[Will.]

Transport for London has announced that it will not renew Uber's private hire licence after concluding it is "not fit and proper".

http://news.sky.com/story/transport-...cence-11047580

[Cherie]

Black cab drivers will be cheering.

I expect there will be an appeal, the reasons for no renewing the licence are pretty damning, I wonder what Ubers response will be

[waterhog]

going to do a poem on this and hand deliver - someone call me a cab !

[caprimint]

Uber is a great service, cheap and convenient

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by caprimint

Uber is a great service, cheap and convenient

Is there anyone who hasn't used Uber. TFL seem to be saying they don't vet drivers, cheap and convenient is fine, but what about personal safety?

Not sure if this is a decision driven by something else though

they have 21 days to appeal but their licence runs out next Friday, so what happens then

[MTVN]

Apparently TFL told Uber only one minute before tweeting the news

3.5m people and 40,000 drivers use Uber, they'll all be out of a job now

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Apparently TFL told Uber only one minute before tweeting the news

3.5m people and 40,000 drivers use Uber, they'll all be out of a job now

They would have known a decision was imminent as the licence had been under review since may and a decision was due before the 30/09

this only affects London? or all uber drivers

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Cherie

They would have known a decision was imminent as the licence had been under review since may and a decision was due before the 30/09

this only affects London? or all uber drivers

I thought it would only cover London but not too sure

[arista]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Apparently TFL told Uber only one minute before tweeting the news

3.5m people and 40,000 drivers use Uber, they'll all be out of a job now

Yes they will move to your City now

Its only London etc
some months to go yet , though
we have to get a Date it stops etc.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Apparently TFL told Uber only one minute before tweeting the news

3.5m people and 40,000 drivers use Uber, they'll all be out of a job now

There are 40,000 men who would pass the vetting and be willing to work, why haven't uber hired them?

I fully agree with the decision, in every profession there are safeguarding measures, if uber are not complicit with the requirement for working with the public then they will have to cease trading.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

There are 40,000 men who would pass the vetting and be willing to work, why haven't uber hired them?

I fully agree with the decision, in every profession there are safeguarding measures, if uber are not complicit with the requirement for working with the public then they will have to cease trading.

There is no riling as they can continue to work until the appeal

[Oliver_W]

Isn't there at least one rape a week by Uber drivers? Whether or not it's right for TFL to rescind their license, Uber should have something in place to vet its drivers.

[Vicky.]

I have never used uber. Seen them about a few times though. Shame so many jobs are to be axed though. Especially at the moment when jobs are scarce and people are blamed/shamed for their own unemployment no matter the reasons...

Originally Posted by Oliver_W

Isn't there at least one rape a week by Uber drivers? Whether or not it's right for TFL to rescind their license, Uber should have something in place to vet its drivers.

Where does that come from? And that sounds about in keeping with the UK population and rapes/sexual assaults anyway. I checked up on this just out of curiosity when I saw this quote, and the results are shocking. Utterly awful.

Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year; that's roughly 11 rapes (of adults alone) every hour. These figures include assaults by penetration and attempts.
Nearly half a million adults are sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year

https://rapecrisis.org.uk/statistics.php

So uber employs 40k people. And there is one rape per week. So 52 a year.

The UK population is 66m ish. And there are 100k rapes per year.


Utterly pointless post really. But the rape stats shocked me so much. Sexual assault at 500k a year too. Jesus.

Edited to add...

Spoiler:

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Freedom of Information data obtained by The Sun last year showed that the Metropolitan Police investigated 32 drivers for rape or sexual assault of a passenger between May 2015 and May 2016.

OK using these new stats of 32 per year (AND it being sexual assault rather than rape) rather than 52... Uber drivers are actually considerably safer than the general population. By a long shot.

[MTVN]

Uber statement:

"3.5 million Londoners who use our app, and more than 40,000 licensed drivers who rely on Uber to make a living, will be astounded by this decision. By wanting to ban our app from the capital Transport for London and the Mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice. If this decision stands, it will put more than 40,000 licensed drivers out of work and deprive Londoners of a convenient and affordable form of transport. To defend the livelihoods of all those drivers, and the consumer choice of millions of Londoners who use our app, we intend to immediately challenge this in the courts… This ban would show the world that, far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies who bring choice to consumers."

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Uber statement:

"3.5 million Londoners who use our app, and more than 40,000 licensed drivers who rely on Uber to make a living, will be astounded by this decision. By wanting to ban our app from the capital Transport for London and the Mayor have caved in to a small number of people who want to restrict consumer choice. If this decision stands, it will put more than 40,000 licensed drivers out of work and deprive Londoners of a convenient and affordable form of transport. To defend the livelihoods of all those drivers, and the consumer choice of millions of Londoners who use our app, we intend to immediately challenge this in the courts… This ban would show the world that, far from being open, London is closed to innovative companies who bring choice to consumers."

