to be furious they have banned Uber from London?

[Acidophilus]

WTF?

Uber has itsbissues but this is ridiculous.

TFL have bowed to Black cab pressure and we will all pay massively for it. Or get mini cabs that are less safe and treat heir drivers worse.

Select Committees can review in so far as investigate the law, but they certainly can't revise it! They can only make recommendations.

Bills are revised in select committees (amongst other places). They are finally approved once revised.

I'm mystified by your comment that the jobs didn't exist before Uber. I was using minicabs decades ago.
Do you honestly not understand the social and economic implications of deregulating low paid employment in this way? Most workers in this category have little or none of the vaunted flexibility - the flex is all on the employer's side. Sooner or later as tax payers we all bear the cost of bad employers.

I don't agree with black cab drivers being better because of the knowledge now

The point of the knowledge is to artificially restrict the number of black cab drivers and create a cartel.

If they have not taken assaults on women seriously and acted upon them, then this is the correct decision.

I think the safety of women and other vulnerable people is important so I'm glad TFL has taken a stand.

clueless

Yes, I understand market forces. And a fundemental tenant of those is a level playing field.

TFL isn't asking Uber to hold itself to higher standards than anyone else.
It is askig it to abide by the same (pretty slack) rules that every single other operator has to abide to

They have had multiple warnings and opportunities to comply and they've ignored them all, through sheer arrogance, and today they've come unstuck

You simply cannot say 'oh well we actually don't want to meet your minimum standards because we believe we can offer a cheap service by ignoring them'

Unless you think builders should be allowed to do the same in order to flog cheap houses, or food shops should be able to sell cheap food to people willing to risk poisoning.

It isn't interfering in a free market economy to impose minimum safety standards, ffs

Let's face it- you already said you can't wait for them all to be jobless when driverless cars come in
Eh? Where did I say that? Are you muddling me up with another poster?
Yup, sorry, it was the other GF, 5rivers.

I know many disabled Londoners who heavily rely on Uber and will really struggle without it - I do hope they get their act together and insist on crb checks for all drivers though

I dislike both Uber and black taxis equally.

Uber because the company seems to think it is above the law and is exploitative towards its 'associates' not employees
and black taxis because of their arrogance on the road. They really do think they own it.

The big argument in favour of black taxis, because they've done the knowledge, pisses me right off too. The drivers have all chosen to put themselves through so many hoops to become a cabbie because charging passengers via the meter method is a pure licence to print money!

Andrew- no of course not. So I did my research and surprise, surprise turns out he was right. Further backed up by this decision.

I personally don't think you can put a price on Personal safety. If it's £5/£10 more to take a licenced cab then I totally think I am worth the money. I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened just so I could save a tenner.

Uber have only been asked to properly vet their drivers. Normal licence conditions. Like any other mini cab firm has to comply with. Why would you support a company operating that refuses to do basic checks for the safety of passengers?
If Uber want to comply in order to operate that's fine. In the meantime its excellent that TFL are looking after Londoners.

Hopefully Uber will get their act together and do what is necessary to comply with the regs .

It would be a shame if this turns out to be a step backwards in terms of having less convenience and competitiveness to order cabs.

Although Uber obviously have issues, I feel a lot safer as a woman big able to order an uber from wherever I am without needing a minicab number or cash or to walk to a good place I hail a cab, than I did before Uber existed.

tammy
Why will they struggle without it, when there are thousands of other safe and reliable minicab drivers in London, at comparable prices to uber

These comments are completely baffling me

From that same article:

"As far back as 2010, Uber willfully, openly disregarded local taxi regulations, not only pricing and entry rules, but driver screening, licensing and insurance requirements. A former Uber employee explained that “…it’s not just that Uber has adopted the business school maxim “Don’t ask for permission; ask for forgiveness”—it has instituted a policy of asking for neither.” Uber was not trying to “deregulate” taxi service—“deregulation” or regulatory reform assumes that democratically elected local officials have the authority to determine how local taxi service should be structured, and implies that all competitors should be subject to the same “level playing field” set of rules.

