Taxi and Private Car Hire Market, Last Nights Short Debate Over PH Proposals.

Lord Bradshore asked Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have for bringing up to date the regulation of the taxi and private car hire market.

First, it is important to decide where the taxi business should be regulated. 

There is a difference in some parts of legislation between national issues and the parts that are devolved, as are most parts in London, to the mayor. 

With the creation of combined authorities, when the opportunity comes, it would be as well for the Government to consider devolving powers over taxis and private hire cars to those authorities.

The existing legislation is very old and a lot of it begins in the 19th century. These laws have not held very well in these days of information technology and apps, by which people can summon private hire cars. 

I want to make it clear that I and, I think, those on my side of this House support the freedom of choice for the passenger and acknowledge the benefits that have been brought to many people who use Addison Lee, Uber and other such bodies.

Read whole Debate, 9 Speeches. 

                >Click Here<

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LTC Unveil TX5 Hybrid Prototype At Lancaster House Today.

A new hybrid black cab that will be able to seat six people was due to be unveiled today during the state visit of the Chinese President.

The London Taxi Company was to reveal the battery-powered TX5 prototype at Lancaster House in St James’s at an event to promote Britain’s creative industries due to be attended by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as well as Xi Jinping.

The hybrid, which switches over to a petrol engine when the battery runs out, is expected to hit the showrooms in 2017, a year before new rules come into force that all taxi or private hire vehicles will have to be “zero-emission” capable.

The TX5 was designed in Barcelona by British designers and vows to captures the “spirit of past generations” of black cabs.

Geely, the Chinese car manufacturer that owns the LTC, will build the black cab at a new £300 million plant outside Coventry, creating 1,000 jobs,

As well as seats for six - instead of the current five - passengers, it features front-opening “suicide doors” and more leg-room for the driver. It also has a panoramic glass roof, in-built wifi and charging points for electrical devices.

Peter Johansen, chief executive of The London Taxi Company said: “We are hugely excited to be unveiling the TX5 prototype design for the first time and in such high company.

“The new vehicle has a wealth of new features, which will all be tried and tested and then tested again to provide a perfect balance of timeless design driven by ground-breaking technology.”

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Met Stick Two Fingers Up, At Taxi Rank Complaints : Good News, Forge Taxi Rank Extension

Didn't take long for the Met police to go back on their word of making an effort for a better understanding of the problems Taxi drivers are facing around London' West End. 

Over the last 8 months drivers attached to the Mayfair mob have regularly been calling 101, to report cars/minicabs parked on our ranks at venues around the West End. Callers were given a CAD number which is recorded as a complaint that can and has (in certain cases) resulted in a site visit.

Well it now seems the police have taken it upon themselves to downgrade our complaints. Callers using 101 to complain about rank contraventions, will now be given a CAH number. 

This means that future calls will only be recorded as a phone call, rather than a complaint. Also site visits will no longer be afforded to drivers complaining about cars refusing to move off our ranks. 

In fact this looks to all intent and propose that the Met are sticking two fingers up to the Taxi trade, saying "just get on with it". Not the first time we've seen the Met attempting to massage their complaint statistics...no complaints....no problems.

On a brighter note, the promised extension of the Forge rank from two spaces to four, has now been marked out and fully approved. In spite of fierce opposition from our competitors, the rank extension is a direct result of the Mayfair Mobs expansion into the City, with regular "hits" at this establishment, resulting in work being won back from the touts.

A big thank you must go to @davebenidorm166 who has been relentless in pursuing the City of London Corporation over this extension. Well done Dave.

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Myths, Lies And Statistics? A Report On Compliance And Enforcement

Every Licensed Taxi driver in London is aware of the shocking under performance of TfL compliance. We've even had this confirmed by the GLA report "Future Proof", where TfL were found to be woefully inadequate.

In the report a number of recommendations were made by the GLA transport committee, but after a year since the publication of the report, we are still waiting for these recommendations to be implemented. TfL tell us they're working on introducing some of the recommendations. A complete unsatisfactory state of affairs from our regulatory licensing authority. 

But now, to add insult to injury, in a recent announcement on their website, TfL have managed to out do any previous inadequacies aimed at the licensed Taxi trade and sprinkled it with misinformation.

In the report, TfL state that annual licensing inspection includes the checking of insurance for taxis and private hire vehicles. This would give the impression that to get a Taxi or Private Hire vehicle licensed, the Hire and reward insurgence would have to be in place integral to the inspection. While this is most certainly the case for Taxis (who also have to display a cover note inside the vehicle), this is not the case for PHVs. It is possible to licence a vehicle for use as a PHV, while only being insured with standard cover. 

