Uber Says Thousands of London Drivers Threatened by English Language Test

LONDON —
Tens of thousands of London private hire drivers could lose their licenses due to new English reading and writing requirements, taxi app Uber said on Tuesday at the start of a court battle to halt the plans.

San Francisco-based Uber, which allows users to book journeys at the touch of a button on their smartphone, has grown rapidly in recent years but faced bans and protests around the world as regulators play catch-up with technology disrupting traditional operators.

Uber launched legal action in August after public body Transport for London (TfL) said that drivers should have to prove their ability to communicate in English, including to a standard of reading and writing which Uber says is too high.

"It produces the profoundest of human effects. At one extreme it will lead to the loss of livelihood," Uber’s lawyer Thomas de la Mare told the High Court in London.

There are over 110,000 private hire drivers in the British capital, according to TfL but around 33,000 would fail to pass their renewal test due to the new language hurdle, de la Mare told the court, citing a calculation of data provided by TfL.

The transport body has said it is important for public safety that drivers can communicate in English to an appropriate level and that it needs to better regulate the sector which has grown significantly in recent years, leading to congestion.

It also wants drivers to have private hire insurance even when vehicles are not being used to carry passengers and for those like Uber to set up call centers open 24 hours a day.

The proposals came partly as a response to demonstrations from drivers of London's famous black cabs, concerned that private hire firms are able to undermine their business model by not meeting the same standards and charging less for journeys.

The High Court is due to hear the case until Thursday although it might be some weeks before a ruling.

Uber Says Thousands of London Drivers Threatened by English Language Test

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Originally Posted by misskit

drivers should have to prove their ability to communicate in English,

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Originally Posted by misskit

It also wants drivers to have private hire insurance

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Absolutely.

Maybe the UK should start having reserved occupations like Thailand?

Another side if this does go forward would be that certain communities would not have any taxi service at all.
If all that was left where the legitimate London Taxies.

^ well technically they don't have taxi service now they have a private car for hire service.

If I grab a cab in Bolton and tell the driver my destination and he can't speak a fwkn word of English, except "FFFark!" or " Bloody Hell" or "My eye" and "Double size" or "Yes yes!" or "No way" or "Pipteen pawn peepty" and such, how's he gonna follow directions without GPSing himself up a back alley?

Or if I ask him to stop on the way while I pick something up, is the blow-in gonna understand I'm not doing a runner if I tell him nicely?

Or if I remonstrate at his lack of nouse with a "F'Krisake", is he gonna think I'm telling him to go fwk a rice cake?

Nah...not on...them wogs gotta learna-da-spika-da-Eeeenglish before trying to take my life in their hands and drive like maniacs without even being able to read the road signs, let alone carry out a simple transaction through in the local lingua franca.

I don't see the issue here. All private hire drivers in London have to pass the TfL b1 English language test. Of course Uber drivers should have to pass it as well.

Uber johnnies no doubt know enough to find the UK
Resistance to new technology the kneejerk of cloggy saboteurs down the age

The Grab app as popularised by the POTUS has down wonder for blind gropers and foreign frotteurs

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Originally Posted by DrB0b

I don't see the issue here. All private hire drivers in London have to pass the TfL b1 English language test. Of course Uber drivers should have to pass it as well.

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Gawd, if only they actually did sit and pass that test without cheating!
It involves writing a 100 or so word essay, at the average 11 yr old English speaking kid's level, no biggy.

How many Asian run test centres have been hauled up in the past for supplying the answers to students or getting ghost students to sit the tests for them?
Guaranteed passes for a few hundred quid.......on top of the legal 200 quid test fee, which is what the taxi drivers are also complaining about.

Teresa May ordered an enquiry into such a scam involving Entry 3 Level ESOL tests, same test or similar to the TfL 1. I think.

Then we have, tied in with that kind of situation, the reality of a few thousand Asian taxi drivers in Asian influenced northern electorates being issued with licences by their local councils after being banned or while withholding information of their criminal convictions which would automatically disqualify them from ferrying folks around safely.

More legal fees, plus a load of backhanders going from predominantly Asian drivers to local council employees processing their applications, to turn a blind eye to the lack of requirements and the dodgy criminal past of the applicants.

Endemic bribery and corruption, a common practice throughout the third world now openly flourishing in UK, it seems

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Originally Posted by ENT

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Originally Posted by DrB0b

I don't see the issue here. All private hire drivers in London have to pass the TfL b1 English language test. Of course Uber drivers should have to pass it as well.

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Gawd, if only they actually did sit and pass that test without cheating!
It involves writing a 100 or so word essay, at the average 11 yr old English speaking kid's level, no biggy.

