Bengaluru: Will passengers ever be safe in these cabs?

The city has been shaken by a complaint against a Uber cab by a woman passenger who has claimed the  driver was touching himself inappropriately while ferrying her home in the city.

The latest episode has once again turned the spotlight on passenger safety in cabs. While app-based cab aggregators claim they are doing the required background checks on their drivers,  the transport department says it is waiting for new rules to be notified by the state government to regulate them better.  Meanwhile, despite the obvious risks, a single cab driver can even today operate with multiple cab-aggregators, displaying no personal details in the vehicle, making it hard to pin blame when the need arises.

Ask the transport department why it remains a mute spectator and it claims it has not bee able to take action against the app based cab aggregators on safety issues and overcharging due to  ambiguities in the present law.  “We are very serious about the safety of passengers and are only waiting for the government to approve the  new rules to regulate the cab operators better,” says a senior officer of the department. But cab-aggregators like Uber and Ola claim they do strict background and safety checking when hiring their drivers. Says an Ola official, "Drivers go through multiple layers of verification  before they are brought on board. Besides maintaining a basic KYC of all Ola’s driver partners, we have also appointed multiple agencies to undertake police verification, do antecedent checks and a National Crime Records Bureau check on drivers registering on the platform. Only after the entire verification process is complete, does a driver get on board. There are also verification processes built into the system to check their  credit  by Ola’s financiers and banking partners who help drivers buy their cars." Uber officials were not available for comment.

Proposed rules
Cabs will have to be fitted with panic buttons
Operators will have to do  monthly audit of vehicles
They should check validity of drivers' licenses, emission certificates and insurance
Operators should check for spare tyres and first aid box
They should also check for tool box and torch
Last but not the least, the operators should check for road worthiness of their vehicles

No sign of  notification
Ever since the Uber incident in Delhi surfaced, the city transport department has been talking about bringing in a new notification to streamline app based cab operators under the Motor Vehicle Act.  But there is still no sign of it.

Explaining the delay, Joint Commissioner, urban,  Narendra Holkar says the process of receiving objections and meeting other such requirements  has taken a while.

“However, we hear  the government could notify the new rules in a matter of days. Even without them we have been carrying out many drives against the cabs to keep them in line,” he claims.

New rules will help streamline cab aggregators: Ramegowda, Transport commissioner

Why is the notification taking so much time?
Last week we  received the objections and I have been informed that in a matter of days the new rules will be notified in the official gazette. We will then be able to streamline all cab aggregators.

Will background checking of drivers be more intensive under the new rules?
Yes, of course. Safety of passengers is our prime concern. Antecedants of drivers will have to be checked strictly. They will have to file monthly reports and make them available to the department whenever we ask for them. Every aggregator will have to have a grievance cell once new rules come into force.
 
How do the new rules make the cab-aggregator liable?
The cab-aggregator  will be responsible for any incident that may take place while a passenger is being ferried in his vehicle.