"Uber wanted the freedom to evade insurance and other costs that its competitors were still obligated to incur, and wanted to establish that it did not respect the right of democratically elected governments to control local taxi service and could disregard any rules it found inconvenient. Problems with passenger safety and accident risks led to major waves of bad publicity, and the savings from this regulatory arbitrage were not huge. But Uber was determined to establish that local regulators and politicians would (or could) do nothing to seriously rein in a company backed up by Silicon Valley billionaires...
...
"In 2014 Travis Kalanick described Uber as a band of heroic tech innovators who would provide massive benefits for consumers and drivers but for the overwhelming political power of taxi owners and regulators.
...
"Uber’s PR provided no information about how their alleged innovations actually benefited customers or drivers, did not mention the multi-billion subsidies that were the actual source of those benefits, did not explain how a highly fragmented and competitive industry constituted a “cartel”, and did not explain why the public should see Silicon Valley billionaires pursuing industry dominance as the disadvantaged underdog in a battle with those fragmented and disorganized incumbents. Uber brought in high-powered political operatives who had worked at the highest levels of government; in Las Vegas Uber spent more on lobbyists than the entire casino industry, and in California had a larger lobbying team than any bank."

sparechange

Laughing out loud at the idea of tfl creating a "level playing field" - is that the same tfl that states that only black cabs can be hailed and the uber app mechanism of ordering a cab was contravening this?

A free market economy is the opposite of a level playing field, it's a meritocracy where the consumer votes with their feet, as they have with uber - the services people want thrive whereas the ones people don't fail (like black cabs).

Unfortunately big government meddling kills enterprise, if what you and many other on here want is the equivalent of Uber but with more stringent safety checks, if there is genuine customer demand for that then the market will respond and someone will fill that gap in the market... And that may in turn kill off uber.

But what company in their right mind would want to start up such an initiative with an anti capitalist, protectionist mayor at the realm who may change the goal posts at any point?

C8H10N4O2
Bills are revised in select committees (amongst other places). They are finally approved once revised.

Crumbs, not that it really matters as all this select committee nonsense we're talking about came about because another poster said contracts had been ruled unintelligible by a select committee.. But since you're keeping on about this, no, you're mistaken yet again, bills are not revised they are investigated or further evidence is gathered by the SC, after which amendments are returned to the House to a full House committee... Again, this is not the revision of law!

I'm mystified by your comment that the jobs didn't exist before Uber. I was using minicabs decades ago.
Were you using Uber drivers decades ago? No. So Uber work didn't exist decades ago did it then? So I stand by what I said - that the Uber work didn't exist before Uber.

Do you honestly not understand the social and economic implications of deregulating low paid employment in this way?
Oh, you mean do I not agree with your skewed viewpoint? Do you honestly not understand the freedom of opportunity, the flexibility, the incredible enrichment that can have people doing multiple careers and earning money at the same time with companies like Uber in the gig economy? Do you honestly not understand it's 2017 and not 1848?

Most workers in this category have little or none of the vaunted flexibility - the flex is all on the employer's side.
Seriously, what part of "you can work whenever you want, at whatever times you want, and for whoever you want" do you not understand about driving for Uber? Kindly answer that.

I just want to make a point about who decided to revoke Uber's licence in London.

A PP wrote: Spineless labour mayor sucks up to the black cab drivers. Plus ca change, plus que le same old shit.
Ban will no doubt get overturned but Khan has done his grandstanding. Twat.

But it's Transport for London (TfL) that's suspended Uber. Not the mayor all by himself. He's chair of TfL, but this decision is not his personal decision. TfL - a local government body - decided on this as a group.

You might not agree with the decision, and you might not like Sadiq Khan, but please don't accuse him of deciding on this by himself, on a whim, or through some kind of authoritarian diktat.

That is simply not true.

PrincessFiorimonde
But it's Transport for London (TfL) that's suspended Uber. Not the mayor all by himself. He's chair of TfL,

You're correct, not the Mayor himself. But how much influence do you think Chairs of organisations. Here's a clue in TFL's case: TFL is controlled by the Mayor, who has appointed himself as Chair of TFL and chooses every other board member.