How many Asian run test centres have been hauled up in the past for supplying the answers to students or getting ghost students to sit the tests for them?
Guaranteed passes for a few hundred quid.......on top of the legal 200 quid test fee, which is what the taxi drivers are also complaining about.

Teresa May ordered an enquiry into such a scam involving Entry 3 Level ESOL tests, same test or similar to the TfL 1. I think.

Then we have, tied in with that kind of situation, the reality of a few thousand Asian taxi drivers in Asian influenced northern electorates being issued with licences by their local councils after being banned or while withholding information of their criminal convictions which would automatically disqualify them from ferrying folks around safely.

More legal fees, plus a load of backhanders going from predominantly Asian drivers to local council employees processing their applications, to turn a blind eye to the lack of requirements and the dodgy criminal past of the applicants.

Endemic bribery and corruption, a common practice throughout the third world now openly flourishing in UK, it seems

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I agree. I was a pretty liberal type but for me it's a fundamental, if you want to live and work in a foreign country learn the language and something about the culture. Minimal requirement for any work permit. And yes, low-level corruption is now endemic in the UK and there's absolutely no doubt it's an import. It's too late now though, Scotland and Ireland still have their cultures but England and Wales are lost. Easy solution, get rid of the murderous negro and the sex-pest subcontinental. Will never happen now.

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Originally Posted by DrB0b

Scotland and Ireland still have their cultures but England and Wales are lost. Easy solution, get rid of the murderous negro and the sex-pest subcontinental. Will never happen now.

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Not very liberal of you Dr Bob. Welcome to the Darkside or should I say the Dark - free side.

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Originally Posted by DrB0b

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Originally Posted by ENT

Endemic bribery and corruption, a common practice throughout the third world now openly flourishing in UK, it seems

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I agree. I was a pretty liberal type but for me it's a fundamental, if you want to live and work in a foreign country learn the language and something about the culture. Minimal requirement for any work permit. And yes, low-level corruption is now endemic in the UK and there's absolutely no doubt it's an import. It's too late now though, Scotland and Ireland still have their cultures but England and Wales are lost. Easy solution, get rid of the murderous negro and the sex-pest subcontinental. Will never happen now.

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It seems like a hopeless task, but I think that the time is slowly arriving when the people will turn on their intimidators and deal with them. Symptomatic of that movement are the early warnings coming from the extreme right and their reactions, which I don't easily condone or sympathise with at all, as they have their own agenda hidden behind their faux patriotism.

Pride in oneself and one's culture is the first and foremost quality and attitude the British peoples need to foster. By that I don't mean simply flag-waving nationalism, or parochial expressions of xenophobia, led by grandstanders, but more the enjoyment of our traditional cultural practices without let or hindrance from either the PC brigade nor the insurance companies and local bureaucrats.

The numbers of traditional festivals, fairs and celebrations that have been forced to cease through their machinations of power and revenue collecting has seen once lively and convivial communal social practices that once bound our nations and peoples together now watered down, over-regulated and generally relegated to the has-been basket.

Cases in point, Morriss dancers not allowed to have black faces because black folk, too thick to see otherwise and encouraged by PC politicos, see it as an attack on their ethnicity, which, on the contrary it's not.

Hunt-the-Wren and the Hobby hoss festivities, where straw men and black faced dancers perform traditional mime and dance expressing the warding off of evil, through disguise, also sanitized for fear of offending our blow-ins.

Traditional Xtian Easter and Yuletide festivities and references changed and/or banned because some Asians feel threatened by them and see them as blasphemous and corruptive of their brainwashed cloistered offspring.

The traditional horse fairs and country market festivals where people would gather to settle old debts and scores, one way or another,
are now riddled with Asian traders hawking cheap junk from Asia at inflated prices, the sight of local old stalwarts hob-knobing on the streets outside of overflowing pubs is now replaced by sanitized boozers where lager louts congregate to pick fights and the streets become challenge grounds between local gangs, as the local communities have lost the power to self-regulate, again, as insurance companies the PC brigade and local councils chase revenue, which doesn't even make it to the police forces who're now respond to extreme situations only when they were once a visible yet assuring presence, if needed.

I have my own multi=faceted solution to the problem of corruption at all levels in the UK, it's quite extensive, and not one to be easily divulged publicly, but maybe discussed in part at least on an open forum.

But first up, stomp on the PC brigade, whatever colour or leaning, secondly, hunt out corruption and dodgy practices at all levels, social and administrative, remove hindrances to all British traditional and cultural practices, they don't include socially driven honour murder's, forced marriages and FGM or voodoo sacrifice as expressed by some who call themselves British.

And oh yes, the blow-ins gotta-spika -da -English, for their own good.