New rules for Toronto’s Uber and Lyft drivers are now in effect, yet one of the most vital changes meant to improve public safety is still in development — and won’t be fully implemented until next year.

When council amended the vehicle-for-hire rules last July, it made it mandatory for all drivers to complete a city-approved training program, a requirement it highlighted in a Jan. 2 press release, among other major changes.

The city, however, has yet to complete the requirements of the course, meaning it’s not yet available to drivers and likely won’t be until at least February.

The revisions to the bylaw state new drivers don’t have to prove they’ve taken the course until June 1 and drivers who are already licensed have until the end of the year.

“The really critical part of that whole package is the training,” said Cheryl Hawkes, whose son, Nicholas Cameron, 28, was killed while travelling in an Uber vehicle in 2018.

Hawkes’ son and his girlfriend were en route to Pearson airport when their driver, Abdihared Bishar-Mussa, 23, pulled over on the Gardiner Expressway after his cellphone fell to the floor. While pulling back into a live lane, the car was struck by another vehicle.

It was Bishar-Mussa’s second day driving for Uber. He lost his licence for a year after pleading guilty to careless driving and was also ordered to take a remedial driving course, sentenced to two years of probation and fined $1,000.

Hawkes has pushed for safety training and other measures following her son’s death.

“It’s a plan to do something and they’re being very slow to develop it,” she said. “I don’t know if our roads are going to be safer.”

The training will also be mandatory for taxi drivers, after council scrapped training for those drivers in 2016 in an attempt by Mayor John Tory to level the playing field as companies such as Uber, already operating in the city, were brought under a regulatory regime.

Fiona Chapman, the city’s director of business licensing and regulatory services, told the Star in an email the city is working with Centennial College to develop a “training requirement package” that would see courses administered by third parties approved by the city with the help of an expert review panel.

Chapman said the city expects to release that package to any interested vendors in February. It’s not clear when drivers would be able to begin taking the course.

“The training will be in-depth and will need to cover a range of topics — including transporting passengers in a safe manner; driving in an urban setting; providing accessible service; anti-racism, diversity and sensitivity; and legal requirements,” Chapman said.

When asked how the city will keep track of training compliance, Chapman said the city has an audit system that will allow officials to verify who has completed training “on a random or selected basis.”

As for why the training program was not ready to roll out Jan. 1 when the new rules took effect, Chapman said city staff are following council’s direction.

“Some of the amendments can be implemented fairly quickly, while other changes need more time to be done correctly,” she said.

“To ensure that new drivers have enough lead time to take the training before applying for a vehicle-for-hire driver or private transportation company driver’s licence, the report recommended that new drivers will need to provide proof of training from June 1, 2020, onwards.”

Beck Taxi’s Kristine Hubbard, who says they haven’t been consulted about the training, was critical of the city’s approach.

“It’s a hands-off, non-caring, uninterested effort,” she said.

After council cancelled training for taxi drivers in 2016, Beck, on its own initiative, created mandatory training for its drivers in collaboration with Centennial College, including an in-car defensive driving component.

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She said that standard should be in place for all drivers.

Other rules effective as of Jan. 1 include an increase in the years of experience drivers require — now a minimum of three years up from one — and that drivers need to “securely mount” all hand-held devices.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Uber said the company has been “working closely” with the city “to ensure we are in compliance with the requirements that are taking effect in 2020.”

“Along with working with cities to ensure we’re compliant with municipal regulations, we are continuously investing in safety at Uber through our policies, practices and the product features we offer on our platform for riders and drivers,” said the email.

Lyft did not respond to questions from the Star.

Both companies made significant lobbying efforts in the lead-up to the July 2019 vote that saw the regulations amended, but lobbying after the vote has been non-existent as the city develops a training program.

When council approved the updated rules for vehicle-for-hire drivers in July, one member, Coun. Gord Perks (Ward 4, Parkdale-High Park), unsuccessfully moved to ban Uber and similar companies, saying the proposed changes didn’t go far enough.

“Their business model depends on being able to get a precarious workforce in and out as quickly as possible and that doesn’t work if you require that precarious workforce to be well trained in how to operate safely,” he said.

At the same meeting, Coun. Paula Fletcher (Ward 14, Toronto-Danforth) said she knew Cameron through her kids and witnessed the “devastation” his friends felt after his death.

“We let them all down. We let him down,” she said of council’s original decision to approve the regulation of private transportation companies like Uber without certain safety measures in place.

“I think we are taking a few steps in the right direction, but for me it’s not fast enough, strong enough or sharp enough.”

Hawkes told the Star she worries about what form the new safety training will take — how long the course will be and whether there will be an in-person component or if it will be solely online.

Any concern that requiring more rigorous training would degrade services such as Uber doesn’t sit well with her. She recently saw the clip of her son’s crash on the news again.

“I look at a video of my son in the car and I don’t know how you could degrade it any further,” she said. “That’s the bottom line for me.”

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