This is born out by the next sentence

Insurance for PHVs is also something being considered as part of the regulatory review of private hire services which is currently underway.

Being considered!!!

Public safety, being considered!!!

So they admit the error and are considering making a change to regulations.....sometime in the future.

Misinformation : TfL prosecutions

TfL say that between 1 January to 30 April 2015, they successfully prosecuted 33 drivers for illegally plying for hire and other illegal activity. The misleading bit is "and other illegal activity". Misleading by the fact this statistic isn't broken down or further explained. 

Within the corridors of the PR spin doctors, this is known as double accounting, where statistics already used, can be bundled in with the not so impressive figures to make them look better.

Funny how TfL can give the exact number of parking tickets they gave out, or the exact number of cars they moved on and even the exact number of drivers who were sent home because they didn't have their ID. But they can't offer the exact number of PHV drivers, convicted of illegally plying for hire!

Operation Neon:

Since the launch of the ongoing Operation Neon on 8 May 2015, there have been a total of 48 operations. These have resulted in: blah blah blah.

We are then treated to a list of numbers representing supposed offences. All the figures given relate to vehicles and individuals being "reported".

Their are no statistics offered of any conviction, or revocations resulting from the reports. There is however no mention of the disastrous Eddie Nestor photo opportunity, where senior TfL officers were openly touted live on air, resulting in ....you guessed it nothing.

Then the final insult.

TfL compliance desperately try to back up Leon Daniels ridiculous statement that PH drivers have "switch on switch off" hire and reward insurance.  After making inquiries to the Association of British Insurers, we know no that such policies exist. 

But TfL still put this in their statement:

Insurance

Taxis need to have Hire and Reward insurance in place at all times. Current regulations require private hire drivers to have Hire and Reward insurance in place whenever they are undertaking a private hire journey. 

They then wipe their hands of the responsibility of insuring all passengers are fully covered, by passing the buck!

"It is the private hire operator's responsibility to ensure that the appropriate Hire and Reward insurance is in place for vehicles used for private hire bookings."

Woefully inadequate and Totally Failing London.

The UCG are currently observing and documenting the performance of TfL compliance. Please read their article 

>ClickHere<

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Why the long face....we've won a major victory!...by Thomasthetaxi.

So, the Hon Sir Duncan Brian Walter Ouseley has handed down his opinion, based on the letter of the law as it stands. 

And his opinion is that Uber's smartphone app, is not a Taximeter, even though it is a device that calculates the fare using both time and distance (which is the dictionary definition of a Taximeter). Even Uber, in their instructional guide to drivers refer to it as a meter!

And are we surprised? of course not.

TfL have won their case plus TfL managers/directors past and present have been vindicated. 

Ever since the Uber app was first approved, TfL have been accused of sanctioning illegal activity. There have also been allegations of corruption, strongly denied by ex commissioner Sir Peter Hendy when he appeared in front of a GLA transport committee. 

So what does this verdict mean to us...the Taxi trade. Is it indeed a defeat, or is this a major victory?

The surge rates will now continue, passenger complaints of huge fares after sitting in gridlock traffic, drivers getting lost, taking the long way round, all adding to an increase in cost...this all continues. 

Had Uber lost, they would have had to change their modus operandi to a more user friend system and be bought inline with every other PH operator. 

Let's make no mistake, as good as their platform is, the threat to our trade is not coming from the efficiency of Uber's technology!

 Many passenger once stung are reluctant to reuse. A large proportion of rides are made up from customer promotions and money off vouchers.

To give you a for instance, in a three hour period, at the height of a busy Saturday night earlier this summer, Uber's system processed 10,000 rides. At that time they had an alleged work force of approx 10,000 drivers. With just over half their drivers actually on shift, this equates to 2 jobs per unit, in a three hour period. 

At that rate, their drivers cannot sustain financial stability and are forced to tout to make their money up. 

But this is where we can fight back, where we can make a difference.

For many decades drivers circulated, looking for waving hands but this has now changed. People do not want to walk around looking for vacant taxis. They want a ride sitting outside the venue, the club, the hotel, the restaurant. And they don't care if that vehicle is a cab, a minicab, a scab cab, whether it has a licence or insurance, as long as it's there when they come out. 

With touts reluctance to pay clipboard johnnies for work that comes to them anyway, has seen the apatite for licence variation applications all but drying up. TfL are finally considering the end of satellite offices. 

Enter stage right....the Mayfair Mob. 

A group of like minded drivers under strong leadership, have been raking back the work lost to touts at night venues. 

These rank and file cabbies from across the trade, have achieved more in just a few months, than the large so called representative orgs have in many years. 

