He thinks it’s all Uber! Passenger’s shock as cabbie watches football on iPad while driving
AN UBER driver has been suspended after watching a game of football while driving a passenger across London.
He watched the Champions League match on an iPad propped up on his dashboard for most of a journey of at least 15 minutes.
And when passenger Duncan MacLeod, 27, asked him to stop, he refused. So Mr MacLeod took a video of the driver and reported him to the taxi firm.
He also gave Uber his footage, which shows the driver repeatedly looking down at the iPad as the BMW car battles through the London traffic.
Mr MacLeod said: ‘ You can’t watch TV while driving for good reason. It’s illegal. I didn’t feel 100 per cent safe. He was putting people in danger.’ Mr MacLeod had logged on to the taxi app for a journey across London at around 8pm on May 26. At the time Liverpool FC were playing Real Madrid.
He had been answering emails on his phone, so it wasn’t until some way into the journey that he realised what the driver was up to. ‘He had been watching football the whole time, for around 15 or 20 minutes,’ he said.
‘I was quite freaked out, so I asked him if he minded switching it off as it seemed unsafe, but he told me not to worry. He basically ignored me.
‘I was thinking of getting out, but I was only five minutes from my destination so I waited it out. He would look down three or four times whenever he was going straight or slow. If anything had required an emergency stop, there would have been no chance.’
After telling Uber what happened, Mr MacLeod said he received a call from the cab app to say the driver had been suspended pending an investigation. His £25 fare was refunded.
Mr MacLeod, who travels to London regularly with his job and spends about £200 a month on Uber taxis, added: ‘Uber said he was licensed by Transport for London and had been through all the security checks. It makes you wonder how long he’s been getting away with it.’
Uber said: ‘This is totally unacceptable. It’s our policy to prevent licensed private hire drivers from using our app while we investigate serious incidents.’