Leave unattended: self-employed taxi drivers want to cancel pre-trip medical examinations

For self-employed taxi drivers, they want to cancel daily pre-trip medical examinations. Such a bill is being prepared for submission to the State Duma by United Russia deputies. The document appeared following a meeting at the Ministry of Transport with the participation of relevant departments, in particular the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The norm should be abolished, as it is virtually impossible to fulfill it, it is noted in the minutes to the meeting. In general, the bill introduces regulation of private carriers, establishing separate control over them and separating them from professional taxi drivers. What people think about the document in the industry is in the Izvestia article.

Why cancel medical examinations and simplify

Self—employed taxi drivers can be exempted from daily pre-trip inspections - this rule, among others, is contained in a draft law developed by United Russia deputies. It is being prepared for submission to the State Duma. The document appeared following a meeting at the Ministry of Transport with the participation of relevant departments — the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and others, one of the authors of the initiative, Deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for the Protection of Competition Sergey Lisovsky, told Izvestia.

— We are preparing these changes together with the industry, because it is necessary to improve the current legislation. In 2023, Law No. 580 "On the organization of passenger and baggage transportation by passenger taxi in the Russian Federation" was adopted, which, as it turned out after analyzing its law enforcement practice, does not take into account some realities. Firstly, the norm on daily pre—trip inspections of private carriers providing services on an irregular basis turned out to be impossible," the deputy explained.

According to him, the reason for this was the lack of infrastructure for conducting such medical examinations, as well as the lack of medical professionals who can make conclusions based on their results. This is especially difficult due to the fact that out of 2.5 million taxi drivers, only 253.6 thousand self—employed have this job as their main job, while for the rest it is only a part—time job.

— We propose to change the technology of medical examinations so that this procedure takes place remotely, in digital format. There are several options for testing using artificial intelligence: either the driver will read out the phrase, or the reaction of the eye pupil will be monitored through a video camera," explained Sergey Lisovsky.

Secondly, according to Sergey Lisovsky, it is proposed by law to separate professional taxi drivers from private carriers, for whom a taxi is a side job.

— They are divided all over the world, but in our country [private carriers] are now outside the legal field. By making these changes, we give them the opportunity to earn legally. At the same time, with new regulations, through aggregators, we will provide insurance for both drivers and passengers. This is very important, because in this way we increase the safety of trips. And the most important thing is that these people pay taxes. According to our calculations, this is in the region of 30-49 billion rubles per year of additional budget revenues," the deputy explained.

"There is currently no separate legislative regulation of the activities of this category of natural persons — carriers, which affects the quality of services provided, the safety of persons using such services, and makes it difficult to protect passengers' rights. In this regard, it is proposed to introduce legislative regulation of passenger transportation by individuals in private cars," the explanatory note to the bill says (Izvestia has it).

It also says that the draft law establishes the basis for the legal regulation of passenger transportation by individuals who are not individual entrepreneurs, involving aggregator services (ordering services).

Make a note: taxi drivers are asking for the cancellation of daily medical examinations

To do this, they propose to conduct such an experiment in five regions first.

Carriers will be required to have the status of self-employed and be on the register of persons engaged in the transportation of passengers by private transport. The registration procedure will be simple. A person who is interested in working as a taxi driver in a private car will send their personal information and information about the car to the booking service. It will be checked and sent to the authorized body. And then he will include the person in the appropriate registry.

The draft law also establishes requirements for natural persons who are carriers, including those related to driving experience, health status, lack of criminal record for serious and especially serious crimes and administrative offenses in the field of traffic. The conditions for using a personal car as a taxi are also regulated. In particular, it will have to comply with the requirements of technical regulations and have a valid CTP policy.

The document also clarifies the grounds for suspension and termination of the right to carry out activities, including for systematic violations of traffic rules.

Izvestia sent requests to the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a request to comment on the prospects for supporting the bill.

Do taxi drivers themselves support the changes?

The press service of Maxim taxi reported that they are aware of the development by State Duma deputies of a new concept for regulating passenger passenger transportation, which suggests allocating private drivers with personal cars to a separate category of regulation.

— Law No. 580 did not cover private drivers with personal cars, the so-called ridhaling. In fact, it is necessary to create regulation of this mass segment from scratch. Therefore, alternative control methods are being sought, since daily inspections are an unenforceable norm for individual drivers," the company's press service explained.

They also noted that private drivers with personal cars are physically and economically unable to fulfill the same requirements that are imposed on transport companies. These include medical and technical examinations, repainting of a personal car in the color of a taxi, travel documents, commercial insurance of OSAGO and OSGOP. The law on taxi localization has critically exacerbated this contradiction.

— We fully support the initiative to divide the sphere of passenger passenger transportation into professional taxis (taxi companies) and private drivers with personal cars (ridesharing). These two completely different economic models of transportation co-exist all over the world and they are regulated in different ways," the service said.

The legalization of up to 5 million drivers, tax revenue from their activities, the safety of all participants in trips and transport accessibility in the regions, which is provided by such private drivers, depend on the correct implementation of the model, Maxim's press service noted.

The company stressed that for many years they have been preparing proposals for modernizing the regulation of taxi and ridesharing, participating in Duma events, industry forums and conferences, and round tables. But, unfortunately, Law No. 580 was adopted without taking into account the opinions of industry participants.

— We hope that this time our suggestions and analytics will be taken into account by those who are really interested in the development of modern secure services and modern industry legislation, — noted in the service.

According to Daniil Kurashev, Chief Operating Officer of Citymobil and Taxovichkof, many of the requirements of current taxi legislation are unnecessary and act only as obstacles to work, without bringing any significant positive effect, but lead to an outflow of performers from taxi services.

— This affects the so-called part-time drivers the most. In this regard, we support initiatives that can simplify the work of both taxi drivers and taxi companies," he said.

Izvestia was also informed about the support of the bill by the Association of the Self-employed of Russia (it has more than 270 thousand people, mostly drivers). At the same time, they noted that certain points of the amendments proposed in the draft law require discussion.

In particular, telemedicine as one of the options for monitoring the condition of drivers is unlikely to be feasible. In practice, equipping one entity with such facilities will require hundreds of millions of rubles, which are unaffordable for regional budgets.

"But in general, we support the fact that the United Russia faction is looking for a solution to a long—overdue problem, which market participants and our association are constantly talking about," the press service of the association reported. — We support the creation of rules for private drivers in private cars. This will help to legally divide the sphere of passenger transportation into two economically different models — professional taxi companies and the self-employed in private cars.

They also noted that a self-employed driver cannot fulfill the current legal requirements for economic reasons and due to insufficient infrastructure development. Among them are the need to use localized vehicles, daily medical and technical examinations, travel documents, registration of commercial CTP and OSGOP, mandatory car color — all these are standards developed for transport enterprises, the association emphasized.