New ranks at Hakassan and Novikov (once thought unobtainable), an extension to the Forge rank on Cornhill effectively doubling capacity. Weekend marshals being deployed at the Forge and Novikov's. 

Their work, in league with the UCGup and FlashDemo Twitter accounts, has been aspirational and has expanded into Shorditch, Shepherds Bush and soon to come Fulham and Chelsea.

Their creed easy to follow; Clean Cab, no brooming, take credit cards. Simple but highly affective. Massive amounts of work has been clawed back from tout operations in the West End and City.

You can't buy this badge, it has to be earned. 

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The New York Tech Take Over....by Sean Day.

The supposition that apps need to capture the intense ordnance market of major cities does satiate the fascist tech utopian argument that street hailing and ehailing cannot exist harmoniously. The solution- ban street hailing altogether! Yep! It isn't a misprint. If you read USA based tech magazines, you would be forgiven for thinking that hailing a taxi the traditional way, is all but dead and buried. 

Silicon Valley’s equivalent over Old St way is roughly five years behind New York as far as the technological descent goes, but we procrastinate at our peril. London will be an experiential playground once the Shoreditch set have matured.

Even as we arm ourselves, they are assuming- prematurely at least- that everyone owns a smartphone and has credit. Even as a basic prerequisite, the onus levied on us to be indelibly linked to a product and its omnipresent service provider subordinates our entire existence to something that is extrinsic. Tech articles frequently need reminding that a smartphone is not yet a chip in ones brain.

Dare I take the somewhat unfashionable stance that even discussing making ‘street hailing’ illegal as though it were inescapable, should be worrisome. Understandably, IT & Tech Business publications aren't the platforms to jolt its readership back to an unimaginable time when there was actually a choice (an argument that is perpetually smacked between taxi drivers eyes by gizmo adherents), nevertheless, we can't remove the human out of the equation completely, can we? No! won't let it!

It confounds me that any consideration to the mere inference of a social concept has already been annihilated in favour of getting rid of street hailing as the only possible solution. 

Viral use of phenomenal technology is already monopolised and embedded data stating unequivocally, ‘EVOLVE OR DIE’ can be found under FAQ. 

An alternative version can be found on YouTube titled, ‘F*** off and die.’ All of which is nothing more than inverted 'protectionism' (another term overly used to target taxi drivers and those pesky luddite regulations that bang on about something called 'safety'. Tech no more weens out unsavories any more than democracies do, safeguards actually have to be formatted. Whatever, the word safety is so 2010. The more tech savvy term is ‘collateral damage’.

 Have you ever forgotten your smartphone at home? Has the subsequent anxiety compelled you to turn back to reunite yourself with it? 

Did you justify doing so under the umbrella of ‘in case of an emergency’?Yes? 

Then you'll surrender to the fact there are legitimate safety concerns? You can't always have your virtual cake and eat it!

Before I forget entirely, somewhere amongst the malware, forced to share stuff that's trickling down from above, is the commodity, the lowly driver (me), who’s fate is relentlessly subjected to the sociopathic whims of life long bachelor geeks and their interminably tiresome wannabes, the basement bloggers. The utter irrelevance of the service provider (an app’s primary consumer btw) is on a par with the magnitudinal disregard for liberty. Deduced to being the mere byproduct of software, the service provider is expected to pay a premium for the work that was his to begin with. Not dissimilar to the Government using our money to bail out the Banking industry from their deregulated mess, only to to sell them back to us.

Did I mention liberty? Lady Liberty, the statue was France's ideological gift to America for embracing the principles of democracy. Those values are superseded by the rapid emergence of technological wizardry. Silicon- valley doesn't account for that one remaining person who, through no fault of her own, has fallen off the zooming platform into the libertarian abyss.

To ensure a fair playing field for a desperately seeking alternative to the ubiquitously trending of Uber EVERYWHERE, those interfering regulators will be lobbied to make street hailing ILLEGAL. Cash and envelopes are still very much alive. There you go! The future is now! If you can't HACK it, you know what to do? 

We have only just entered the synthetic world of Corporate Communism! Ugh!!! One consolation is, if we did lose the job we love (for the record, this stubborn old mule ain't planning on going anywhere), at least we will still have feelings about it, and that's a good thing. 

And you never know, by then there might be such a thing as virtual euthanasia. Death without the commitment. 

See you out there on the mean streets, doing what we do best! Need I say more? 

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The moment I learned just how far Uber will go to silence journalists and attack women

A big debate among the Pando staff for the past two years has been over just how morally bankrupt Uber is. Earlier this evening, a bombshell story by Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith proves the reality is way worse than anyone on our team could have expected.

