Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, as well as taxi driver unions, yesterday called on the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to improve regulations on Uber Technologies Inc’s ride-sharing service to alleviate its effects on the taxi industry after four taxi drivers committed suicide in 10 days allegedly due to financial hardship.
On Aug. 9, two taxi drivers from New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店), a 51-year-old man surnamed Huang (黃) and a 52-year-old man surnamed Lee (李), committed suicide together.
Six days later, a taxi driver, surnamed Huang (黃), 63, was found dead in a parking lot in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港) after he allegedly hanged himself.
On Sunday, a 52-year-old taxi driver surnamed Su (蘇) from New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城) committed suicide by burning charcoal.
DPP Legislator Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) told at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that the city might be witnessing a trend similar to the one in New York City, where six taxi drivers committed suicide between November last year and March allegedly due to mounting financial pressure caused by the rising popularity of ride-sharing apps.
A lack of regulation on Uber’s services has forced licensed taxi drivers to compete with the company on unequal terms, making it increasingly difficult for them to survive, Cheng said.
While there are legal restrictions on the number of taxis and taxi drivers are required to pass tests and background checks before they can start work, Uber drivers are not subject to similar regulations, he said.
“Their [Uber cars’] rates are not regulated and their numbers are not controlled,” he said.
To evade regulations, Uber has been marketing its services as a car-rental service with a hired driver, but using rental cars to provide taxi services contravenes Article 34 of the Highway Act (公路法), National Confederation of Drivers’ Unions vice president Cheng Li-chia (鄭力嘉) said.
The company had in February last year ceased its operations in Taiwan after being fined NT$2.5 billion (US$81.35 million at the current exchange rate) for offering illegal passenger transportation services, but it relaunched its services two months later by partnering with licensed car-rental operators.
“All we ask is that the strict regulations that apply to us are also applied to Uber drivers, because they are not, and that is very unfair,” taxi driver Chen Tung-hua (陳棟華) said.
Taxi drivers’ incomes have decreased since Uber’s relaunch, he said, adding that it has become difficult for them to earn even NT$30,000 a month after deducting gas, maintenance and other overheads.
Uber also owes the government NT$500 million in taxes, KMT Legislator Chen Hsueh-sheng (陳雪生) said.
Legislators across party lines agree that the ministry needs to step up its efforts to regulate Uber, he said, adding that they would freeze the ministry’s budget if it continues to dodge the issue.
The Directorate-General of Highways has been cracking down on breaches of traffic regulations and Uber has paid more than NT$70 million of the NT$2.5 billion fine, agency official Huang Ling-ting (黃鈴婷) said.
Over the past year, the number of car-rental companies partnering with Uber has fallen from 207 to 133, ministry official Wang Chi-chou (王基洲) said, adding that the ministry would work with the taxi industry to improve regulations on taxi cabs and Uber cars.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,