Shock: Brit capital strips Uber of its taxi licence Uber's application for a new taxi licence in the UK capital has been rejected. In a shock move, Transport for London today said the app biz is not "fit and proper" to hold a licence. "TfL's regulation of London's taxi and private hire trades is designed to ensure passenger safety. Private hire operators must meet rigorous …
OMG, WHAT WILL THEY DO?!!!!
Half will do their f***ing day job instead of being asleep on it after moonshining all night for a few more quid to top up their minimal salary.
The other half will go back from where they came from (inclusive of some who are expats from the same place I came from to the UK).
To put it bluntly, I have spent 4+ years every weekend observing how they (in 3 different languages I happen to speak or understand) negotiate their cars to be chipped/ECU reprogrammed to turn the EGR and other emission control off. There were 3 garages next to junior's language school which had queues of 20+ cars each every weekend to do exactly that. For several years. If they are removed off the streets it will be a blessing. If Uber is removed as a side effect that will be a double blessing - Hallelujah time.
I would have had some level of sympathy and empathy to their plight if they actually obeyed the law. As I have seen exactly how much they do it, screw that. Enforce it. And more some. So that the kids can breathe some clean air for a change.
Isn't this the sort of bordering on racism justification posting the Russians were placing during the US elections.
If you are so cock sure report it to the Police and relevant authorities...your local MP and councillors would certainly have it investigated.
If you are so cock sure report it to the Police and relevant authorities...
London police cannot even be arsed to check that foreign cars have proper insurance, stay within the 6 months allowed by EU regs and have a valid foreign MOT. They are the only ones in Europe that are so lax. Emission control enforcement. You GOTTA BE KIDDING.
As a comparison - this summer I crossed the Monte Negro/Serbian border. A small two-people border crossing which is located somewhere in deepest darkest Eastern Europe next to war zone. BOTH the montenegro police and the serbs (customs in their case) had up to date info on my insurance and MOT. Online. The Serb showed it to me - expiration dates, even if I have points on my license, the lot. Everyone else - Austrians, Czech, German, Dutch - have constant ANPR + check versus that. UK - nope. How do I know it? I can read the fecking insurance and MOT stickers on the cars - several Eastern European ones still use them. I have seen my share of out of date ones around London.
As a second comparison - German and Austrian police have had mobile emission enforcement (and used to check especially Eastern European cars and "boy racers") for more than a decade and a half. That is the first time I saw them - 15+ years ago. I suspect they have been doing it for longer. Have you ever seen a UK plod with emission control kit.
To conclude - there has NEVER been a case in court in the UK regarding removing emission control and circumventing it is it is NOT a MOT criteria. There have been for MOT stuff. NO2 specifically - which is achieved by de-EGR-ing - never. In fact, while in theory it should be an offence as it alters the car outside its regulatory parameters, in practice it has never been enforced and no plod will try enforce it. So trying to tell plod about it is as effective as trying to talk to wall. By the way - I tried.
1) YOU can even look up your insurance, tax and MOT online in seconds now. I'm damn sure the UK police can and do - in London it's done at automated stations for EVERY vehicle that joins a motorway or goes into London. Every ANPR police car does the same. And all police cars can look up dodgy motors - it's the first thing they do on a stop, and they often crawl backstreets and pick out anything that looks ripe for a lookup.
2) If you don't report it, they can't do anything. Did you report it? Or just think "They won't do anything" and then not report it? Report it anyway. If they do nothing, that's not your problem. Write them a letter that says you have concerns about X happening at address Y on a regular basis and then you're done. If nothing happens, they have more important things to worry about. I can't say that's their fault, nor that I blame them. If you're really that worried that you moan on forums, write to the council, get it into the newspapers, etc. Trading Standards will help shut them down way more than police ever will (it's a civil offence, not criminal, hence not a police job).
3) Emissions - yeah, maybe they can't test on the road. But for sure it's illegal to modify the car. The UK police have WINDOW TINT METERS that they regularly use on the boy-racers at Southend and places. Maybe if you reported it, they might organise a raid six months into the future with random checks on customer vehicles?
4) MOT criteria have zero correlation to road-worthiness. It says it on the certificate. You can come out of an MOT test center holding your pass certificate and be nicked for having an unroadworthy car. There's NOTHING in the law stopping it.
5) I don't wish to dig into citing case law or particular cases as the searches are expensive, but you're talking nonsense. Hell, there are programs on TV where lorries/vans are pulled for random things and they are convicted for the modifications to make it more polluting (and window-tinting, and under-car lighting, and all kinds of things). Even UK cop shows from 10+ years ago, whether random-stops, or services-pull-offs on a mass scale.
EGR blanking and rechipping for economy and high NOx is perfectly legal.
No it's not. "You probably won't be caught" doesn't make something legal. If it was perfectly legal, the cars would ship without EGR from the factory.
The car has to be certified as legal to use in the United Kingdom (or any other country with laws). In the UK this is the Vehicle Type Approval, and is separate from your MOT, which is a roadworthiness and safety test. Part of the Type Approval lists the exhaust emissions standard that the vehicle complies with. The current standard is for passenger cars is "Euro 6", and it sets strict limits on NOx emissions among other things. (Which standard you need to comply with depends on when the model was introduced, although if you're Mercedes or Volkswagen, it seems you can bribe your way into complying with the old type approval rules...)
