In the penultimate week of outgoing 2022, the State Duma accepted in the second and third readings of the law regulating the operation of taxis. The document enters into force on September 1, 2023, contains 96 pages.
In particular, drivers with a criminal record and three unpaid traffic tickets are now prohibited from working in a taxi.
The driver must sign a formal employment contract with a carrier, individual entrepreneur or register as a self-employed person. In addition, the document states that taxi cars must be marked with a contrasting color scheme with items arranged in a checkerboard pattern. It was proposed to install an orange lamp on the roof of the car and place a card with information about the carrier and driver in the cabin.
The list of other innovations includes the creation of a state information service and taxi registers, the opening of regional order service offices, the division of responsibilities between collectors and self-employed and much more.
Missing working drivers
One of the main innovations of the bill should be the adoption of self-employed drivers in specialized vehicles for the provision of legal services for the transport of passengers and luggage. But taxi companies believe this idea is offset by a series of laws that make self-employed work impossible.
“In particular, the self-employed are required to carry out liability insurance (OSAGO) at the taxi rate, undergo pre-shift and post-shift medical examinations, comply with the color scheme of cars installed in the constituent entity of the Russian Federation. as well as the need to prepare waybills and similar archaic fleets of taxis originally from the USSR”
– Pavel Stennikov, the press secretary of the Maxim service, told socialbites.ca.
The cost of insurance for a delivery car is 10-12 times more expensive for a private owner than a standard OSAGO policy, while insurance companies refuse to insure taxi cars in every possible way, and this problem is by no means resolved. service highlights.
Drivers who are not familiar with the geography of transport infrastructure facilities, cultural heritage (history and cultural monuments), medical establishments, educational facilities, sports, public authorities and others will not be allowed to work in a taxi.
Stennikov believes that
the new law focuses solely on Moscow as a modern, wealthy metropolis and the largest taxi market in the country,
instead of the whole country with large rural areas, the Far North is many small and medium-sized cities where access to medical and technical inspection points is poor (or even non-existent).
The source states that there are not and will not be any other carriers other than self-employed in a personal car.
According to the Maxim service, in the regions of the Russian Federation, more than 90% of orders are carried out by self-employed, 80% of their number fulfill no more than three orders per day. Often, the self-employed will be unable and unable to comply with the norms of the new law, as the costs of doing so will be equal to or greater than potential income, leaving them outside the legal realm as a result. , indicates the company.
At the same time, the law establishes legal grounds that allow to prevent collectors from transferring orders to people who are not allowed to use taxis. Maxim’s Stennikov warns that self-employed carriers may be left without a job or return to the practice of searching for passengers on the street through social networks and instant messengers.
Taxi price will increase
Most importantly, collectors fear the need to employ drivers in the state or register them as self-employed. People&People Public Relations Director (Citymobil, Gruzovichkof, Taxovichkof) Yekaterina Zubenina says this will bring a significant increase in the costs of taxi companies.
“The requirements for a passenger taxi, implied by the new bill, will require new service costs,” Zubenina said in a conversation with socialbites.ca.
The new requirements for drivers (no criminal records, prohibition of activities with three or more unpaid traffic tickets, passing the certificate for zone information) make transportation more convenient and safe, but the verification mechanism still does not seem clear and simple and may require technical improvement, according to the source of the publication.
People & People noted that the fact that taxi fares are regulated by the municipality will negatively impact pricing for drivers, customers and the industry as a whole – this violation of free competition can lead to a significant increase in prices.
According to the passed law, ordering services will have to open regional representations if more than 4,000 cars fulfill orders in the region every day. In response to a request from socialbites.ca, Yandex Taxi said that the idea of opening local offices “seems unnecessary and will require costs that have yet to be estimated.”
Taxovichkof said that according to their business model, the company does not open branches in other cities and continues to expand regionally by selling franchises and opening joint ventures.
In general, taxi collectors complain that their collective comments were not taken into account when drafting the bill.
“The regulation in the field of taxi transport is of course not fully developed, so changes to the existing legislation and new legal regulations are needed, but we believe that this should not just come from “from above”, the authorities should be ready. dialogue with business for the effectiveness of changes”, – they said in Taxovichkof.
unfair consumer
There are allegations about the “Taxi Law” and the taxi drivers themselves. So, private carrier Anton Maksimov, founder of the Ombudsman Taxi Telegram channel, complained that the lawmakers did not listen to market participants when the bill in the first edition was presented to public hearings. Comments from experts and the public chamber were not taken into account. He pointed out that the bill excludes collectors from the scope of the “Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights”.
This is because, under the new rules, collectors bear subsidiary liability to an individual carrier (in terms of compensation for actual damage not covered by the amount) for damage to a passenger’s life, health and property when transferring an order. insurance compensation). Previously, only joint and several liability was provided.
“First, you will have to look for a carrier and sue him, that nobody knows how long it will take and as a result you will get a small compensation under OSAGO.
Then the victim will be able to sue the collector, which will take a few more years. Maksimov has removed everything from the scope of the law “On Protection of Consumer Rights”, so he is confident that the law will not bring anything good for the user.
In connection with the rising costs of self-employed drivers as well as taxi companies (due to the rising prices of OSAGO and spare parts), the author of the Taxi Ombudsman predicted a mass migration from the transport of experienced drivers. According to him, their place will be taken by non-professionals, as a rule, immigrants and “part-time workers”, whose average salary of 35 thousand rubles is considered normal.
Petr Shkumatov, coordinator of the Blue Buckets movement, says that the transfer of responsibility from the joint and several people to the subsidiary will lead to the fact that payments to passengers due to road accidents will have to be covered only by the drivers themselves.
“Even if the passenger sues the collector for losses, the collector will present these costs to the driver and the debt will be imposed on him.
“Obviously, working in a taxi doesn’t come from the good life, and the collectors have shifted the responsibility from themselves to the drivers.”
In the law, the technical examination and health examination before and after the trip remained the same. The interlocutor pointed out that none of the taxi drivers had undergone a medical examination, and that in most cases this process was meaningless and costly.
“Even if this procedure is done remotely using telemedicine, all this will create an additional burden on the carriers, they will have to pay and take this money from the passengers. Considering that this condition also applies to individuals, there is a huge obstacle to the development of the market,” summed up Shkumatov.