The National Taxi Association invited Plan Insurance Brokers to present their innovative plans for how the industry can confront the widespread issue of taxi insurance fraud at the recent annual conference.
Plan Insurance Brokers have been lobbying regulators and insurers along with the taxi and private hire industry to promote the need for funds and resources to be allocated to tackling the problem of drivers operating with invalid cover. They believe their plans for an online portal with the working title Taxi Insurance Checker (TIC) would provide a quick, low cost and effective solution.
Why is action needed now?
Uninsured taxi and private hire drivers have become a more high profile problem over the last 2 years due the emergence of fare booking apps such as UBER that have seen driver numbers increase by 62% since 2010.
Why Taxi and Private hire drivers must have appropriate cover:
Public Safety Concerns – as illegal touts target vulnerable passengers
Delayed Compensation Payments – for passengers if vehicles are involved in accidents
Higher Motor Insurance Costs – as law abiding drivers subsidise premiums
Licensed Taxi and Private Hire drivers not being “fit and proper” persons
Outdated systems for detecting uninsured taxi and private hire drivers can seemingly no longer cope with the volume of drivers. MD of TfL Leon Daniels described the current means of detecting drivers without suitable insurance as a “laborious, hopeless manual system.”
There are now over 300,000 drivers licensed to carry passengers on the U.K.’s roads. A nationwide audit leaked to the BBC in 2011 revealed that up to 93% of drivers might have invalid cover. Due to the volume of drivers now operating the problem is only likely to have escalated.
How are uninsured taxi drivers evading detection?
Presenting False Insurance Documents Either doctored or duplicated documentation is supplied when applying for a Taxi or Private Hire licence.
Operating with Expired, Cancelled or Invalid Cover
To avoid their vehicle showing up on the police’s Automatic Number Plate Recognition checks as unregistered on the Motor Insurance Database drivers take out cheaper private car insurance that does not provide cover to drive passengers for the purposes of “Hire and Reward.” This could be up to ten times cheaper than the premiums they should be paying.
Using Identity mirroring” scams
Multiple drivers may be operating under one licence using one vehicle
Ryan Georgiades, Managing Director of Plan Insurance Brokers believes TIC is the way forward to help rid the road of uninsured drivers:
TIC is a perfect example of how technology can streamline processes and reduce costs. If implemented it will not only save operators time but it will give them complete confidence that their drivers have valid cover in place.
And it’s not only us who think that the portal is a good idea:
The association believe the thinking behind TIC is beneficial towards not only insurers and operators but more importantly, the safety of the travelling public Wayne Casey Administration Officer of the National Taxi Association
The GMB will keep lobbying regulators such as TfL to make this a top priority. Tackling the issue of drivers with invalid insurance is vitally for operators in order to protect both the good name of their business and the reputation of the industry as a whole.”
Steve Garelick Branch Secretary ofGMB Union Professional Drivers’ Branch
So how will TIC Work?
TIC will provide authorities access to live information regarding the validity of taxi and private hire drivers’ insurance and crucially whether their policy provides cover for carrying passengers for the purposes of “Hire & Reward.”
The portal is similar in concept to the Motor Insurance Database, which has significantly reduced the number of uninsured drivers on the UK’s roads.
All taxi and private hire insurers will need to be registered on a database as approved suppliers.
Each taxi insurance certificate they issue will have a unique encrypted identifier code printed on it.
This can be decrypted by regulators, law enforcement officers, vehicle inspectors and operators by via the TIC portal.
TfL initially expressed interest in developing such a system. The main strength being that it would provide operators access to key information that would otherwise be restricted to them due to data protection.
However TfL state they have been working with the MIB to provide authorised parties (which excludes taxi and private hire operators) access to “class of use” data for private hire and taxi vehicles via the MID.
They state private hire drivers are already having their insurance checked against this system at inspection centres.
Plan have cause for concern regarding the accuracy of the “class of use” data held by the MID.
