I that's a good move. Air quality in London is appalling. I think it's the trucks and buses and that spew out most of the pollution but this is a good start nonetheless.

 

Trucks and buses rapidly getting better though, last London figures I saw were 1500 buses hybrid now and increasing by at least 4 per week, plus 22 electric and 8 hydrogen fuel cell. By 2020 it's intended that central area buses will only be hybrids etc.

 

On Nox emissions the worst offenders are now small diesel cars. Tests on a batch of new cars showed the latest VW Polo to be 12 to 13 times worse than the much bigger VW Passat and ten times worse than the current new truck standard. Little wonder the politicians are on the attack against diesel cars now.

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I don't think a requirement for English will be a problem for Uber. Perhaps I've been lucky but all of the Uber drivers I've met have spoken good English. The last Uber I took the driver was from Poland and spoke excellent English, he was a highly educated chap and was driving for Uber as a quick way to make some money until he was settled in England. We had a really interesting conversation about London's architecture!

 

The ongoing legal challenge I don't know enough about to comment on it but I think politically people would see a ban on Uber and similar services as a retrograde step. My personal opinion is that the claim is any case complete nonsense. All Uber have done is automate the function of the minicab office but that doesn't mean that customers are 'hailing' cabs. Even local minicab companies where I live in Milton Keynes now have Uber style apps.

 

I think the biggest threat to all the driving professions including black cab drivers is autonomous vehicles. There is of course some debate about how long it will take for the technology to be sufficiently advanced that it can be let loose on the roads. Given the exponential rate at which digital technology develops I would not be at all surprised to see fully autonomous vehicles on our roads within the next ten years. If the technology is proven to be safe the potential cost savings and improvements in road safety and traffic flow etc. will be so massive the pressure from big business for government to make the necessary legislative changes will be unstoppable.

 

 

 

Just catch a Jimmy cab

I don't think a requirement for English will be a problem for Uber. Perhaps I've been lucky but all of the Uber drivers I've met have spoken good English.

 

Of course, they've been foreign.

 

It's the English Uber drivers most likely to have difficulties in speaking intelligible English.

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