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Toronto Council to debate training for vehicle for hire drivers November 9

People who want to make money driving vehicles for a living should be trained to do so safely, says Kristine Hubbard, and it was a mistake for Toronto to have cancelled driver training in 2016.

“The training requirement we’re talking about today was voted on by the council in 2019, in response to multiple fatalities caused by rideshare drivers who were licensed without training. We’re calling for this training to be implemented before any other drivers are licensed. This is what our community wants to see,” Hubbard, who is Operations Manager at Beck Taxi, told a video-conference meeting of the General License and Standards Committee on October 20, 2021.

 Item GL.2611 Back-to-School/Vehicle for hire driver training is on the November 9, 2021 Council Agenda and is being held by Councillor Michael Ford.

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The Rosenberg/Lipson murders: incident from the Mean Streets

Not long after I met Jesse at the Chuvalo-Felstein fight, a truly horrific happening transpired. Late on the night of April 22, 1977, Jesse’s friend Ian Rosenberg and a woman named Joan Lipson were brutally murdered in an upstairs bedroom of a house on Strathearn Boulevard. Some person who possessed a key to Joan Lipson’s home let himself in the side door, crept up the stairs, and ruthlessly shot the couple to death as they lay in bed. A housekeeper, who was trying to sleep in an adjoining bedroom, heard Joan Lipson cry out, “Ian, there’s someone in the room!” Then came the sound of gunfire.

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5500 Taxis better for the environment than 100,000 Uber and Lyft, Khamseh to tell November 6 rally

“Everyone wants our environment to be cleaner, with less emissions from automobiles,” says Behrouz Khamseh. “Taxis are very much a part of that solution; up until 2016, there were only 5500 licensed Taxis driving in Toronto. When Uber arrived, Toronto allowed almost 100,000 additional vehicles for hire. The decision to allow this destroyed any progress Toronto might have hoped to make in reducing traffic, congestion, emissions, and pollution.”

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“Driver” in sexual assault investigation may be driving a vehicle for hire

The Toronto Police Service is alerting the public to a sexual assault investigation and seeking the public’s assistance identifying a man who may, or may not, be driving a vehicle for hire.

The media release issued by TPS identifies a “driver” but does not indicate what kind of driver he is. Taxi News sought clarification on whether police are looking for a non-professional driver or a professional driver; and, if professional, whether the man was driving a Taxi, a limo, or a ride hail vehicle. (However, it appears Taxi could be eliminated as licensed Taxis in Toronto are marked with branded paint jobs, roof lights, and license numbers and would have been obvious).

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My Worst-Ever Incident with a Dispatcher

Often, he was amusing and he had an understated comical way of expressing himself. And he’d play pranks on the radio. A French Canadian from Montreal, Jesse would say that he came to Toronto “by skating up the St. Lawrence in the wintertime.” Or, gratuitously, he’d say something like, “Nineteen-nineteen, we’ve just had a lady phone Foobler Taxi who says she lost her dog in your car. It’s a big black dog, four feet high and 150 pounds. Would you look in your back seat and see if it’s there?” It doesn’t seem that funny when it’s written, but Jesse deadpanned it in a way that made it hilarious.

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Wong-Tam reminds Councillors of $8 million lawsuit: “the claim is that Council should have done more to keep passengers of users and Uber safe”

In 2016, after Toronto re-wrote its vehicle for hire by-law to permit ridesharing, it completely eliminated the driver training program it had been running for almost 50 years. Training was ended so swiftly after the Council vote on By-Law 546 that a classroom full of drivers who were half-way through the 17-day training program were dismissed from class and told to leave because training had been cancelled and was no longer required.

On October 1st, Wong-Tam introduced the Motion at City Council which was referred to the General Government and Licensing Committee, where she reminded Committee members of the preventable death of Nicholas Cameron in an Uber on the Gardiner Expressway in 2018.

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Matlow: training delay signals that Council is not willing to make the “minimum effort to ensure safety”

Councillor Josh Matlow asked the Committee whether Council could not simply direct staff to stop issuing licenses until the training program is implemented. “If we are willing to delay simply asking staff to ‘consider’ something, what does that say about our commitment to safety?” Matlow asked. “Further delay sends the signal that we’re not willing to make even the minimum effort to ensure the citizens of Toronto.”

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