A BRIEF FLING WITH UBER
Ride-hailing app losing its licence means taking away an alternative to black cabs
WHEN news that Uber was being stripped of its London licence broke on Friday, it spread like wildfire and my thoughts immediately turned to Fatima, a mother of four who came to Britain from Somalia.
Fatima was an Uber driver who fetched me one morning to take me to my destination in north London.
I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with an “Assalammualaikum” and was even more surprised to find that the softspoken driver behind the wheel was a hijabi.
We chatted during the twentyminute ride, during which Fatima revealed how being an Uber driver had given her a new lease of life, a financial independence she had not enjoyed since her marriage broke up.
Work for Fatima would start immediately after she had sent her children to school and would end at three o’clock, when she fetched them at the school gates.
“My target is £130-£150 (RM737-RM850) a day, and that is easily achievable,” she said as she expertly dodged a cyclist.
Fatima and her group of hijabi friends, who also drove to make ends meet, hardly had any problems with their customers. After the initial shock or surprise seeing a hijabi Muslimah driver, clients usually settled down to engage their mobile phones and that was that.
“If I find an abusive passenger, I would just not take him,” she added.
With this decision by Transport for London (TfL), Fatima’s future and that of about 40,000 other licensed drivers hangs in the balance; they could be out of work very soon and people like me, who had come to depend so much on the app on my mobile phone, will be deprived of a convenient and affordable form of transport.
When Uber cars began operating on London roads, I was quite cautious and even apprehensive about using the service.
I began cautiously courting Uber after years of being in a love-hate relationship with two local minicab companies whose drivers, albeit arriving late, would ensure they left only when my front doors were shut.
Going out with Uber drivers gave me a sense of betrayal to a local cab company whose controller would immediately recognise my voice and even assured me of the safety of my children when and if they returned home late.
My only grudge with them was the fact that the drivers, who were said to be “around the corner”, would only arrive some 20 minutes later.
Uber drivers, as you could see on the app, were usually only about three minutes away and you could track their journey.
And when I ordered an Uber for my children, I could track the journey too, to see that they were safely sent where they wanted to go.
You need not have cash in your pockets, as long as you have money in your bank account. These are the things that I will miss when and if the decision to scrap Uber from the streets of London is actually implemented.
One must admit that the Uber app was such a simple yet brilliant idea hatched by a couple of friends who could not get a cab one snowy evening in Paris in 2008. However, in London, news of a new innovative idea such as this, had disgruntled black cab drivers, showing their disapproval with a “go slow” protest in Westminster in 2014, and minicab companies began to lose their customers too.
Uber had given many job opportunities to a lot of people who wanted to be in control of their time and income.
Like Fatima, they wanted to work only when it was convenient for them and once they had earned the quota for the day, they could easily go back to doing other work, or not work at all.
I have met accountants, lawyers, journalists and students who found that being an Uber driver had more than doubled their income. All they needed was a car and a record clean of any criminal activities. This is one of the issues being questioned.
There had, of course, been some horrible stories about passengers being left by the roadside, about attacks, both by drivers and passengers, but the fact that the drivers’ and passengers’ personal data were on record made it reassuring that anyone who committed anything wrong could not escape.
Now TfL is saying that the ridehailing app firm was not “fit and proper” to hold a London private hire operator licence and that the decision was taken on the grounds of “public safety and security implications”. This has been backed by London mayor, Sadiq Khan.
Uber’s licence is due to expire on 30 Sept and it has 21 days to appeal against TfL’s decision. It can continue to operate while any appeals are ongoing.
Now, hundreds of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for TfL to reverse its decision.
Taking away Uber, for many people, is taking away an alternative to black cabs, which charges horrendous fares, starting from the minute you sit down. It is also taking away the convenience of having a ride when and if you really need it, knowing that there is always an Uber driver cruising nearby.
Whatever the decision, I hope that Fatima would have earned enough for her brood before she seeks another alternative. She was gutsy and enterprising enough to venture out into the competitive and sometimes risky world, and I don’t think she will suffer in silence for too long.