And that’s saying something.

Back in 2012, Paul Carr first raised serious concerns about the company’s view that both riders and drivers are disposable commodities in an all-out Randian battle to maximize profits. He uninstalled the app when he wrote that piece, and he started a drumbeat of press around these concerns.

Then, in 2014, Carmel DeAmicis exposed that an Uber driver accused of assault had a criminal record that should have been uncovered by the background checks Uber claimed to do. She further documented a “blame the passenger” culture at the company when such complaints came up.

It started to snowball: An investigation at The Verge exposed cut throat competitive tactics that the company has taken against its primary competitor Lyft.

Then, a few weeks ago, I wrote a story about the outrageous sexism woven deeply into the culture of the company. We’ve seen it in the company’s PR team discrediting female passengers who accuse drivers of attacking them by whispering that they were “drunk” or “dressed provocatively.”

We’ve seen it in CEO Travis Kalanick’s comments that he calls the company “boober” because of all the tail he gets since running it.

And on October 22, we saw it again with an offensive campaign in Lyon that encouraged riders to get picked up by hot female drivers, essentially a scary invitation to objectify (or worse) any woman working for the company. That ad was taken down once exposed by Buzzfeed, but sources tell us no one was fired for taking that kind of “initiative.” We also heard that Kalanick’s misogyny is such a problem that recently hired political operative David Plouffe had made it a priority to work on the CEO’s behavior. As if that kind of misogyny-- and encouragement of it in a corporate culture-- is something that careful media training can repair rather than simply disguise.

I have known many of Uber’s key investors and founders personally for six to ten years. Over that time I’ve seen an ever-worsening frat culture where sexist jokes and a blind eye here-or-there have developed into a company where the worst kind of smearing and objectification of women is A-ok. It’s impossible to prove that Kalanick directly ordered things like slut-shaming female passengers or the creepy Lyon ad -- and, to be clear, there’s no evidence he was personally involved in either of those scandals -- but let’s be clear: The acceptance of this kind of behavior comes from the top.

When I saw the Lyon post, it was finally enough for me. As a woman and mother of two young kids, I no longer felt safe using Uber and deleted the app from my phone.

And yet, somehow, despite years now of Pando carefully chronicling this disturbing escalation of horrible behavior -- which has been considered cute by many of the other tech blogs and excused away by the VCs profiting off Uber-- the company still has the ability to shock and horrify me.

Today, in his horrifying scoop, Smith writes about the the lengths that at least one Uber executive, Emil Michael, was willing to go to discredit anyone-- particularly a woman-- who may try to question how Uber operates.

Ruining her life? Manufacturing lies? Going after her family? Apparently it’s all part of what Uber has described as its “political campaign” to build a $30 billion (and counting) tech company. A campaign that David Plouffe was hired to “run,” that’s looking more like a pathetic version of play acting House of Cards than a real campaign run by a real political professional. Because step one of an illegal smear campaign against a woman is: Don’t brag about it to a journalist at a party.

The woman in question? The woman that this Uber executive has vowed to go to nearly any lengths to ruin, to bully into silence? Me.

I first heard of this when Smith called me for comment over the weekend. I was out late at a work dinner in London and stepped out into the cold to take the call. A chill ran down my spine that had little to do with the weather, as he described the bizarre interaction. I immediately thought of my kids at home halfway around the world, just getting out of their baths and groggily pulling on their pajamas, and how the new line that this company was willing to cross would affect them.

We are used to intimidation here. We’ve had sources try to intimidate Pando into silence by withholding access, threatening $300 million lawsuits, spreading lies about our relationships with our backers-- or even suggesting that we’re funded by the CIA. We have mobs unleashed on us on Twitter, seemingly weekly.

So my concern wasn’t more lies winding up online about me. Sadly, I’ve had to get used to it. My concern was that the nature of these lies weren’t the same trumped up bullshit about Pando being influenced by its investors. That smear hasn’t worked, and we share several investors with Uber, so that dog doesn’t exactly hunt.

No, these new attacks threatened to hit at my only vulnerability. The only part of my life that I’d do anything to protect: My family and my children.

In that moment outside an Indian restaurant in London, I stood numb listening to Smith asking me if I had a comment, and I thought of my kids. They were somewhere covered in kitten and dinosaur pajamas giggling and running through the house in a last ditch effort to fight bedtime. Maybe they were looking up at the moon, remembering how many times I’ve told them I’d always be somewhere looking at the same moon even if I couldn’t be there to rock them.

I had two thoughts. The first was: What possible comment could I give Smith to sum up the terror I felt over an attack at my family?