If an owner modifies the emissions controls such that their car is no longer compliant with the emissions standard on its Type Approval documents, it will be illegal to operate that vehicle on public roads. End of story.
Whether you'll be caught and punished is a different matter, but of all the things that come out of a car's exhaust pipe, Nitrogen oxides are the most dangerous to long-term human health. They are the major cause of urban smog, which causes respiratory illness in children and the elderly. You're free to not believe in global warming safe in the knowledge that it'll take decades before you're proven wrong, but NOx pollution is much more immediate and direct in its consequences.
Actually it is: Twice! DVLA and insurance both have to be informed in writing of any change "which may significantly alter the performance of the engine or gearing system". I nearly had to do this a while back because it turned out that replacing ECU counts as "significantly altering".
Fortunately in my case it wasn't needed as ECU turned out not to be the problem.
Hint: this law applies to electric vehicles as well so don't you go and replace lead acid on e-bike with Li-ion, this is also illegal but worst case a fine or fixed penalty only (I checked!)
"It is not illegal to modify a car so long as it does not fail MOT tests."
Wrong
"EGR blanking and rechipping for economy and high NOx is perfectly legal."
No it's not. You'll find that the law says that you are not allowed to circumvent factory installed antipollution devices. As another poster pointed out, that invalidates the Type Approval for the vehicles, making it illegal to even _park_ on public roads.
Emissions control is not within the remit of the police in the UK - it's enforced by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency who mainly focus on trucks and other heavy goods vehicles.
Normal vehicles are fully emissions tested when they have an MOT and are failed if they don't meet the criteria laid down when the vehicle was produced.
In addition the police are extremely stretched for resources right now so they have more important things to be dealing with than out of date tax/MOT from cars from other countries.
> London police cannot even be arsed to check that foreign cars have proper insurance, stay within the 6 months allowed by EU regs and have a valid foreign MOT. They are the only ones in Europe that are so lax. Emission control enforcement. You GOTTA BE KIDDING.
Your comment was an insightful read for me, but I think you are being a bit unfair on the London police.
Having extensively traveled across Europe by car multiple times, including the Serbia/Montenegro/FYROM/Greek borders, I can say that by and large the plod across the channel don't care that much about emissions either.
Serbia/Montenegro has very big problems with smuggling. Because they are non EU, some things are so cheap there (Especially ciggies) everyone and their mother tries to smuggle some into the EU for a handsome profit. Due to tariffs on certain goods, just as many try to smuggle laptops etc... the other way as well (they once booked me because I had two laptops for use. Had to explain one was business, and one personal, and they actually wrote it into my passport, so when I leave the country the make and models can be checked, to make sure I didn't flog them).
As a result their borders are one of the most locked down in Europe, and they will be thorough with checks. So while they do pay much attention and take their time, the side effect is that you can have 8 hour queues to cross the border, while they check and cross check every single detail of everyone.
If that happened across the whole of the EU, commerce and transport would grind to a halt.
I have also never seen an emissions check in the EU, and most Europeans who live there have also removed their particulate filters (or other emissions equipment) on their cars, and neither the plod nor their equivalent of MOT garages give a toss. Never thought I'd see people "rolling coal" on public roads in Europe, but I have, on a few occasions.
As for checking the 6 month limit. I know UK expats who never bothered registering their cars where they moved to in the EU. Some have driven for 5+ years over the 6 month limit, without ever getting bothered by the police. Indeed as I am thinking of moving to the EU, most of my friends there already said not to worry about the 6 month limit, because "nobody really cares that much".
Saying that, things might be different in Austria and Germany, two countries I have yet to extensively road trip on, so things could be radically different there, but the rest of the EU is not much different to the UK in that sense.
"So modding a car is allowed under insurance?"
It is, so long as you tell them about said mod (you have to tell them even if you swap out the crap radio for something usable), and doesn't do anything to invalidate said insurance Otherwise don't expect much of a decent response if you try to make a claim.
If you are so cock sure report it to the Police and relevant authorities...your local MP and councillors would certainly have it investigated.
Not sure who the "relevant authorities" are, but the Police are far too undermanned and busy to bother with non-violent crime these days.
And I fear you are one of those poor benighted fools who believe that non-cabinet MPs and councillors have some sort influence on anything or even give a shit.
Smooth Newt:
"Police are far too undermanned and busy to bother with non-violent crime these days"
Really? - it seems to me that they've effectively given up on ALL physical crime (including the violent sort) in order to concentrate on "thought offences" such as possibly causing mild annoyance to someone on the far side of the world who's never even heard of the social media on which you are considering posting.
Arguing about what the Police should have been doing is an ancient tradition, you can see elements of it in a couple of Shakespeare's plays. When I was a kid, they still had village bobbies, and beat points, and there was a reason there were Police Boxes with a telephone, that didn't disappear through time and space. No radio, you see.
Not my side of the family, but I still heard a few stories. One of my Great Uncles knew a kid who ended up commanding a squadron in the Battle of Britain. He reckoned the Germans deserved him.
It needs manpower to pick up the gossip, to know the people who might bear watching. These days, they need daytime TV programs reporting on the dodgy to do the watching.
"If Uber is removed as a side effect that will be a double blessing "
.... oh boy I can't wait to get back to the stone age where we had to wait for a taxi to just turn up randomly, or call a number that never answered, or find a taxi that didn't want to go where you were going, or would take you the long way round, or only accepted cash, or got lost or.....
