TfL denied Uber operator license, ride hailing service wins on appeal (Sept 2020)

[maomao]

Are you sure? I am sure Addison Lee's cars have been marked for at least the last fifteen years.

They tried it several times before it was legal so you may have seen them. But it wasn't legal till approx 2009. Everyone knew the black Galaxies were Al cars anyway.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Maybe. Dunno. Most of them ain't.

Ever single Uber I've ever been in has been branded as such.

 

[Spymaster]

Drivers responsible for insurance. Companies responsible for keeping a copy of that insurance on record. I've never knowingly given work to an uninsured driver and would never do so.

Some companies will organise car rental and insurance for a driver but on paper this needs to be done as another company. So if you work for JB taxis you get your jobs and pay from JB Chauffeur and you get your car and insurance from JB car hire.

With reference to Uber specifically the app shuts the driver out the moment the insurance expires.

What would a driver typically pay for a years private hire insirance? Geezer last night said it was 3k a year. That's bollocks isn't it?

 

[Pickman's model]

10s of thousands of redundancies. Great stuff.

0 redundancies. Look again at uber's business model.

 

[maomao]

What would a driver typically pay for a years private hire insirance? Geezer last night said it was 3k a year. That's bollocks isn't it?

It's about that. 50 odd quid a week.

 

[Spymaster]

It's about that. 50 odd quid a week.

Oh, ok.

This chap was saying that Uber drivers save themselves 3 grand a year by just buying regular insurance and telling their passengers to say that they're just friends of the driver if there was an accident.

 

[Pickman's model]

It'll have no effect then?

When I was made redundant I got a payout. Do you think Uber is issuing redundancy notices?

Your legal rights when facing redundancy

 

[pengaleng]

fuck uber.

 

[maomao]

Ever single Uber I've ever been in has been branded as such.

Birmingham? Dunno. Could be council regs could be local Uber policy. I've never even seen one in London.

 

[maomao]

Oh, ok.

This chap was saying that Uber drivers save themselves 3 grand a year by just buying regular insurance and telling their passengers to say that they're just friends of the driver if there was an accident.

That's horseshit. Would you agree to that if you were a passenger? Tfl wouldn't have given them this long if they were doing that.

 

[Spymaster]

That's horseshit. Would you agree to that if you were a passenger? Tfl wouldn't have given them this long if they were doing that.

Of course. That was clearly bollocks, which is why I thought the 3 grand thing was probably nonsense too. I just sat there nodding.

 

[DaveCinzano]

 

[Magnus McGinty]

0 redundancies. Look again at uber's business model.

This was pointed out earlier. Slow off the mark today chap.

 

[maomao]

Is the word redundancy only usable in it's strictest legal sense?

I was once given a sum of money equivalent to a redundancy payment (to the penny) and one of the conditions of me receiving it was that I didn't say to anyone that I'd been made redundant. To this day I believe that I had been made redundant though.

 

[The Fornicator]

I have a lot of sympathy for Black cab drivers. The ones I know have done other delivery jobs. Being a Black cab driver is first time they have been paid well. Unlike previous jobs.

So do I, although the attitude of a few lets down the majority.

I think it's important to remember very many of these drivers come from a background of poverty of education, their parents weren't educated, their grandparents weren't educated, education has not been generationally valued in the family.

More often than not, that consigns the next generation to 'local schools' and, later, low paid work. What you see with many black cab drivers is someone quite bright trying to break the cycle.

So doing the knowledge - 3 years, 5 years, whatever - is a route out of the poverty trap for people who didn't enjoy decent education; they can earn semi-skilled and even skilled income levels, at least in the past aspire to own a home, to give the children opportunities, to live a better life.

Contrast with Uber; personally I have never met an Uber driver who could make a living not working a lot of unsocial hours. I'm not sure I've met one who isn't in denial about what they actually earn. What I have met is a surprising number of older men who would rather work for next to nothing - for the dignity of working - than face age discrimination and what they perceive to be the stigma of unemployment.

I have also met many younger family men who need a government 'top up' and just as many other younger men who share a bedroom in dorm-type houses.

It really is very, very tough out there in so many ways for unskilled men in their 50s and 60s. Blacck can prices are high, but they are mostly high relative to the indignity of the silicon valley workplace.

 

[maomao]

I nodded off on the DLR today (occupational hazard, seventh 12 hour shift in 8 days) and woke up when it started moving backwards from Bow Church (part closed due to Crossrail and I hadn't checked) so I ended up getting a minicab from Uber to Stratford station from Devons Road.

Anyway Ali who drove me told me that it's modern day slavery. He works for two companies, a minicab company in Romford and Uber. If Uber hadn't shafted the cab trade in the first place he could go back to just working out of Romford. Last week he was paid eighteen pounds for driving a group of people from SE1 to Hayes which is far too cheap for the time and expense involved. He hopes they lose their license.

 

[sealion]

Are you sure? I am sure Addison Lee's cars have been marked for at least the last fifteen years.

They have but it wasn't legal. They payed a fine and carried on. Then the Addison Lee branded Stubber /ashtray outside pubs and clubs popped up with their number on.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I don't have much time for Addison Lee, but I did laugh at this post on the bandwidthz thread, copied here for those that don't follow that thread...

 

[Gramsci]

So do I, although the attitude of a few lets down the majority.

I think it's important to remember very many of these drivers come from a background of poverty of education, their parents weren't educated, their grandparents weren't educated, education has not been generationally valued in the family.

More often than not, that consigns the next generation to 'local schools' and, later, low paid work. What you see with many black cab drivers is someone quite bright trying to break the cycle.

