Confirming what you had likely already taken as fact, consumer advocacy group Choice has decisively busted an argument that UberX rides in Australia are “unsafe”, after launching an investigation into the ride-sharing app, spurred by this controversial ad campaign launched by the NSW Taxi Council.
ICYMI:
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Choice’s findings—after conducting 56 trips around Sydney via UberX and taxis—were blissfully boring: the group found that UberX was indeed safe, and cheaper than taxis 9 times out of 10. Choice’s Tom Godfrey said:
“When we looked at a comparative between UberX and the taxi industry on things like checks, record of trip, GPS tracking, rating system and insurance, UberX performed very well, as did the taxi industry.”
However, the NSW Taxi Council, who are running the “no safer than hitchhiking” campaign, told Pedestrian last week that the advertisements aren’t targeted directly to Uber.
Roy Wakelin-King, Chief Executive at the NSW Taxi Council, told us that the campaign was interrogating the lack of regulation associated with ridesharing in general.
“The key issue here is that illegal ridesharing, without checks for compliance, checks for criminality, checks that you’re a fit and proper person to drive a passenger vehicle is that it’s no different to getting into a car with a complete stranger without any safety systems that the government requires when you’re providing taxi transport services, so in that respect it is no different to hitchhiking.”
“The taxi industry is running an almighty scare campaign. But what we need to do is to stand back and have a level-headed approach to any regulations required, with consumers interests firmly at the centre.”
via SMH.
Lead image by Chris Wirasinha, supplied.
