Why the London crackdown on Uber had to happen

Whatever the firm’s virtues, passenger safety must be paramount, writes James Moore

Shutting down? Uber faces losing its licence to operate in London (Reuters)

Uber’s fleet of cars looks to be heading for the garage again. The ride-hailing app has been told that it has lost its London licence after it was found that more than 14,000 trips were taken with drivers who had faked their identity on its app.

According to Transport for London (TFL), those who had either lost their licences to carry passengers, or who never had them in the first place, were able to pick people up by fraudulently using other drivers’ accounts. They did this through uploading their photos on to the app.

Passengers would never have known that something was awry and the implications are fairly horrifying if you think them through. In fact, a fairly horrifying example has been provided too: one of the drivers on those 14,000 journeys had had their licence revoked after they were found to have distributed indecent images of children.