So doing the knowledge - 3 years, 5 years, whatever - is a route out of the poverty trap for people who didn't enjoy decent education; they can earn semi-skilled and even skilled income levels, at least in the past aspire to own a home, to give the children opportunities, to live a better life.

Contrast with Uber; personally I have never met an Uber driver who could make a living not working a lot of unsocial hours. I'm not sure I've met one who isn't in denial about what they actually earn. What I have met is a surprising number of older men who would rather work for next to nothing - for the dignity of working - than face age discrimination and what they perceive to be the stigma of unemployment.

I have also met many younger family men who need a government 'top up' and just as many other younger men who share a bedroom in dorm-type houses.

It really is very, very tough out there in so many ways for unskilled men in their 50s and 60s. Blacck can prices are high, but they are mostly high relative to the indignity of the silicon valley workplace.

I agree with you on poor wages.

But not on the poverty of education.

What is needed is for all work to be properly paid. The distinction between skilled and unskilled work is ideological in itself. The assumption being that so called unskilled jobs should be paid less.

Being a Black cab driver, docker or printer were all jobs that guys I know parents did. They all were for a time relatively well paid. Black cabs are the only one left.

Btw I know people in delivery and cab business with degrees.

Its not poverty of aspiration that means people get low pay. Education isnt going to solve it.

 

[Gramsci]

I don't have much time for Addison Lee, but I did laugh at this post on the bandwidthz thread, copied here for those that don't follow that thread...

I know some one who used to work for AL. He gave up in the end. Paying the rental on the car and all the other expenses meant working long hours to break even.

It was insurance that got him. Driver had to pay the first £500 pounds for any damage. This is pretty standard in the industry.

The business model in cab and courier industry is to put as much of the financial risks onto the drivers as possible.

 

[purenarcotic]

I have to say I'm surprised at how wealthy/profligate many Urbanites seem to have become in the past 14 years.

You keep saying this but here in Brum it is cheaper for me to get a taxi and back to some places than it is to get the bus for two people.

 

[The Fornicator]

What is needed is for all work to be properly paid. The distinction between skilled and unskilled work is ideological in itself. The assumption being that so called unskilled jobs should be paid less.

Being a Black cab driver, docker or printer were all jobs that guys I know parents did. They all were for a time relatively well paid. Black cabs are the only one left.

This seems muddled.

In what sense are you equating 3 to 5 year knowledge learning of a Black Cab driver with the manual labour of a docker?

The reason there are no dockers and printers is because of containers and technology or, in London, docks. Even the storing and loading of containers is automated. They were well paid 'for a time' because of strong unionisation.

 

[maomao]

This seems muddled.

In what sense are you equating 3 to 5 year knowledge learning of a Black Cab driver with the manual labour of a docker?

The reason there are no dockers and printers is because of containers and technology or, in London, docks. Even the storing and loading of containers is automated. They were well paid 'for a time' because of strong unionisation.

Last but one time I was in a black cab in London the driver wouldn't shut up about Uber drivers and how they didn't know where they were going. We were approaching Old St roundabout from the South side, headed for Euston Station and I'd told him to take City Rd because I'd already checked the traffic on my phone. 5 minutes later we were sat in a traffic jam on Clerkenwell Rd while the black Prius that had been the object of his slagging had taken the second exit onto an empty City Rd. 'Just following his GPS' maybe but his GPS probably had up to date traffic reports whereas my dumbarse driver knew all the roads but seemed to find traffic at every turning. Cost me forty five fucking quid and I almost missed my train.

So unfortunately, a black cab driver's 3-5 years of knowledge training is becoming outclassed by technology and they don't seem so different to the dockers.

Not that I'm without sympathy for the drivers or the LTDA. Just that the knowledge doesn't mean what it did.

 

[maomao]

And the last time I got a black cab (return from same trip) me, my wife and infant daughter were treated to the 'traditional London' site of a fat middle-aged cab driver with his penis out urinating up the rear side of his cab on the underground cab rank at Euston. Luvverlyjubberly.

 

[The Fornicator]

So unfortunately, a black cab driver's 3-5 years of knowledge training is becoming outclassed by technology and they don't seem so different to the dockers.

The real analogy is with driverless cars, in which Uber is heavily involved.

With GPS and now route selection with real-time congestion, we're part-way through the process.

It must come hard to someone who has tried hard to break out of generational poverty through years of self study.

 

[Crispy]

EDIT: point already made 3 times

 

[The Fornicator]

See above.

 

[Reiabuzz]

Last but one time I was in a black cab in London the driver wouldn't shut up about Uber drivers and how they didn't know where they were going. We were approaching Old St roundabout from the South side, headed for Euston Station and I'd told him to take City Rd because I'd already checked the traffic on my phone. 5 minutes later we were sat in a traffic jam on Clerkenwell Rd while the black Prius that had been the object of his slagging had taken the second exit onto an empty City Rd. 'Just following his GPS' maybe but his GPS probably had up to date traffic reports whereas my dumbarse driver knew all the roads but seemed to find traffic at every turning. Cost me forty five fucking quid and I almost missed my train.

So unfortunately, a black cab driver's 3-5 years of knowledge training is becoming outclassed by technology and they don't seem so different to the dockers.

Not that I'm without sympathy for the drivers or the LTDA. Just that the knowledge doesn't mean what it did.

I think you’ll find he knew exactly what he was doing. Was the meter on perchance?

 

[maomao]

I think you’ll find he knew exactly what he was doing. Was the meter on perchance?

Of course the meter was on. He was actually horrifically embarrassed because I told him about himself and he ended up running up the stairs on Eversholt St with my kid in her buggy to help us get our train on time.

 

[Pickman's model]

.