Despite insuring over 7,000 taxi and private hire vehicles their main insurer partner has received no contact from the MIB to request they supply the relevant information in the required format.
Plan have also been informed unofficially that some police forces have stopped ANPR cameras running full MID checks as the MIB charges on a per search basis and the searches were proving too costly.
I am writing an open letter to you because you will not respond to my tweets, messages and emails two days after I was assaulted and left crying by one of your drivers.
I am writing because as a female travelling at night in London I feel it is essential to let other women and men know the dangers your drivers can pose.
I am writing because not enough people know that last year there were over 300 sexual assaults, and 30 rapes, in your vehicles. If this were any other crimes there would be a huge scandal but you have managed to keep this one quiet.
And it’s not ok.
Women have a right to feel safe and protected when travelling alone, and this should be one of your non-negotiable policies. And yet horrible assaults regularly take place within your cars. The media do very little. How much have you paid them to keep quiet?
My assault happened two days ago, when I was coming back home and really wanting to get back safely and quickly.
I had had a horrible weekend with my fiance cutting off our engagement, cancelling our wedding which I was so looking forward to, and cancelling our home purchase. We were meant to move into our first home together next month.
Of course, you or your driver couldn’t possibly have known this. But regardless, you should provide a safe service to your customers: male or female, young or old, rich or poor.
They should never be made to feel intimidated, abused, frightened or upset when paying for a service which is only to be driven safely from A to B.
When I posted about this on Twitter, you didn’t reply. Instead, you posted pictures of Rio and other exotic locations. Why fling your ambition so widely when you can’t even provide a safe service within the UK?
You then rang me at work at 10am when I was in a meeting and refused my polite request to email instead. Why?
Here is the link to the Evening Standard article. Luckily for me, when the driver called me a slut and dropped me in the middle of a dual carriageway with oncoming traffic, at 11.30pm, in the dark, with no cash, scared and alone, miles from my destination, a kind Black Cab driver picked me up and drove me home. Unlike your drivers, he spoke in a friendly, calm way, helping me reach my destination and recover my equilibrium. I cannot thank that Black Cab driver enough.
Uber, it’s nearly 3 days since my assault and I haven’t had an apology from you. My tweet has had over 200 retweets — it’s terrible publicity for you.
When will you apologise? Until you acknowledge your culpability in this, the women and men of London cannot travel safely within your cars.
We are proposing to improve pedestrian crossing and cycle facilities at this junction and ban the left-turn (except cycles) southbound on Tower Bridge Road heading into Queen Elizabeth Street to reduce through-traffic and make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists.
What are we proposing?
Tower Bridge Road provides a north-south link across the River and is of strategic importance for general traffic as it is part of London’s inner ring-road and is the outer boundary of the congestion charging zone. It is also a key junction for cyclists, forming part of an east-west route on the south side of the River.
At the junction, the existing cycle and pedestrian refuge in the central reservation is narrow and becomes overcrowded, particularly during peak periods. Three arms of the junction are signalised while the Queen Elizabeth Street eastbound approach is give-way, creating conflict with cyclists. So we are proposing to:
Ban the left turn-for all vehicles (except southbound cyclists) from Tower Bridge Road heading into Queen Elizabeth Street eastbound to reduce conflict with cyclists and make the junction safer for all road users. Our counts show that up to 45 vehicles make this turn in the morning peak hour and 66 cyclists in the evening peak hour
Formalise pedestrian crossings on the southern, western and northern arms of the junction with the addition of pedestrian countdown, giving more information to pedestrians to inform their crossing decisions
Add two-stage right-turns for cyclists at the junction to reduce conflict with drivers
Extend the central reservation on Tower Bridge Road at the junction to give more space for pedestrians and cyclists waiting to cross
Improve road markings and add an Advance Stop Line for cyclists on the eastbound approach to the junction on Queen Elizabeth Street
Build-out the footway on the north-eastern side of Queen Elizabeth Street to give more space for pedestrians
We would also resurface the road at the junction and renew the footway.