Uber lost its licence for not adequately following up on reports of passenger assault and rape, and not providing evidence of adequately screening drivers for prior violent offences.
It doesn't matter what they charged. It doesn't matter that "Black cabs are too expensive". Uber operated a company where a driver could attack a passenger and get away with it, and so it lost its licence to operate in London.
It doesn't matter that you, personally, never had a rapist driving any time you booked an Uber. It mattered that in the cases when people did, Uber didn't follow up on the police reports, and didn't take action against the drivers.
If someone else started an Uber competitor tomorrow that did everything Uber did, but obeyed the actual laws of the land, properly screened its drivers and co-operated with police investigations of assault on passengers, they would not have their licence revoked by TfL.
The usual suspects are, of course, free to assume that "Uber ignored cases of rape and battery" isn't really a reason to have a licence revoked, and that this is all a smokescreen to stop the "exceptional" people achieving their birthright as rulers of the world.
"Uber lost its licence for not adequately following up on reports of passenger assault and rape, and not providing evidence of adequately screening drivers for prior violent offences."
In many ways it's good that TfL has drawn this "line in the sand" that Uber has fallen foul of.
_Other_ companies have worse records than Uber (including a number of Black cabs). If TfL doesn't enforce to the same standards against those outfits too, then TfL management are about to have their heads handed to themselves on a silver platter by the courts.
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.... oh boy I can't wait to get back to the stone age where we had to wait for a taxi to just turn up randomly, or call a number that never answered, or find a taxi that didn't want to go where you were going, or would take you the long way round, or only accepted cash, or got lost or.....
...had an app that constantly tracked you even if you weren't using it, or used software to skirt law enforcement and regulators or misled drivers about potential earnings or.......
I've always considered Uber a case of Right Time, Right Place, Wrong Company.
We have constant mobile communications and the ability to manage complex systems systems like thousands of car journeys across a city. The rise of a system like this is inevitable and also desirable (because it's more efficient). I've just always felt it was a shame that Uber were the ones to do so.
Have you ever seen some of the routes Uber drivers take?
Here's a list of things I know from my personal experience thats wrong with Uber drivers. These aren't stories from the Daily Mail or Express, but what I have seen.
1. Uber drivers going the wrong way up one way streets. I cycle a lot and more than once I've had an Uber driver come flying towards me.
2. Uber drivers doing n-point turns in the middle of the A2. No indicators, no stopping, just a sudden realisation they've got it wrong.
3. Taking cyclists out. I was cycling with a friend, the Uber driver pulled into the cycle super highway opened his door and took my mate out. He then tried to blame the incident on my mate forcycling ion the cycle superhighway and it was only because I showed up and stated I'd seen everything he backed down. Claimed he had no documents on him, so we took photos of everything including him. He didn't like that at all, but fuck him. Police got involved as my mate was hurt, and lo and behold the car wasn't in his name, it was his 'mates' and he had no insurance. The fact he'd just dropped off some passengers meant they weren't insured either if he's had a serious accident. The police were quite interested in him by this point :)
4. Picking people up when they haven't pre-booked. Yes we can see you driving with your fog lamps on in the middle of the day. Black cab drivers are given a monopoly on picking up hailed cabs as they have to learn the knowledge, they have to have a cab of a certain age, they have to display a green badge, they have to have certain tyres on their cars, yes you can fail your MOT if you don't have the right badged tyre for black cabs even if the tyres are identical as the non-badged (and cheaper) version of the tyre. They have to do certain things, certain types of insurance etc but then they are given the state provided monopoly to pick people up in the street. However their fares are set by TfL and they do have the right to refuse a journey.
5. Parking on red lines along the A2 at rush hour to pick up/drop people off. The A2 is a awful road at the best of time and some cunt in a White Prius sitting on the red lines as they work out what to do can cause an immediate talk back of a mile or so which takes a long time to clear,
4. I also have noted the uplift in sexual offences and I have asked my other half not to take Uber's. Shes a grown woman and can make her own mind up, but my view is that I would rather reduce the risk and pay more than risk an Uber.
I will note as well that I have had some of the most stupid right wing, racist loons driving a black cab. So I know they're not perfect, but most of the time I enjoy the black cab and find it far better than a mini-cab. I know my way round London so have never yet been ripped off by a black cab driver, but I'd expect it to happen. I like Black cabs as I always find a slightly different route to get from A to B.
I have never had a taxi driver refuse to take me home and I've lived South of the river since 1985. I worked in organisations that finished work at 02:00 and would head outside and hail a cab to Tooting, Brixton and now Greenwich. Average cost between £20, £30 and £40. I would estimate that I have taken 200-300 cabs south of the river in 30 years. Not a massive amount but enough.
Ubers model is based on a race to the bottom and a complete disregard of laws. I have zero issues with Uber providing a proper model based on drivers who can drive without relying on a SatNav to send them up the wrong way along a one way street, that actually respected the rules of the road, that ensured their drivers weren't criminals, that had the proper insurance, that didn't ask them to work all hours under the sun and didn't try to kill me on my bike.
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Maybe you're the idiot for making stupid assertions. What has my tax situation got to do with me riding a bicycle on the road? What has my tax situation got to do with Uber drivers? What has my language, foul mouthed or otherwise, got to do with anything I commented on.
I've not proved your point at all, as there is no linkage between my tax situation, cycling, language or Uber. Your tenuous grasp of logic and the inability to understand simple arguments is worrying.
