Uber should not be allowed to operate in London because of GPS

The latest argument being mounted against Uber by the London transport bureaucrats is a real doozy. It seems that Uber drivers depend more on their GPS and Google Maps systems that every rideshare car is equipped with than the meticulous memorization of London streets and addresses that every Black Cab driver has to go through before being allowed to take passengers hither and fro. Plus, Uber drivers tend to have “funny names."

Tradition being deployed against Uber ridesharing

Back before the Internet and GPS existed, people who aspired to be Black Cab drivers in London were required to spend years memorizing street names and routes throughout Greater London.

One apparently can still see people driving about with fold-up maps, noting locations of places. In effect, your Black Cab driver was a human GPS system, knowing instantly the locations of hotels and pubs where their fares would want to go.

However, technology marches on. Most people have been able to toss out the old-fashioned folded up maps and, worse, asking for directions in favor of a GPS navigation system that will chart out the best route. The process is automatic with Uber. When you request an Uber car, you send your location and your desired destination that goes directly to the driver’s system. As a bonus, the GPS will reveal accidents and construction in real time.

Apparently, reliance on technology is not exactly cricket, as the British used to say and maybe still do.

Uber should not be allowed to operate because it does not do navigation around London in the traditional, British manner. It sounds like something dreamed up in an episode of “Yes Minister.”

Besides, Uber drivers in London tend to have ‘funny names’

Also, the bureaucrats in charge of London transport are playing the race card, and not in a particularly nice way.

They are suggesting that Uber drivers are not proper Brits, having names like Mohammed and Ali. Black Cab drivers tend to be named Ollie or Brian. In other words, the alt.right seems to have taken over the British civil service in charge of transportation. Humphrey Appleby call your office.

Of course, white British citizens can become Uber drivers just as readily as those with Middle Eastern or South Asian ancestry.

All one needs is a vehicle that is in working order and be able to pass a background check. The one virtue of being an Uber driver is that not only anyone can do it to pick up some extra money, one does not have to spend years of training to get up to speed for becoming one.