Skip to main content

Professional drivers’ union claims Uber cannot offer safe service

GMB, the union for professional drivers, has responded to the news that a state court in Frankfurt, Germany, has issued an injunction preventing cab service Uber from offering its services without a specific permit under German transport laws. Steve Garelick, GMB branch secretary professional drivers branch, said "Up until now Uber seems to have adopted the route of forcing its way in to markets on a like it or lump it basis.”
September 3, 2014 Read time: 2 mins

GMB, the union for professional drivers, has responded to the news that a state court in Frankfurt, Germany, has issued an injunction preventing cab service Uber from offering its services without a specific permit under German transport laws.

Steve Garelick, GMB branch secretary professional drivers branch, said "Up until now Uber seems to have adopted the route of forcing its way in to markets on a like it or lump it basis.”

He says the hypothesis Uber puts forward is that the existing rates are high and that monopolies exist that somehow should be broken. He claims rates generally are dropped after a time and, as is the plan with Uber, as soon as a driverless solution is available, drivers will naturally be out of work.

He concludes: “There is a clear concern a company offering technology cannot really offer a service that offers complete safety and this is an issue."

Related Content

  • Managing congestion, better information changes perceptions
    January 31, 2012
    Kapsch's Dietrich Leihs talks about the true fundamentals of urban pricing. In some Italian and German towns and cities, the solution to congestion is an outright ban on certain types of vehicles. As far as Dietrich Leihs is concerned, any attempt to sweeten the pill that is congestion charging is only ever going to be a partial success at best.
  • Hyperloop: from sci-fi to transport policy
    April 16, 2020
    The future is here. While it has long looked like something from a sci-fi movie, Graham Anderson investigates a technology whose time might have come.
  • Increasing road safety with automated driver assistance systems
    January 26, 2012
    Jon Masters looks at how drivers will be trained to use the increasing number of advanced driver assistance systems being incorporated into modern cars
  • Will standardisation increase ITS interoperability?
    February 1, 2012
    Theoretical balance Kallistratos Dionelis, secretary general of ASECAP, comments on the European Commission's new ICT Standardisation Work Programme. I've just read a proposal from the European Commission on the 2010-2013 ICT Standardisation Work Programme. As ASECAP Secretary General this is one of my responsibilities. I work to receive information, to disseminate information and to build bridges and mutual understanding between policy-makers and the industrial world, between ASECAP and others.