I cycle carefully howeverI am sick to back teeth of stupid Uber drivers who are so focussed on their satnav that they miss cyclists, red lights and cause crash after crash.
I restate my views but in deference to you I'll rephrase it.
You're still an idiot.
I see you still enjoy being wrong - about everything. Perhaps if you looked where you were going insted of running over pedestrians you would have a case.
Or perhaps if you drove a car like an adult instead of using that ridicuolous child's toy on the roads - which MY taxes pay for by the way - then maybe you would be able to understand 'simple arguments.
You're still a failure.
Maybe you shouldn't be riding a bike on roads paid for by taxpayers. Just sayin'
Do keep up, someone has to pay for the location tracking/surveillance whether it be by Facebook, Uber or the state.
Once TPTB perfect road pricing for cars, it is only a small step to road pricing for all; step outside of your front door and get charged for using the pavement. Stay at home get charged (council tax). There will be no escape...
Two car household here and i ride a bike, obviously can't use all three at the same time and i shouldn't have to remember to mention the fact i also have a car if i want to mention my bike in a post, unless of course it's in The Rules.
By the way, you may want to consider dedicated cycle routes, wear and tear on the road surface, noxious emissions and on that subject cars in the lower band(s) that pay £0 tax, my cars cost £25 and £200 annually and i use the cheaper one daily.
Think before you post.
You don't pay tax for roads. You pay tax based on the emissions of your vehicle. 'Road Tax' was abolished in 1947. It then became Vehicle Excise Duty, and again, the money didn't directly fund roads. Not all cars have to pay emissions tax either, so, are electric cars not allowed to use roads in your mind?
As an occasional visitor to London, I have stuck with Taxis, rather than private hire. It could just be good luck that I have never had problems. I've also used Underground, DLR, and buses without problems.
OK, that might just be good luck. Any public transport system can have something go wrong. I have seen a couple of bus breakdowns, not a disaster for me.
Maybe we're both 3-sigma from the mean, in opposite directions.
I do have an IT connection here. The local bus company has a web page, and their timetable pages have a "Live Updates" box displayed. It has to be amended by the IT company that runs their web page, so I can read it on the phone from the bus stop, but their traffic manager can't actually put anything there from his office.
They've been running buses for over 100 years, and I trust them. Computers, not so long.
.... oh boy I can't wait to get back to the stone age where we had to wait for a taxi to just turn up randomly, or call a number that never answered, or find a taxi that didn't want to go where you were going, or would take you the long way round, or only accepted cash, or got lost or.....
Keyword here is taxi. Uber is not a taxi company and it will never be as it would have to obey the law.
"negotiate their cars to be chipped/ECU reprogrammed to turn the EGR and other emission control off. "
That's an automatic vehicle impoundment if it happens to come to the attention of the DVLA. Just saying....
And those three garages could find themselves the focus of some interesting attention too.
It'll be fine.
Don't forget whatever these uber drivers are they are definitely *NOT* employees. Nope. Absolutely not.
Therefore one can presume these people simply carry on not being employed, only with less money.
Mike Ashley would be proud. Zero hour contracts? A bloody luxury they are.
It would be nice if they knew where they were going without having to resort to SatNav. Oh yeah and didn't try and block any attempts to get them to conform with things I would have expected them to have done so anyway. Like drivers speaking English in England (Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/01/uber_english_law_in_london/
"a sensible and reasoned decision from a regulator regarding the behaviour of a company with a business model of side-stepping the regulations."
OMG. If that approach ever catches on in other regulatory domains, e.g. telecoms/Ofcon, BT are doomed. Doomed, I tell you.
London, like many towns and cities have plenty of 'pre-book' services that are legal, regulated and licensed.
Whilst I' not sorry to see Uber taken to task, it should be remembered that if regulators and licensing authorities did a good job, Uber wouldn't have the business for 40,000 drivers in London alone, and people wouldn't be clamouring to use the Uber app.
The exact failings of regulation vary from place to place, round my way the "licensed taxis" are exclusively ancient and smelly shitheaps, often driven 24/7 by a pool of drivers, all speaking poor English, zero local road knowledge, and most appear unacquainted with UK rules of the road, soap or social skills. Whenever the police do an inspection campaign about 30% of the taxis are barred from the roads. In this situation, where the customer has no control, where regulators are totally disinterested in the standard of service provided, its hardly surprising people try Uber.
Are these London Black Cabs?
Nope, this is well away from London. My experience of London taxis is that they're rather pricey, and arguably TfL are limiting demand, but overall they're pretty good. Unfortunately London is so overcrowded, and road planning has been shit for so long, that I end up most of the time sitting in a stationery black cab, watching the meter tick upwards.
The best transport strategy for visiting London is not to visit London.
If this takes the fracking thousands of Toyota Preyesores off East Londons roads that'll speed up traffic for the rest of us enormously anyway.
Whenever I see a Preyesore these days I get a flashback to Ben Hur and the Chariot race.....an incredible desire comes over me to fit wheel swords to my SUV and get these to**ers off the road.
I have no objection to Uner drivers in principal.....but learn how to drive, understand the concept of lane discipline and for frack sake learn how to go over 22 miles per hour. We're not limited to the maximum speed of a galloping donkey any more.
Diatribe over.
Not on the 50mph 3 lane A13 where you regularly get some Preyesore driving in the fast lane doing 22mph.
According to the highway code, it's not "the fast lane", it's "the overtaking lane" and you are perfectly allowed to do any speed you wish under the limit provided that a) it's safe to do so and b) you are overtaking someone in the middle lane.
