The taxi council of the Sunshine State has upped the ante in its war against Uber, with reports in Fairfax and News Corp publications the CEO of Taxi Council Queensland has called the ride-sharing app a ‘sexual haven for predators’.
The comments from CEO Benjamin Wash come after reports a man had allegedly indecently assaulted his young passenger in his Uber registered vehicle.
“Uber X is operating outside the law, meaning they have no safety measures, taking us back to the dark ages,” Wash said in a statement on the Taxi Council’s website.
“In Queensland there are over 250,000 taxi fares every day yet the incidence of driver misbehaviour is very rare, partly because the actions of drivers are captured on in-car cameras and taxis are GPS monitored.
“In every industry there are people from time to time who break the law. This includes police, teachers, lawyers and taxi drivers.
“Some uber X drivers will break the law, but the driver can do or say anything and then deny it, and there’s nothing you can do.
“If a driver inappropriately touches a passenger in a taxi we can prove it. But in an illegal taxi like uber X, it becomes a ‘he said – she said situation’, meaning it is far more difficult for prosecutors to secure a conviction.
“In fact I believe many victims of uber drivers will not even bother reporting it.”
The Brisbane Times, an Uber spokesperson rejected the accusations from Wash.
“These accusations are no more than desperate attempts by the Taxi Council to protect their monopoly by trying to scare people away from using Uber. It isn’t working,” she reportedly told The Brisbane Times.
“Hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders are choosing Uber because it is a safe, reliable and affordable alternative to the status quo.
“We believe all of them will see through Mr Wash and the Taxi Council’s ridiculous scaremongering and would suggest the Taxi Council spend more time improving their own service than focusing on trying to remove a service that Queenslanders obviously prefer.”
Read the full article in The Brisbane Times.
