You only have to look at some of the news articles on the Internet to get a feeling for how flexible a number of taxi drivers are being during the coronavirus pandemic in various parts of the UK. Some taxi drivers are providing their services for free in certain circumstances and others are charging a reasonable fee.

Obviously, taxi drivers and private hire drivers have suffered a significant drop in income in recent weeks due to the pandemic. Some drivers will no doubt have spent more time behind the wheel to try to earn a reasonable income but there is so much competition out there and insufficient work to go around from standard sources of revenue.

You read about some taxi drivers in Hull delivering parcels in competition with courier firms who usually do this sort of work. It would be interesting to see how online sales have been doing in the last two or three weeks as many people will not be spending money on such things as clothing but perhaps more people are buying groceries online.

You hear of some taxi drivers offering a discount of say 20% to transport key workers such as NHS staff to and from their places of work who may usually use public transport.

Apparently, there are some taxi drivers who are offering free rides to those people who are elderly or are vulnerable who need to get to the likes of supermarkets and are no doubt transporting them back home fully laden with shopping.

If you are a taxi driver then there may be an opportunity in certain villages where residents place a telephone grocery order with their local general store to pick up their shopping for them and deliver it to their home for a moderate charge.

A taxi driver could offer his or her services collecting and delivering takeaways such as a Chinese or Indian take-away meal and charging a modest fee.

In the current climate, it is important that taxi drivers try to think of any way that he or she can generate further income to supplement their normal income derived from fare paying passengers.

Needless to say, you should make sure that you have adequate insurance cover in place to undertake work that you would normally carry out as a taxi driver or private hire driver.