By the 30th of June 2018, all private hire drivers will have to be licensed by the LTA. And up till now, 34k drivers have not done so.
To get the licence, you must:
a.) Send in an application to the LTA
b.) Pass a test
After that you will be awarded the Private Hire Car Driver’s Vocational Licence.
LTA says that with this licence, they will know who you are and you will not do naughty things like rob your passengers.
It was reported that the LTA had received 73,000 applications but out of all these, only 17,000 applicants have passed the test.
What does this mean?
That most of the Uber/Grab drivers do not rely on driving for a living and that they were just doing it for extra pocket money. Of course there are also older and illiterate drivers who claim that they find it hard to apply online for the course and did not speak English well. (Which is odd, because ride-sharing is a tech based platform and operates only in English).
Drivers who provide private-hire car services without a valid vocational licence, if convicted, could be fined up to S$1,000 or jailed up to three months, or both.
Grab said it encourages “all Grab and Uber driver-partners to quickly complete the PDVL process and give themselves sufficient time and leeway to study the course materials and prepare for the exam”. It cited its programme with the Singapore Taxi Academy which helps fast-track the PDVL application process and offer financial support for “PDVL-related costs, administrative help for application logistics as well as free and unlimited revision classes”.
Drivers can book revision classes online via Grab’s website, the company said.
So by June, it may be hard to get a cab once again.
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