These changes would mean southbound vehicles would need to take a different route into Queen Elizabeth Street eastbound as it would no longer be possible to turn into it from Tower Bridge Road. This would reduce through-traffic using residential streets. We also expect it would attract more cyclists to the already-busy cycle route by making it safer and giving continuity along the route and a link with the planned Cycle Superhighway 4.
If, following this consultation, we decide to go ahead with these improvements, we expect to carry-out the works in October 2016 to co-incide with the planned temporary closure of Tower Bridge for structural work (currently scheduled for October 2016 to January 2017) to minimise disruption in the area.
A young woman claims an Uber driver called her a “slut” and threw her out of his car after she pointed out he appeared to be driving her home in completely the wrong direction.
Frances Carbines, 27, went out for dinner at Dishoom in Shoreditch with friends last night after she split from her fiancé, she said.
The British Council worker said she was feeling “fragile” but had gone out with her would-be bridesmaids, who were trying to console her following the break-up.
She said one of her bridesmaids called her an Uber after the meal, at about 11.30pm, and put the postcode for her home address in Crouch End into the app. However, she claims that instead of driving her home, the driver started taking her to the “opposite end” of London.
Miss Carbines claims that when she had told the driver he was going the wrong way he became aggressive, calling her a “slut” and commenting on her short skirt, before telling her to get out of the car on Waterloo Bridge.
An Uber spokesman said the firm was investigating the claims but denied the driver had been abusive towards Miss Carbines. He added that the passenger was taken in the direction of the address that had been entered into the app.
But Miss Carbines told the Standard: “He took the wrong address and tried to take me to Brixton. When I complained he said I must live in Brixton because the system couldn’t be wrong.
“He said ‘get out or something bad will happen to you’ and stopped on a busy dual carriageway. He didn’t even pull over, then he called me a slut.
“I was shaken and crying and the Uber driver made me get out at night miles from home. The Uber driver commented on my short skirt and said I must be easy.”
Miss Carbines, who works in cultural relations for the British Council for projects in Beirut and Pakistan, said she was left feeling “frightened” when she was asked to leave the car.
“I didn’t have cash for a taxi, which is why I got the Uber,” she said.
“I had no idea where I was, it was dark, I had had a beer and I couldn’t even get a bus as I have been overdrawn.
“I was especially fragile because that weekend my fiancé called off our engagement and cancelled our new shared ownership house.”
Miss Carbines said she was eventually picked up by a black cab driver, who agreed to take her to Crouch End.
She said her mother was at home and was able to pay the driver, but he only asked for £20 instead of the usual £30 fare.
She is now appealing for the taxi driver to come forward, so that she can thank him for his kindness.
Miss Carbines described him as a slim Londoner with grey hair, square framed glasses, and a “kindly face”, who had been working as a driver for 20 years.
She said: “I’d want to say thank you so much for saving me essentially when I couldn’t get home.
“Your kindly disposition and act of humanity really cheered me up, please meet me as I owe you £10 and a drink. I wish more drivers could be like you.”
Miss Carbines has also demaned an apology from Uber.
However, the company denied that the incident unfolded as Miss Carbines described.
An Uber spokesman said: “We have called the rider in question so we can investigate these allegations, but have yet to receive a response.
“The driver in question has confirmed he was going to Brixton to an address that was pre-entered into the rider app.
“The driver has told us that the rider became angry that they were going to the entered destination and requested to exit the car. He denies being abusive towards the rider and so we would ask her to get in touch with us so we can investigate further.”
In a letter to Westminster Planning Department Uber openly admit that they do not handle any bookings and that their app just connects the passenger to the nearest driver.
They further state “In this way the network can operate independently, with the clients able to phone the driver directly through the app”.
Uber also says “It is important to note that we will not be taking any traditional pre booking jobs”.
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