Washington Post rides with Khalid Payenda, who left for the US before the fall of Kabul
Days before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last August, Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, was “welcomed” to the United Arab Emirates. He was alleged to have taken with him $169m, from his country’s treasury.
Six months on, Khalid Payenda, once Ghani’s finance minister, is driving an Uber in Washington DC.
Continue reading...Change comes after high court ruling that Uber should be regarded as a contractor, not an agent
Uber fares across the UK are to rise sharply from Monday night when VAT of 20% will be applied to rides booked via the app.
The change comes after a high court ruling last December that Uber could not be viewed as simply an agent but should be regarded as the contractor.
Continue reading...Drivers already hit by low wages and poor working conditions are spending more time driving to keep their wages the same
By Tuesday afternoon, Lyft driver Elida Zabaleta had earned $100 in the five hours she spent ferrying passengers across the city of San Jose. With gas prices in California surging, she’d have to use more than half of that to cover fuel for the day, leaving her with just $45.
The rising cost of gas has made a difficult job all the more difficult, Zabaleta said, forcing her to spend more time behind the wheel to earn enough to afford living in one of the country’s most expensive cities.
Continue reading...Officers in a San Francisco Bay area city stopped the driver because the rental company had reported his car as stolen
Newly released video footage appears to show California police officers using a law enforcement dog to severely maul an Uber driver, who fell behind on payments for the car he rented to do his job.
San Ramon police stopped Ali Badr, a 42-year-old Egyptian immigrant, in December 2020 after a rental company reported his vehicle as stolen. In footage obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, police in the Bay Area city can be seen releasing the dog on the unarmed and barefoot driver without warning within seconds of stopping him, even though Badr was not resisting.
Continue reading...Company reveals figures, promised in 2019, as ride-hailing companies face growing safety scrutiny
The ride-hailing app Lyft received more than 4,000 reports of sexual assaults during rides from 2017 to 2019, the company revealed in a new report, including 1,800 reports in 2019 alone.
Lyft revealed the numbers on Thursday, after having pledged in 2019 to do so. In its report, the company said the number of sexual assault reports collected through its app had risen from 1,096 in 2017 to 1,255 in 2018 and 1,807 in 2019.
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Continue reading...Company won licences for Manchester and Sheffield but faces pressure from Chinese government
Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing has reportedly suspended plans to launch in the UK and Europe, as the ride-hailing company faces pressure from authorities in its home market.
The company’s plans to launch in the UK and Europe have been pushed back at least 12 months, and staff working on the launch have been told they face possible redundancy, the Daily Telegraph first reported.
Continue reading...A judge on Friday struck down a California ballot measure that exempted Uber and other app-based ride-hailing and delivery services from a state law requiring drivers to be classified as employees eligible for benefits and job protections.
Related: One airport, 1,300 snakes: San Francisco helps to save endangered species
Continue reading...Boss’s Twitter rant against Uber Eats risks backfiring, as experts warn online outbursts can damage companies’ reputation
Chief executives are being warned to “think twice before they tweet” after the boss of takeaway company Just Eat Takeaway was told his Twitter spat with Uber threatened to undermine the firm’s reputation.
Jitse Groen this week became the latest in a growing list of chief executives to be rebuked by customers, investors and even regulators over ill-judged tweets.
Continue reading...Ruling in Amsterdam overturns company’s decision to exclude operators for alleged sharing of account details
Uber has been ordered to reinstate five British drivers who were struck off from its ride-hailing app by robot technology.
The five drivers, backed by the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and the campaign group Worker Info Exchange, argued that they had been wrongly accused of fraudulent activity based on mistaken information from Uber’s technology, and that the company had failed to provide the drivers with proper evidence to support the allegations.
Continue reading...Taskforce initiated after five riders died on the job recommends ‘refining the App’ and offering free mobile phone holders
A taskforce set up to improve safety after five delivery riders died on the job in the space of two months has suggested only minor changes to the industry, according to a draft of its report to be released next week.
The action plan has been criticised for “caving to the demands” of delivery companies by not setting any enforceable actions, and not mentioning the impact of time pressure, wages and working conditions.