I personally don't think you can put a price on Personal safety. If it's £5/£10 more to take a licenced cab then I totally think I am worth the money. I wouldn't forgive myself if something happened just so I could save a tenner.

yes you can. we all do it daily when we step outside of our homes and cross the street talking on our phones.

The big argument in favour of black taxis, because they've done the knowledge, pisses me right off too. The drivers have all chosen to put themselves through so many hoops to become a cabbie because charging passengers via the meter method is a pure licence to print money!

it's a great example of government regulation gone crazy. Does anyone actually want this? The answer is clearly no, yet it's a way for the government to support a monopoly. In the age of smartphones and sat navs, having drivers have "the knowledge" is just not nearly as useful as it was, and it's clear people are willing to pay for it. it's obviously just there to put up barriers to entry into the profession to keep the supply of drivers low. What uber did is actually innovate and produce a product that people like.

*aren't willing

@Flowerpot1234

Do you agree that Uber have been using Greyball to obstruct local government authorities and licensing officers trying to investigate Uber?

Or do you think it's a lie?

"In March, it was revealed that the ride-hailing company was using a custom-built tool, known as ‘Greyball’ software, to deceive law enforcement.

When local regulators would try to track down drivers, Uber used Greyball to show them a fake version of the Uber app to try and protect themselves..."

"...Uber had used Greyball to evade local government authorities in the United States, Australia, South Korea, and China.

The software used several methods to identify and deny service to government officials who were investigating Uber."

metro.co.uk/2017/09/22/what-is-the-greyball-software-uber-used-to-avoid-the-law-6948057/

Do you think they are fit and proper to operate a public transport service?

Kindly answer that.

PigletJohn
@Flowerpot1234
Do you agree that Uber have been using Greyball to obstruct local government authorities and licensing officers trying to investigate Uber?
Or do you think it's a lie?
Blah blah blah
Kindly answer that.

Oh really, this is too, too funny.
So you can't come back on anything I raised in response to your ridiculous socialist rantings. So you hijack my conversation with another poster asking them to answer a question, you can't answer that either, and come out with this.

And then it gets even funnier. As I am the one who first came on here and said it was all about Greyball!!!

And now you're asking me whether I agree they have been using Greyball in the way I already said they were!!

Yes, I think they were!

Oh dear. That was off script wasn't it? What will you do now?
ROFL. Thank you, I shall go to bed now laughing my sweet derriere off.

Flowerpot is mistaken in thinking that only socialists want to see businesses that behave decently and legally.

I'm glad she doesn't think Uber are fit and proper to operate a public transport service

I've just looked up the TfL board members- they come from a range of backgrounds and have their own reputations to consider e.g. Tanni GT - do people honestly think she, for one, would just roll over and do SK's bidding? That's bloody patronising and frankly stupid

I hadn't heard of uber until a few weeks ago. We don't have it here that I'm aware of. How long has it been around? Essentially getting into a taxi of whatever type is a risk. You are shut in a car with a stranger. If that stranger is vetted, registered etc. the risk is lessened but it is still there and has to be balanced against the alternatives like with most things.

I am very pleased with the result today.....

Detest Uber, their practices and the awful statistics that surround their system. Deeply concerned at their lack of reporting, safety, driver regulations and checks and also how this is all thinly veiled as "innovative progress"

For the record, most Londoners I know and work with value safety and decent practices above a cheap ride.

And for those who actually consider their prices better/fairer, a quick google of Uber fare surging may open your eyes further:

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uber-drivers-work-together-price-surge-go-offline-charge-customers-more-game-app-supply-demand-a7872871.html

Also very interesting how the Evening Standard (edited by George Osborne who we know has had shady dealings with Uber) were so quick to report "Londoners outrage". He does not in any way speak for this Londoner or any I have spoken to today.

I really hope their license is never re-issued, but suspect that Uber will tirelessly avert their mess at any cost. Hope not though.