang of it. I think the letter is very unfair although there are a couple of drivers on the night shift who may have these problems."

Kevin Rowley, 43, said he believed that he and his fellow drivers were doing a good job.

Phil Zamora, 40, said he's been a local driver for 19 years. "There's one or two new non-British drivers this letter could be describing but it's grossly unfair to tar us all."

"I may not know where I'm going, but I do know where I've been," joked driver Mike Applin, 61.

Driver Steve Curnow, 45, said: "Sometimes you occasionally have to drop off or pick up in a road you haven't been to for ten years and have to look it up. But we all know the area, otherwise we would never have passed our test and been given a Hackney licence."