As someone who has campaigned and worked for the highest standards of safety and regulations in the private hire vehicle (PHV) industry for nearly half a century, I can no longer stand by without voicing my concerns for the safety of the travelling public with regards to the PHV operator Uber London Limited.
To provide a bit of background for those who do not know, I am a former PHV Driver, PHV Operator and am now the Chairman of the Licensed Private Hire Car Association (LPHCA) – a trade body that represents private hire operators. I received an MBE in 1999 for ‘services to transport in London’ after playing a key role in helping to get the PHV industry licensed in the capital.
I worked closely with the late Diana Lamplugh OBE after her daughter Suzy Lamplugh went missing in 1986, as it was thought possible that a bogus cab may have been involved; a line of enquiry that was later dropped by the police.
I worked from 2000 to 2008 with the first London Mayor Ken Livingstone on Private Hire Vehicle (PHV) Regulation and was part of his Safer Travel at Night (STAN) team. More recently I served two four-year terms on the Transport for London Board, under then Mayor of London Boris Johnson, as the PHV industry representative.
In addition to the above, I was also a primary stakeholder in the 2012 Law Commission ‘Reforming of the Law of Taxi and Private Hire Services’ review, as well as being appointed to the Government’s Task and Finish Group on Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licensing, which produced the ‘Steps Towards a Safer and More Robust System’ report in 2018.
Back to Uber now, the current Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Transport for London (TfL) have my absolute support for refusing to re-licence this company. My only surprise is that with such a well-publicised reprehensible safety record, they have been allowed to keep trading, whilst yet another appeal takes place.
Back in 2014, Uber London Limited applied to become a member of the LPHCA but we subsequently turned down their membership request as we felt it would not be appropriate for them to become members. Fast forward to 25th November 2019 and TfL, in a press release, describe Uber as “not fit and proper to hold a licence.” Events have therefore proven we were right to turn their application down.
Until recently we have not widely referenced the likes of Uber by name, but we have more broadly classified such companies as ‘regulatory disruptors’ or ‘App-only Operators’. One of the few exceptions being when Uber pleaded guilty to “…causing or permitting a person to use a motor vehicle on a road (or other public place) without a policy of insurance – contrary to s.143(1)(b) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (“RTA 1988”)…” back in 2015. This offence resulted from an Uber driver, using another LPHCA member’s hired vehicle without authorisation, to transport passengers (R v Uber London Limited [2014] (unreported)).
As the vehicle was only insured for the driver to be working for our member, this meant Uber were allowing their customers to be transported in a vehicle they were not entitled to use, which was therefore uninsured for carrying Uber passengers. TfL successfully prosecuted Uber, and this was the first sign of what have been serious safety failings in London. The trail of safety compromises since then in London and elsewhere seem endless, with data breaches, compliance failings and further prosecutions for their drivers carrying passengers without insurance.
Given that their licence was extended on appeal to enable them to demonstrate that the company had changed its ways, it is beyond belief that most recently, whilst in a probationary period, the company’s serious regulatory and safety failures in London have continued.
TfL, in my view, rightly refused to renew Uber London Limited’s licence in September 2017, however they managed to appeal and were given a shortened 15-month licence with conditions (Uber London Limited v Transport for London (26th June 2018)). At the end of that period there had been several more catastrophic failings by Uber, so TfL then issued a two-month extension to their licence to allow for more checks on the company.
TfL have subsequently decided, again quite rightly in my view, not to renew their licence as further failings have been identified, culminating in arguably the most serious failure known to PHV regulation in London; the undertaking of at least 14,000 journeys that TfL described as “putting passenger safety and security at risk.”
This meant that “…some drivers who were not even licensed one of which had previously had their licence revoked by TfL…” (as the 25th November 2019 TfL press release stated) had been allowed to drive for Uber. This may have resulted in passengers being picked up by drivers that were not medically or criminally record checked, which, in my view, should have been enough to end the company’s status as a licensed private hire vehicle operator in London.
