The NSW taxi industry has suggested you’re taking your life in your own hands if you take a ride with ride-sharing service Uber.
The print campaign features a lone female on a wet, deserted freeway with the tag “Ridesharing – it’s no safer than hitch-hiking’. This is despite the fact that all Uber drivers are checked, tagged and monitored by GPS tracking.
Taxis and their drivers have long been against Uber claiming its drivers aren’t beholden to the same regulations and checks that taxi drivers are. The industry also claims Uber has meant the cost of taxi plates has plummeted.
Taxi Council CEO Roy Wakelin-King said: “Allowing illegal taxi services to operate unregulated puts the public at significant risk.”
Uber is typically cheaper than your average metered taxi ride, hence its popularity with reports that a million Australians have downloaded the Uber app.
There are presently 15,000 Uber drivers in Australia with the company predicting that will rise to 20,000 by year’s end
Uber says a number of its drivers are actually ex-cabbies who prefer the platform because of the flexible hours and the fact that the driver gets 80 per cent of the monies.