Having driven extensively in London and Kent, I do understand that you think the road is primarily for your own use and everyone else should get out of your way and really your vehicle should be fitted with blue lights to signal your importance, but, and I know it's a shock so you might want to brace yourself, but you really aren't special. No, I know it's difficult to understand but you're really not.
I would have thought it obvious I was referring to drivers who are not overtaking given the context, I'll type more slowly for you next time.
Given the above perhaps you'll rethink your smarmy comment about me thinking I'm special? Probably not though as of course it's easy to make assumptions about others when you're too dim to ask questions first.
I'll ask a question:
Why post as AC, yet refer to SpammFreeEmail's comment in the first person? AC fail rule 1 I think.
As for typing more slowly, I suggest you do, although primarily for your own benefit. You may not realise it doesn't affect anyone else how quickly you type, because this is a text based medium, therefore people can consume it at a pace dictated by themselves, not the author.
"Probably not though as of course it's easy to make assumptions about others when you're to dim to ask questions first."
Secondly, it might prevent you from trying to infer other people are stupid, whilst making childish spelling errors. Or are you to (sic) dim to realise that?
Well talking about childish errors (it was a typo I'd already corrected by the way).
If you're going to quote someone and then explain why they're wrong perhaps use the full quote and then you wouldn't need to explain anything at all.
You quoted this.....
"Not on the 50mph 3 lane A13 where you regularly get some Preyesore driving in the fast lane doing 22mph......".
Then went on to explain that it was an overtaking lane, not a fast lane (which is of course a colloquialism).
Of course if you had quoted the whole of the original post, or did you get too tired to read beyond the first sentence? That the next sentence specifically referred to overtaking.
So the whole quote was
"Not on the 50mph 3 lane A13 where you regularly get some Preyesore driving in the fast lane doing 22mph.
On neighbourhood streets no problem, however on multi lane thoroughfares if you're not overtaking then get on the inside lane."
Now, was that too difficult to understand?
On neighbourhood streets no problem, however on multi lane thoroughfares if you're not overtaking then get on the inside lane.
> you are perfectly allowed to do any speed you wish under the limit provided that a) it's safe to do so and b) you are overtaking someone in the middle lane.
It is demonstrably not safe to be in the outside lane doing 22 while everyone else is doing 50 - so you most certainly won't be overtaking anyone, and no-one can undertake.
A long while ago a mate was stopped for driving too slowly. Turns out he was over the limit, too, and didn't have a full license (just a provisional), and basically a bit of a twat for those two reasons, but the original reason was because he was slow.
The original reason was they were suspicious as to WHY he was driving slow, not because he was driving slow. As you say, turns out they were right to be suspicious. If he wasn't over the limit, they would have just been able to suggest he was going a bit slow and that he could be on his way.
"According to the highway code, it's not "the fast lane", it's "the overtaking lane" and you are perfectly allowed to do any speed you wish under the limit provided that a) it's safe to do so and b) you are overtaking someone in the middle lane."
False. You are not allowed to go more than 20 mph under the limit without good reason.
Would you care to point to the legislation that states this? There is no such thing as a minimum speed limit (except in a very very limited number of locations where it is specifically stated by signs). Will you be stopped by police if seen travelling at considerably lower speed than the average driver? Quite possibly, but if the reason isn't because you are pissed out of your skull or stoned you cannot be charged with anything.
".....you are overtaking someone in the middle lane."
It's even simpler than that.
The mantra is "keep left unless passing"
Thankfully it's _not_ illegal to pass such numpties on the left in the UK, but you must do so carefully because if said numpty decides to change lanes without warning and drives into you, it can be a careless driving charge on you, not the numpty.
Not on the 50mph 3 lane A13 where you regularly get some Preyesore driving in the fast lane doing 22mph.
I take you are referring to the section with filter lanes so in places traffic joining the A13 and wishing to remain on the A13, has to cross two lanes of 50mph traffic to get into the 3rd lane or get filtered off...
I don't think it's the Prius drivers per se that have poor lane discipline, but the fact that many of them are taxi drivers. Having said that, as a Prius owner, I'm sick to f***ing death of pricks trying to get into my car when I'm picking my friend up at the station.
I've always observed taxi drivers driving in the way you describe of Prius drivers. I'd always assumed that taxis were slow to accelerate in order to save on fuel.
Watching taxis do entertaining U-turns has, for the last twenty years prompted me to mentally sing "Because Iiiii'm a taxi!" to the tune of of Baby Bird's 'You're Gorgeous' (Well, the Mark Radcliffe and Boy Lard's homage 'You're a bastard', but the tune is the same)
Apart from most (all?) uber drivers in the UK use their own cars.
Nope, they do not. At least in London. The majority are leased.
Walk into any Eastern European shop. There is a big poster advertising leasing out a Prius or other Uber compliant vehicle in the local language. Polish shop - poster in Polish. Romanian shop - poster in Romanian. Bulgarian shop - poster in Bulgarian. And so on. The same lease house offers other services assisting in you joining the race to the bottom on the London streets - insurance brokerage, etc. It is usually a full service affair and there is a whole cottage industry doing just that.
I do not go into other regional ones (Asian, etc), I suspect they are no different.
The ones worst off will be the couple of lease companies which lease 50% of the bloody Priuses you see in London.