TFL made a decision driven by Black cabs I think ..that said the safety issues need addressing

[Cherie]

Bit of a fudge they can continue to trade during the appeal process which will take months, I think Khan bottled it and the decision will be overturned on appeal. Khan can say he tried do get them banned gets the black cabs/mini cabs off his back

[Brother Leon]

Terrible decision. Uber saves you so much money. Back to getting fleeced and being rejected half the time.

As for safety... it's a recorded journey, with a license plate, driver number and the name and picture of the driver saved. I'm not buying that.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Brother Leon

Terrible decision. Uber saves you so much money. Back to getting fleeced and being rejected half the time.

As for safety... it's a recorded journey, with a license plate, driver number and the name and picture of the driver saved. I'm not buying that.

Yeah i would have thought it's more safe than jumping into a normal cab tbh.

We can't get Uber here but I've used it in london and in the States and it's so handy, always had nice drivers too

[bots]

i predict people power will win in this particular case. People want a service like Uber, if they kill it off, the mayor will be out on his ass at the next election.

[Brother Leon]

Some of the tweets are awesome

[Tom4784]

A terrible decision that was made purely to force people to use normal Taxis.

If the Taxi industry is suffering because of Uber then it's down to them to adapt or perish.

[James]

'London is open for business' - Sadiq Khan, 2016.

[Kizzy]

In what other industry would this be tolerated? I am at a loss to see why the decision here is seen not as upholding standards but simply damaging business... mind blown.

'Transport for London has announced it will not renew ride-sharing app Uber’s licence, because it had identified a “lack of corporate responsibility” in the company.

The statement highlighted four major areas of concern: the company’s approach to reporting criminal offences, the obtaining of medical certificates, its compliance with Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks on employees, and its use of controversial Greyball software to "block regulatory access to the app".

Freedom of Information data obtained by The Sun last year showed that the Metropolitan Police investigated 32 drivers for rape or sexual assault of a passenger between May 2015 and May 2016.

In August, Metropolitan Police Inspector Neil Billany wrote to TfL about his concern that the company was failing to properly investigate allegations against its drivers.

He revealed the company had continued to employ a driver after he was accused of sexual assault. According to Inspector Billany, the same driver went on to assault another female passenger before he was removed.

The letter said: "By not reporting to police promptly, Uber are allowing situations to develop that clearly affect the safety and security of the public."


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...-a7961236.html

[Crimson Dynamo]

good news for the black cabs and their trained, safe and vetted drivers

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

in a 12 month period involving uber drivers only 32 is quite considerable, is pointless quoting stats the national average is irrelevant.

Ok lets go with only taxi drivers. Licensed ones.

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

good news for the black cabs and their trained, safe and vetted drivers

Really? You would think so, but no.

Crunching some numbers again, since I am now in the mood.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statis...s-england-2015

84770 licensed taxi drivers in London

(35% of the total number of taxis in UK, which is 242,200)

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crim...-a3226396.html

Enhanced DBS checks are carried out on drivers every three years when they renew their taxi or private hire driver's licence, and every individual's fitness to become a licensed taxi or private hire driver is considered on a case-by-case basis.

A separate FOI revealed that in 2014/2015, a staggering 141 drivers were named as suspects in sex offences.

These included 31 in cases of rape, and 110 for other sexual assaults.

Now, its important to note here that some of this data is...out of date as I couldn't find this years stats. Ie. These stats on rape and such are from 2014/2015/2016. Uber only fairly recently got to 40k drivers. But for the sake of this, we will pretend they always had the 40k drivers. The number of drivers is not really too relevant when looking at stuff like this...its the ratios.

So uber 32 in a year from 40k drivers.
Licensed cabs 141 a year from 85k drivers.

As number of drivers is over double that of uber, its only fair to divide the number of attacks to be comparing like with like. So say 70 attacks from 42.5k drivers. Take off a further 10% of attacks, simply as I do not want people to be all like (omg but you have more attacks by licensed safe people because there are 2.5k more of them in the stats). 10% off 70, leaves 63. 10% off 42.5k leaves 38,425 drivers. Which leaves us with

So uber 32 in a year
'Licensed cabs' 63 in a year. Nearly double.

Clearly more attacks among these 'safe' licensed cabs eh...

--

If we assume that uber were included in these figures already, its even worse. So take off 40k uber drivers off for 'licensed cabs' leaving 45k. Also take off the confirmed reports for uber drivers. 109 attacks left.

109 rapes or sexual assaults between 45k 'safe and vetted' drivers.
V
32 rapes or sexual assaults between 40k 'dangerous' uber drivers.


Whichever way you crunch it, uber seem to be considerably more safe.


Any amount of sexual assault or rape among any amount of drivers is disgusting. I am not defending these vile people who committed these acts at all. Just proving a point that I didn't really need to prove but fancied messing about with as I am slightly high on my pain meds