Rickshaw riders, rather than the multibillion pound app-hailing minicab firm Uber, were among the main targets of new regulations proposed for London’s private hire industry this week.



Transport for London (TfL), which was widely expected to clamp down on Uber in its latest proposals for London’s private hire industry, turned its firepower instead on the 1,500 or so rickshaw riders who operate in and around central London, promising to bring in regulations for an as yet unregulated business.

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London’s transport regulator; the mayor of London, Boris Johnson; former mayor Ken Livingstone; and local councils in the capital have been seeking to clamp down on rickshaws for years. They are blamed for contributing to congestion in central London and the more unscrupulous operators are accused of ripping off tourists.

Last month a tourist complained that he had been charged £600 for a 30-minute journey around Oxford Street. He eventually handed over £250. Earlier this month the police secured the jailing of a 21-year-old rickshaw rider, Juris Briedis, after he had breached a criminal behaviour order. And this week a woman on her way to the theatre suffered a broken leg after falling out of a rickshaw.

Tony (not his real name), one of only a handful of rickshaw riders working in central London on a cold January afternoon, said he would feel bad if he charged a passenger £20-30 for a trip, but claimed others charged £10 a minute.

“It would be good if the industry was regulated because only the good guys would get licences,” said Tony, a Swiss-educated English rickshaw rider of seven years. Rickshaws tend to be more in evidence in the evenings, especially when the theatres close.



“It’s a fun job,” he added. “You get fit and you can make money out of it. But it’s hard work, especially if you’re riding uphill.”

Councillor Melyvn Caplan, Westminster city council cabinet member for city management, has previously said the rickshaws operate in a “sort of wild west, without regulation or licensing”.

Caplan told the Guardian on Friday: “The truth is that we actually have no way of knowing who is driving rickshaws in the heart of London. We need regulation to help us work out who the good guys are and who is an unscrupulous operator.”

He may be about to get his wish. As TfL’s long-awaited proposals were announced on Wednesday, Johnson revealed that he had secured a government commitment to promote legislation to enable TfL to regulate pedicabs in London.



The mayor’s commitment from government for new legislation is good news for London’s transport regulator. “For quite a long time we have been looking to get a measure of control,” said a spokesman for TfL. “There are congestion issues, issues of tourists being overcharged and safety.”



However, Steve McNamara, the general secretary of the London Taxi Drivers’ Association, whose 22,000-plus members are also regulated by TfL, warns that meaningful regulation will be hard to achieve. “We don’t see how you can regulate a vehicle that is blatantly unsafe in any environment.

“We had safety assessments done on rickshaws. And the transport research laboratory would not even allow people to test them at more than 9 miles an hour.”

McNamara said he cannot see any benefits for London from the rickshaw industry and says he hates seeing tourists ripped off.

But he doesn’t blame the riders. “The riders get signed up by the rickshaw barons and the only way they can earn money is to rip people off.”

Artemis Mercer, who is spearheading a campaign to revoke Uber’s licence on behalf of a black cab drivers’ group, Action for Cabbies, said of rickshaw regulation: “It’s all well and good proposing new regulation, but it has to be enforced.”

TfL said it will have to wait until the new powers are granted under primary legislation from parliament before determining the detail of the regulations. “This requires further work,” a spokesman said.