If you go to Whitechapel Road on a Saturday night there's more Prius's then any other single car on the road.
On one occasion driving into London I was behind eight Uber Prius's, when you've got that many drivers, who seem, in many instances, to be either lacking in confidence or just not good drivers then you have the potential for accidents.
Driving ridiculously slowly may be a way to avoid knocks, but it's also a way to ensure the amount of road available isn't used efficiently and infuriate other drivers..
Already the shrill cries of the 'only interested in myself' can be heard; "their drivers haven't raped or assaulted me and my choice is being taken away".
I don't have a problem with competition but I do care about laws, rules and regulations and companies playing on a level field. Something which those who are only interested in saving a few pennies often do not seem to care about.
Frankly I think it's a good decision. Uber won't disappear from the streets because they can continue to operate during the appeal which they probably will make. In court we can hear both sides of the case and then decide whether they are playing fair or not, are doing things right or wrongly.
A friend ordered an Uber from a drinks evening we'd been at in South Kensington despite there being a plethora of Licensed London Black Cabs. Up pulled a car a few minutes later we both got in and noticed that this wasn't going to be the most luxurious ride we'd ever had. The car made a Black cab look like a Rolls Royce. Then we headed off and the driver was totally relying on sat nav for his directions which always worries me. My friend says she needs to give instructions on getting to her place as it's surrounded by a relatively new one way system and difficult to reach.
The driver didn't speak amazing English but just pointed at the sat nav when she asked him to turn left or right. After he missed the crucial turning for the second time she said "Just drop us here please" and we got out. She also said there are quicker routes of getting to her place than the route he took and he clearly either didn't know them, or his sat nav didn't.
I won't use Uber because I don't like the fact that they wanted to track the movement of every user even if they weren't using the app. Greyball (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyball) etc. Also anyone who can pass The Knowledge is better than me at remembering stuff and has earned some respect for that.
> anyone who can pass The Knowledge is better than me
> at remembering stuff and has earned some respect for that.
The brains of London's Black Cab drivers are a hugely valuable resource for researchers.
They demonstrate brain plasticity with the hippocampus growing disproportionately to the norm as they develop their navigational skills and route learning.
...with the hippocampus growing disproportionately...
but does it then squash and inhibit operation in the areas of the brain responsible for (1) suppressing the conversion of internal monologue into external speech, (2) loving and embracing all of fellow humanity (including cyclists, "foreigners", scroungers, lay-abouts, the gubbermint, traffic wardens (not strictly counting as "humanity" but they are usually bipedal at least) and "nancy boys", (3) empathy towards the privacy of anyone even vaguely describable as a "celebrity"?
It would be nice if they both lost.
Personally I'll stick with my local minicab company. They're mostly friendly, hard-working middle aged Asian gentlemen who speak good English and know the area well. They'll pick me up at Heathrow with a smile and unlike the black cab drivers won't swear at me because I live too close to the airport and have deprived them of an overpriced fare into central London / spout racist abuse / want to talk about football.
Of course, I'm generalising - a good friend of mine is a black cab driver and he's very pleasant.
If Uber decided to run a company as opposed to a racket they would be welcome.
Considering all the naughty things they have done then this could get very interesting.
Anything outside the UK and not directly related to the London taxi operations of Uber will not be considered. Uber appear to be an aggressive, arrogant company, we can expect them to engage attack dog lawyers, and this will quickly result in QCs being deployed. That'll mean that the legal argument will be VERY specific, detailed, and the court will probably be deciding on quite narrow grounds whether TfL are acting correctly.
Just make sure you are f'ing well compliant with the law and regulations!
From the reasons stated in the report, this lies 100% at Uber's door and has nothing to do with TfL "listeing" to others.
If Uber are not complying / cannot demonstrate that they are complying with standard regulations, they only have themselves to blame.
"Just make sure you are f'ing well compliant with the law and regulations!"
That applies to other private hire outfits too.
TfL's reasoning for not renewing Uber's license is likely to come back and haunt them. Selective enforcement does not go down well in courts of Law.
The bright side of this is likely to be a London-wide cleanup of private hire and black cab operations.
Whilst this doesn't affect me as I'm not in London, nonetheless this shortsighted approach to taxi-hailing apps will hurt cities that insist on working to 1890s omnibus public transport models and keeping the rent-seeking gravy train of taxi & minicab licencing going full steam ahead.
I realise Uber are hardly a bastion of corporate responsibility and agree they need to clean up their act and work with authorities rather than against them. Nonetheless the reason people use them is because they offer a service which is seen by some as superior to conventional taxis - let's not forget, no one is forced to use Uber, drivers and riders both. There is certainly room in the market for competition (it's long overdue in London)- and this looks like a thinly veiled attempt to stamp it out by TfL.
Dissapointing, not least for the 3.5 million people who have been using the service despite its perceived shortcomings by officials. If it was so dangerous, maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be voluntarily used by quite so many people? (Oh, and I'd be quite happy for Uber competitors to also show up, as, seemingly, do quite a lot of others)
Why is it short sighted to ensure that a private hire company complies with the law? In this case, they had the opportunity to operate legally, but decided not to. This is 100% Uber's decision to get themselves banned.
In Germany the situation is even worse. Their drivers were operating illegally, because you need a professional driving license to ply for hire (this is not a taxi license, you need the professional driving license before you can apply for a taxi license, it is equivalent to a PSV or HGV license). Uber were not even checking to see if their drivers had the relevant license.