And then this: Please, God, let this be how bad it gets. Please let the worst of this be that I have to one day have the “Mommy has a lot of people who hate her because of what she writes…” conversation with them.

I begged no deity in particular that the escalation of dangerous, win-at-all-costs, no-matter-the-casualties warfare Uber has waged on anyone-- drivers, riders, or journalists-- who crosses them could just end here. That it could just end with a wild plan of lies and character assassination of me, personally. I could weather that.

Sadly, I don’t see any reason to think it will. Unless forces more powerful than me in the Valley-- or even Washington DC-- see this latest horror as a wakeup call and decide this is enough. That the First Amendment and rights of journalists do matter. That companies shouldn’t be allowed to go to illegal lengths to defame and silence reporters. That all these nice words about gender equality in tech aren’t just token board appointments every once in a while. That professional women in this industry actually deserve respect. That they shouldn’t be bullied with the same old easy slurs about bitchiness or sexual objectification. That deep scary misogyny in a culture isn’t something that you hire a campaign manager to “message out” of a founder, nor is it something you excuse as genius at work. That there is a line someone can cross, even amid an era where the Valley believes founders can never be fired.

Simply put: That this isn’t OK.

I’ve seen other times the Valley’s greed has tiptoed into this range. It came out that HP pretexted reporters, illegally spying on them to find out where leaks were coming from. There was the time that Facebook hired Burson-Marsteller to persuade journalists to attack Google. And we’ve chronicled a shocking wage collusion suit that unfairly suppressed the wages of millions.

Each time the Valley’s soul was pulled back to center not because the bad actors in question suddenly had a crisis of confidence, but because powerful forces made them recalibrate. HP was hauled into court. Facebook was exposed in the press and shamed into changing tactics. And the only reason the wage collusion pact didn’t ultimately succeed was because emerging powerhouses like Facebook and LinkedIn refused to take part. That’s still winding its way through the courts, and the victims may eventually get something close to restitution.

Uber’s dangerous escalation of behavior has just had its whistleblower moment, and tellingly, the whistleblower wasn’t a staffer with a conscience, it was an executive boasting about the proposed plan. It’s gone so far, that there are those in the company who don’t even realize this is something you try to cover up. It’s like a five-year-old pretending to be Frank Underwood. Only one with billions of dollars of assets at his disposal.

And lest you think this was just a rogue actor and not part of the company’s game plan, let me remind you Kalanick telegraphed exactly this sort of thing when he sat on stage at the Code Conference last spring and said he was hiring political operatives whose job would be to “throw mud.” I naively thought he just meant Taxi companies. Let me also remind you: This is a company you trust with your personal safety every single time you use it. Let me also remind you: The executive in question has not been fired.

Uber has more than thirty investors including:

Menlo Ventures

Google Ventures

Kleiner Perkins

Summit Partners

Blackrock

Benchmark

TPG Growth

Jeff Bezos

Troy Carter

CrunchFund

Goldman Sachs

Scott Banister

Alfred Lin

Lowercase Capital

First Round

Naval Ravikant

Jason Calacanis

Shervin Pishevar

(UPDATE: An earlier version of this post listed 500 Startups as an Uber investor, based on their listing on Crunchbase. Dave McClure has responded in the comments to say that they are not.)

I've already started to reach out to the major ones individually to ask, on the record, whether they will continue to publicly and privately support the company in light of these most recent scandals. Whether there is any line that Kalanick can cross that goes too far. And I’m encouraging anyone concerned about this dangerous escalation of the Uber playbook-- from callous libertarian to boasting brogrammer to deeply bullying and misogynist leader of a massive company-- to ask the same questions.

The story I wrote a few weeks ago had enough of an impact that those within Uber decided they need to destroy me personally at any cost. The market is turning on Uber, seeing the company’s soul for what it is. With any luck, Ben Smith’s scoop will finally force real change from the inside.

 UPDATE: Emil Michael called my cell phone shortly after I published this and asked to talk off the record. I'm not entirely sure how he got my phone number as I've never met or previously spoken with him. I told Michael that I would not talk to him off the record. This is an issue of vital importance to our readers, Uber's riders, journalists and women in the Valley, and I will not have a conversation I can't share with them. He said goodbye and hung up.

 UPDATE II: After the above update, Michael sent me the following email...

Dear Sarah,

I wanted to apologize to you directly — I am sorry.  I was at an event and was venting, but what I said was never intended to describe actions that would ever be undertaken by me or my company toward you or anyone else.  I was definitively wrong and I feel terrible about any distress I have caused you. Again, I am sorry.  

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