Continue reading...Decision means drivers will be entitled to basic rights such as paid holidays, say lawyers
The UK supreme court has dismissed Uber’s appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers with access to the minimum wage and paid holidays.
Six justices handed down a unanimous decision backing the October 2016 employment tribunal ruling that could affect millions of workers in the gig economy.
Continue reading...Anthony Levandowski’s pardon had the support of billionaire Peter Thiel, who donated to Trump’s 2016 campaign
In his final hours of office, Donald Trump pardoned a former Google engineer who was convicted of stealing trade secrets from the company before taking up a new role with competitor Uber.
Continue reading...As Uber parks its plans for robotaxis, experts admit the autonomous vehicle challenge is bigger than anticipated
By 2021, according to various Silicon Valley luminaries, bandwagoning politicians and leading cab firms in recent years, self-driving cars would have long been crossing the US, started filing along Britain’s motorways and be all set to provide robotaxis in London.
1 January has not, however, brought a driverless revolution. Indeed in the last weeks of 2020 Uber, one of the biggest players and supposed beneficiaries, decided to park its plans for self-driving taxis, selling off its autonomous division to Aurora in a deal worth about $4bn (£3bn) – roughly half what it was valued at in 2019.
Continue reading...Preliminary injunction in California follows state’s lawsuit against companies over new labor law
A California judge has issued a preliminary injunction that would block Uber and Lyft from classifying their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The move on Monday came in response to a May lawsuit filed by the state of California against the companies, which alleged they are misclassifying their drivers under the state’s new labor law.
Continue reading...Three Uber drivers who believe they caught coronavirus from passengers before the UK lockdown started share their experiences of the illness, pay tribute to drivers who have died, and call for better safety standards for drivers in London
Continue reading...To supporters, they are the solution to congestion. To critics, they’re just billionaires’ toys. So are they the answer to urban travel?
It’s right up there with meal pills, jetpacks, robot butlers and colonies on Mars. Since at least 1962, when the TV cartoon characters George, Jane, Elroy and Judy Jetson first took to the skies, flying cars have been a staple of speculative visions of the future. Designs for dozens of small, affordable, personal flying machines were unveiled in the latter half of the 20th century. Few became airborne and none took commercial flight.
Now, however, a form of flying car is set to escape the clutches of eccentrics and the confines of science fiction. A handful of well-funded startups, some backed by major aviation and car companies, have carried out test flights of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Piloted air taxi and shuttle services are expected before 2025. Uber says it expects to be operating aircraft without pilots by around 2030.
Continue reading...Aerial ridesharing would allow for a pilot and three passengers at speeds of up to 180mph
Uber has unveiled plans for a flying taxi at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The ride-sharing company on Tuesday showed off a full-size mock-up of the electric plane concept vehicle created with South Korean carmaker Hyundai, as it seeks to fly above traffic rather than add to it.
Uber wants to offer aerial ridesharing, allowing a pilot and three passengers to take city trips of up to 60 miles at a speed of up to 180mph. Resembling a winged helicopter and featuring four propellers, Uber and Hyundai joined forces to design a personal air vehicle, or PAV, which can take off and land vertically.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Survey reveals almost all are paid per delivery and a quarter of riders have been in an accident
Food delivery bike couriers are being underpaid by up to $322 a week compared with minimum rates of pay and superannuation in the transport award, according to new union statistics.
The Young Workers Centre – an initiative of the Victoria Trades Hall Council – conducted a survey of more than 240 riders, revealing most are engaged on a “take-it-or-leave-it” basis and almost all are paid per delivery, with no minimum rates of pay.
Continue reading...Dara Khosrowshahi scrambles after saying Saudi Arabia’s murder of dissident was a ‘mistake’ similar to self-driving car accident
Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, has attempted to limit the damage after calling the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi “a mistake” similar to a fatal accident that occurred during tests of his company’s self-driving car.
Related: The Killing in the Consulate by Jonathan Rugman review – a dark fable of unaccountable power
Continue reading...Transport for London again rejects ride-hailing firm’s application for a full licence
Uber’s application to renew its private hire operating licence in London has been rebuffed again by regulators.
Transport for London has instead given the ride-hailing firm only a two-month extension to its licence, which is due to expire on Wednesday night.
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