In that case, the Uber driver is driving with invalid insurance, which is a criminal offence and if they were involved in an accident, the driver is 100% liable for all costs and compensation. If they get caught, they lose their normal driving license (or at best a ban, points and a big fine) and their normal insurance would also be revoked.
Harold Shipman, let's not forget, was fully licenced and regulated by the public sector medical profession. I wonder if he'd have been caught sooner had each patient rated him with that rating aggregated and publically published for all to see?
I will repeat myself: Uber are not above the law, and need to clean up their act. Nonetheless, these ride-hailing apps (and Uber are by no means the only gig in town, Lyft, Ola, Gett) exist now in many cities throughout the world and provide a service used by millions every day. The idea that it's fundamentally dishonest, dangerous and detrimental to society to the extent that it needs to be blanket banned is shortsighted. no? I find it hard to believe that TfL are literally at the point where they have no other option to sort this out than revoking the licence- this feels far more like a conflict of interest, not a regulator looking out for the best interest of their consumers.
I'll watch with interest. Perhaps I'm wrong and it's exactly the boot up the backside Uber need to sort their own house out.
Uber are by no means the only gig in town ... blanket banned
Contradiction. There is no "blanket ban", they're just terminating one amongst many. As you noted, there is demand for this service so booting a disreputable and (allegedly) dangerous operator out of the market simply creates an expansion opportunity for law abiding competitors (who will need more drivers, obviously). Banning Uber doesn't eliminate app based taxi hailing any more than banning CFCs eliminated refrigerators - you simply get the same utility with less negative environmental impact.
"If it was so dangerous, maybe [...] it wouldn't be voluntarily used by quite so many people?"
It could be argued that people get in their cabs because they're habituated by regular taxis having such fripperies as trained and licensed drivers, that they assume that an Uber is just as safe as a normal taxi.
Or to look at it another way, as the level of drink-driving shows, at 3am when you just want to go home, a lot of people will make poor transport choices.
"In rural areas often not as an entire bus may be carrying only around 4 passengers. "
The same applies in offpeak periods for buses in cities - and smaller self-driving vehicles might start featuring in the offpeak bus runs (especially when the road damage done by a large bus is taken into account)
I was going to write something clever and apropos regarding smoking as an analogy - but actually I can't be arsed. Brenda McViking you're talking complete shit.
This isn't keeping the gravy train going, it is addressing the shortcomings of one of the new operators. The monopoly you speak of is dying, and has been for 30 years - it'll be a while yet, but its final dissolution is probably inevitable.
Uber's basic principle is great - use the internet to make personalised transport easy and more cost effective.
Their detailed business model of 'and damn everything else' is not acceptable, and needs to change.
Since the regulators only have one recourse, they are using it. I am sure that they will do a deal in court announce the win, and then hopefully obey the law. After all the actual rules they have been told to follow really are not that onerous.
Alternatively (and I'm all in favour of this) get Parliament to make the board personally responsible for the crimes of their contractors or employees where they cannot show that they took sufficient steps to ensure such crimes did not happen - and get a proper extradition treaty in place so it can bite.
In fact personally I'd do that anyway for EVERY company with a balance sheet or turnover of more than say £100m.
Make them earn their salaries for once.
My small business was being strangled by red tape,and I could hardly afford the payments on my hollowed out volcano, but now I've sorted it! My henchmen are now self-employed, which means that I don't have to pay for sick pay if they get shot. I've also decided that petty 'eye safety' regulations on shark lasers are unreasonably restrictive, and that shortsighted pre Norman conquest restrictions on 'murder' shouldn't apply to me because I have an app!
Not renewing their licence after 30 September was the only thing that TfL could do to make Uber sit up and start thinking about complying. TfL's job is not to protect licensed taxi drivers, it is to regulate the transport infrastructure and network that us Londoners rely on. Uber were operating outside of this regulatory framework and would not comply - no matter what TfL tried to do to bring them to the table.
What is disappointing is that Uber's immediate response is throw rattles out of the pram and publicly state that they will go to the courts (presumably on a judicial review procedure) to overturn the decision, rather than appealing and presenting ways in which they are prepared to play by the same rules that other licensed operators play by. Ultimately, this is what TfL and most passengers actually want, so I'm hoping (and frankly expecting) this to be what actually happens.
If you followed the Twitter feed of the LTDA (I do), you would realise that the LTDA hate and loathe TfL.
They have constantly complained that TfL have bent over backwards to accomodate Uber. They hate Mike Brown and have tried for years to get TfL to take action against them.
So basically you're talking bollocks when you say LTDA and TfL are in league together. They hate each other.
"What is disappointing is that Uber's immediate response is throw rattles out of the pram and publicly state that they will go to the courts"
Disappointing maybe, but surprising, no. This seems to be their basic corporate policy - if crossed threaten litigation. One wonders if they learnt from a certain well known cult.
"If it was so dangerous, maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be voluntarily used by quite so many people?"
As if the general public (when considered as a general group/entity) put their health and safety above cost.
Uber is cheaper, therefore they use uber.
Uber is cheaper because it doesn't bother with pesky laws and regulations.
Safety and legality isn't even considered by Mrs and Mrs "average". Saving a few quid is the only thought considered. Legality, safety, morality etc aren't even considered. Service A is £10 service B is £7.50. That's it. Full stop.
By your logic no one would be able to sell dodgy tobacco or alcohol (spoiler: they can), no one would use red diesel, no one would speed or use their phone behind the wheel etc etc etc.
