Province not backing down on commercial licence requirements for ride-hailing
Posted April 10, 2019 10:29 pm.
Last Updated April 11, 2019 10:15 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) — If you’re thinking about working for Uber or Lyft, you might want to brush up on your driving skills.
The province is sticking with a safety defense for demanding ride-hailing operators have a commercial licence, even though crash rates are virtually the same for Class 4 and 5 drivers,
Transportation Minister Claire Trevena continues to insist the requirements are about safety.
“Class 4 makes sure that you have to have a good driving record, medical checks, you’ve got to do an extra driving test, you’ve got to show your knowledge of the vehicle,” she says. “If you want to earn money for driving people, I suggest that you need a commercial licence.”
Related stories:
Montreal cabbies prompt traffic jams with protest against industry overhaul
Can local ride-hailing app Kater compete with Uber and Lyft?
Will B.C. have ridehailing by the end of the year?
Ride-hailing advocate Ian Tostenson says all it takes is a little compromise to make this work.
“I think it’s workable, but it’s not preferable,” he said. “I’m hopeful that we can accommodate it with Class 5-plus and actually get to a better place than a commercial licence Class 4, so, we’ll see what happens.”
According to ICBC’s statistics from 2016, the at-fault crash rate for drivers with Class 4 licences was 4.54 per 100 drivers. For Class 5 drivers, the rate was 5.14.
Its stats for the previous four years were similar, with the lowest discrepancy being in 2013 (4.03 for Class 4 compared to 4.30 for Class 5) and the biggest being in 2014 (3.24 for Class 4 compared to 4.70 for Class 5)
(Source: ICBC)
“Drivers that want to be ride-sharing drivers could take an online course.” said Tostenson. “If we, in fact, did that, we’d probably make the roads safer just because people went through the course.”
Tostenson, who is the president of the BC Restaurant and Food Services Association, says all it takes is a little compromise from the government to make ride hailing a reality this fall.
According to ICBC, there were 100 fewer active Class 4 licences in the province in 2017 compared to 2016. However, the number of active Class 5 licences rose by 40,000 in that same period.
(Source: ICBC)
– With files from Liza Yuzda
