Payne blames the company and not the individual drivers for how the company operates. “A lot of their drivers have been taken for a ride, they work crazy hours for minimum wage. The drivers are not my enemy,” he said.
Another driver, Mitchell Ruff, 57, said that the decision was good for black cab drivers across London. “Mini cab offices all around London are finished,” he said adding that the battle wasn’t just between Uber and black cabs but more about how private firms operate in the city. “I think TfL have really stepped up to the mark to have the guts not to renew the license,” he said.
Under transportation rules in London, private taxi firms are only allowed to take passengers that have booked the vehicle in advance. Black cabs are the only taxis that are licensed to pick up passengers on the street.
English expressed fears that while Uber may eventually be taken off the road, another private app hire service will just take their place. Both Taxify and Lyft currently operate on London’s roads. The fate of the 40,000 drivers currently employed by Uber was of less concern to him, he said.
“They won’t lose their jobs. They’ll go back to the mini cab firms that they left. They jumped on the bandwagon and now the tables have turned. We had that concern five years ago when they were going to put us out of work,” he said.
Article Appeared @http://time.com/4952990/uber-london-ban-ruling-black-cab/