In isolation a single occurrence of this would have been enough to revoke, let alone not renew a PHV Operator’s licence. However, the scale of these transgressions are so serious, that I am staggered they have been allowed to continue to pick-up the travelling public once again whilst appealing.
The United Trade Action Group (UTAG), a group formed by Licensed Taxi Drivers, are so incensed that they have issued a ‘pre-action protocol’ letter, with a view to commencing judicial review proceedings, in respect of TfL’s failure to suspend Uber London Limited’s Operators’ licence with immediate effect.
Rather than being contrite, Sky News reported Uber’s regional general manager for northern and eastern Europe, Jamie Heywood, as stating: “TfL’s decision not to renew Uber’s licence in London is extraordinary and wrong”, which is beyond belief (‘Uber stripped of London licence over passenger safety risk’, Sky News, 25th November 2019). True to form, a great deal of misinformation is sadly published in the media, within some cases extremely naive politicians and poorly researched journalists springing to the company’s defence.
One common piece of widely reported misinformation is that if Uber were to be permanently refused a licence, around 40,000 drivers would lose their jobs. Although that is true – regarding losing their job with Uber – we already know that many Uber drivers work for multiple PHV operators, so for this reason, it is inaccurate to suggest 40,000 drivers would be ‘out of work’.
Also, for the drivers that only work for Uber, there are currently 2,139 licensed PHV operators in London alone (according to TfL statistics obtained 12th December 2019) and most of these operators need more drivers. Therefore Uber drivers that meet the requirements and high standards of most London operators would easily be able to transition to other companies in a matter of days. Also, as Uber drivers and representative groups have complained of low pay and high commissions, moving could be a positive step towards higher fares and lower commissions.
For the mis-informed, here is the real picture. In my view the wider Uber brand has failed catastrophically as a licensed PHV operator, not only in London but elsewhere too. Outside London, Medway Council and Manchester City Council are, reportedly, also considering regulatory positions in respect of Uber businesses (‘Uber will face legal action from Medway taxi drivers and councillors’, Kent Online, 11th October 2019 and ‘Manchester may follow London with Uber ban’, The Times, 27th November 2019). Many people simply do not realise how the company operate and its serious regulatory and safety failings.
When you consider that licensed PHV drivers have been prevented from working due to small dents and stone chips on their vehicles and when you further consider that operators have been refused a licence for failing to have planning consent, of which none of these are safety concerns, you have to ask where does that sit with Uber being allowed to continue to operate? I have personally witnessed customers’ bookings being cancelled and passengers being stranded by this company, something that allegedly happens on a regular basis.
The common retort from advocates of Uber is that the service is cheap and relatively instant, however they fail to realise that does not make it safe. Yes, it can be cheap, but at times that is also an illusion. Just ask anyone who has been ‘surged’ and found out that it is not always cheaper than traditional black cabs or other private hire services.
Much is said about the technology being used by Uber as being ground-breaking when in fact many PHV operators have similar tech nowadays and, in some cases, even more advanced tech, way before Uber came on the scene in 2012.
Their photo-identity so-called ‘safety’ aspect has also been found wanting in the company’s most recent horrendous safety lapses, with at least 14,000 “…unauthorised journeys…” that had been undertaken by uninsured drivers, some of whom were also unlicensed.
The claim has been made for a long time that the wider PHV and Taxi sector is fearful of competition such as Uber. This is simply not true as the industry has no problem with competition, however everyone must be legal and compliant. There are now multiple ‘App-only’ operators in London and throughout the UK, however these companies appear to have been operating fairly and even more importantly safely within regulations, without the woeful track record that Uber has.
It is not the ‘concept’, but the ‘company’ that is the problem in my view, and I speak on the basis of safety, which is what I have spent most of my lifetime working for. As TfL have said they “…do not have confidence that Uber has a robust system for protecting passenger safety…”, yet they are allowed to continue operating, I believe this makes a complete mockery of PHV Operator licensing. Meanwhile alongside my LPHCA colleagues, I will continue to work closely with operators, drivers, regulators, passengers and all other stakeholders to ensure the highest levels of safety are upheld across our industry.
Steve Wright MBE, Chairman LPHCA