Black cabs are controlled by TFL and they hold any dodgy drivers to account personally. Uber as a company has been told quite a few times to sort themselves out. They were given a 15 month extention to fix things and still didn't. Hopefully being booted out of a major capital city will convince them to change.
I can personally vouch for the Public Carriage Office’s strict action on complaints about Black Cab drivers.
I had a letter from the P.C.O. one day years ago, instructing me to report to Penton Street N1, where the PCO was until TFL took over, and it moved to Blackfriars Road SE1.
A member of the public had complained that I’d taken him on a circuitous route from his place of work to his home.
He said that he’d noticed that he was going through Chelsea, and never went through Chelsea normally, on his route from the Hilton hotel, Park Lane, where he was an engineer, to Hammersmith, where he lived.
When asked for an explanation, I remembered the guy getting all het up about crossing Kings Road to get into Anderson Street, so I truthfully explained that I’d picked him up on the forecourt of Charing Cross station, he was well oiled, and he’d asked for King Street, Hammersmith.
The PCO complaints officer phoned the complainant, and he sheepishly admitted that he’d left the Hilton that day, and gone for a few drinks at the Charing Cross hotel, next to the station, before falling through my door, and asking for King Street, Hammersmith, case dismissed.