All of these things variously threaten our health and safety, or are morally wrong, or are actually illegal. Still happen millions of time a day though, don't they.
It does occur to me that the petition signers have got the wrong target. If they feel its unfair that Uber have to comply with all the regulations they find so irksome then there should be a campaign to have all those regulations rescinded. Then Uber could keep their licence and all Uber's competitors would be able to operate more cheaply too and everyone would benefit. (Well apart from the people those regulations were intended to protect, but who cares about them?)
......that's our job once we've got the self driving niggles sorted out.
I was in California 4 years ago and privy to some internal Google numbers that showed self driving technology would be worth up to $58Bn annually worldwide by removing the cost of the drivers and having 'locked in' customers who would have to see Google ads.
That's a lot of reasons to get rid of low/no skilled individuals.
That kind of 'captive audience for adverts' game has been tried several times in the UK, maybe elsewhere, albeit not by Google, and not in vehicles. Post Office queing areas, doctors reception areas, even on buses, etc. Are any of them still operational and are any of them making money? Why would it be different in self-driving cars?
No, sorry, there's probably another reason behind it. Not quite sure what, it may well just be 'removing the cost of the low/no skill individuals in the driving seats', but captive audience for adverts probably isn't it.
At one stage a plan like the one you mention might have convinced some gullible investors that Google knew what they were doing and were worth a punt of a few billion, but surely Google are beyond that stage now?
"self driving technology would be worth up to $58Bn annually worldwide by removing the cost of the drivers"
A conservative estimate is that self driving vehicles will make around 400 million people redundant worldwide.
Johnycab may have to contend with gangs of unemployed taxi drivers cornering and torching the vehicles.
"Transport for London strips Uber of its taxi licence"
^ Good. They were quite rightly criticised for their poor vetting procedures which allowed very unsavoury characters to become Uber drivers and who then went on to assault their passengers. No doubt Transport for London took into account Uber's controversial Greyball software that could identify potential regulatory officials.
I always thought that they claimed NOT to be a taxi service. Their own definition of this allegedly shady business was, I understand, a car sharing service. Again, I believe that is what made them think that they were entitled to bend the rules, if not (arguably) actually breaking them. From recent reports, the company culture does seem to leave rather a lot to be desired and their refusal to disclose their software details doesn't exactly put them in a good light. There are numerous horror stories floating around about their drivers. Best they're put out of their misery.
I don't think they were ever going to get away with calling themselves a riding-sharing service in the UK -- there was already too much regulation in place for them to skip it.
That regulation made Blablacar very cautious when they moved into the UK market, and they used the HMRC's mileage allowance as a benchmark for what is considered driving for profit or not, which was entirely sensible and ensured that Blablacar would never be profitable for drivers, and would only offset and mitigate costs.
A company but recently headed by a figure of such colossal integrity and charm as Travis Kalanik. A company that has invested heavily in software of a most original kind. A company which pays not a cent into the national purse by way of employer's NI contribution. A company whose managerial ethos has always combined piety and diligence. . .
What on earth is TfL doing, banning it from London? Ye gods, at this rate, Uber may yet vanish from the face of the earth.
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"Private hire cabs (not including black cabs) are cheaper than Uber for passengers. They're also safer because drivers have to pass an enhanced background check which reveals spent convictions such as rape, assault, robbery, GBH etc. "
And yet, one of London's most prolific serial rapists was a Black Cab driver and numerous private hire drivers have been reported as having assaulted passengers.
TfL's setting a bar for Uber has inadvertently set the same bar for everyone else. This could prove interesting in terms of the effects on public protection.
By the way, it's worth noting that the enhanced background check is run by TfL before issuing hire driver licenses, NOT by Uber.
"More than 450K people have signed a petition to reverse the decision."
So 5% of Londoners are happy using a taxi service which pays less than the minimum wage,flouts safety regulations, and is based in the US so is difficult to sue, simply because of convenience. If you want to know why there's a problem with modern slavery, there's your answer. Sociopaths.
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"More than 450K people email addresses have signed been added to a petition to reverse the decision."
Change.org only check for a response to a confirmation email, no postcode etc. needed, so even easier to falsify than the UK gov e-petitions website before the record-breaking referendum petition...
Also just for balance there are the petitions: Ban uber completely and Stop Uber being re Licensed
both of which were started today...
never used uber, use my own car yet....
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/over-400-london-cab-drivers-charged-with-crimes-last-year-a3226396.html
more issues with taxi services as far as criminal cases
In 2015, charges were brought against 413 drivers, with 126 accused of violent or sexual offences.
The data, released by the Metropolitan Police under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, also showed that between 2011 and 2015, a total of 1,948 drivers were charged with criminal offences.
Of these, 521 were charged with violent or sexual offences, which can include grievous bodily harm or rape.
The FOI showed the number of people charged who gave their occupation as a taxi driver or minicab driver.
The data did not specify any outcomes of the criminal proceedings.
The 40,000 drivers came from the same Ubertweet as the 3.5M users.
The 3.5M users would be rather more than half of Londoners who have both a credit card and a smartphone. It is wholly incredible, if they mean any sensible definition of "user" (might be "has called Uber twice"). I suspect they're adding everyone who ever downloaded the app plus all the people in every cab, then multiplying by two.
40,000 drivers? I doubt it. Halve it, then assume most only ever worked a few hours.
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