Prices are higher and more rudeness: why are taxi drivers and passengers so nervous

Irina Mishina

I do not use taxi services often. But then the situation became desperate: a heart rate and blood pressure monitor was installed in the clinic, and with this device I, all in wires, looked like a suicide bomber. Before that I used a taxi service about a month ago. Now, orders through the Yandex-Taxi and Citymobil applications were unpleasantly surprised: to travel from Novy Arbat-32 to Slavyansky Boulevard in a straight line cost about 500 rubles. A month ago, the cost of such a trip did not exceed 300 rubles. And now it costs more than 300 rubles to drive along one street from house 3 to house 13.

But this is not the worst thing. The driver who gave me a lift from Novy Arbat turned out to be talkative. When I asked about the reason for the increased cost of trips to Citymobil, I first heard a stream of selective abuse against the aggregator, which takes 30% of the profits. Then to the Moscow drivers who create emergency situations. Then again to the address of the aggregator, through whose fault “in order to earn only 70-80 thousand,” one must “work a lot with the risk of life”. The taxi driver equated the work of a driver with service in "hot spots", saying that he had also been there and "can do anything." Taking an interest in my profession, the worker of the chair and the steering wheel for some reason began to laugh and troll the journalists as much as his simple intellect would allow. At some point, the man lost control of himself, turned to insults and, in a military manner, ordered me to get out of the taxi halfway. There was a strong impression that he was having an attack of a nervous illness. Realizing that Citymobil will not refuse his services, just in case I inform you the car number: B 605 EK . By the way, there was no mask or gloves on the scandalous worker of the steering wheel from Citymobil. Contrary to the requirements of the mayor's office and Rospotrebnadzor.

My call to the Citymobil quality control department predictably did not lead to anything. First, Arina, then Regina from this department replied that they can “accept the application at the department level”, and then “send it to specialists for consideration”. "Well, what if an accident, or a Citymobil driver, for example, hits a passenger, insults him?" - I asked. “We don't understand such situations. We send their description to specialists, ”was the answer to me.

As you know, neither Yandex Taxi nor Citymobil are responsible for the safety of passengers. Aggregators only provide "information services". That is, you can simply order a car through the application, the driver of which can be anyone. And the emergency on the way is your own business. By the way, Yandex taxi has an enchanting option: the driver can give the passenger a rating, the average score of the passenger is derived from these ratings, and if it is low, most likely no one will want to go to your call. That is, if you didn’t like the taxi driver outwardly or didn’t support his conversation about “bad Muscovites” or Uzbek pilaf, then you should be considered an outcast. Here's a comic: you pay, and you get a grade. But this is not so bad. In social networks, you can read a lot of "horror films" about drivers.

Elena Shapovalova : “All of Moscow has been howling for a long time from this taxi driver’s lawlessness: not only they are rude and get out of the taxi, but they also fight, almost kill passengers. They spit on corporate clients and "increased comfort".

A recent story about how a taxi driver beat up a woman who just reprimanded him got over 750 views on Youtube.

It also comes to courts. But rarely. The district court of St. Petersburg at the beginning of the year appointed a five-day arrest for a taxi driver who watched porn with a passenger and was engaged in self-satisfaction while fulfilling an order. The taxi driver was found guilty of petty hooliganism. He was sentenced to five days of administrative arrest.

But inadequate drivers are not the only minus of taxis today. The dramatically increased cost of travel remains an unsolvable mystery.

“All this seems a mystery only at first glance,” explained to “NI” the coordinator of the “Blue Buckets” movement Pyotr Shkumatov. - Tariffs of Yandex-Taxi and Citymobil are displayed using the demand-supply algorithm. The aggregator knows the minimum cost of the trip, and if there are more orders than there are taxi drivers, then the cost of the trip rises. It can be several times higher than the prime cost ”.

The question remains: why is there a lack of taxi drivers lately?

“I can assume that several factors played a role: this is the mayor's order on compulsory vaccination, for the absence of which there is a fine from the legal entity of up to 300 thousand rubles, as well as the requirement to have a virtual cash desk, which is also costly. In addition to 30% of the trip, which must be deducted to the aggregator, taxes are also paid. Now if the driver issues a check with a thousand rubles of profit, for example, he pays 30% to the aggregator and another 6% as a legal entity, that is, his net profit will be 640 rubles. Many people now quit their jobs in a taxi because it is not profitable. They begin to transport goods, food or are served to another region where there are no such strict rules, ”says Petr Shkumatov.

What are these new rules, thanks to which the number of taxi drivers has dropped so dramatically?

As for the requirements for compulsory vaccination, they were recently announced by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. At the same time , the Moscow authorities announced the amount of fines for businesses for non-compliance with the norms for the vaccination of employees. For individual entrepreneurs, fines will range from 30 to 50 thousand rubles. For legal entities - from 100 to 300 thousand rubles. In case of harm to health or repeated violation, an official can be fined in the amount of 300 to 500 thousand rubles, a legal entity or individual entrepreneur - in the amount of 500 thousand to 1 million rubles, or suspend its work for up to 90 days. In addition, for non-compliance with the requirements of the chief sanitary doctor of Moscow for vaccination, administrative liability and suspension of activities by a court decision are envisaged.

That is, a fine at the cost of a car or its full value may well become a reality for a taxi driver. Considering that many of them have fictitious registrations in Moscow and do not have a medical policy, the prospect of vaccination becomes dim. As opposed to the prospect of a fine. True, Boris Titov, authorized by the President of the Russian Federation for the protection of the rights of entrepreneurs, said: “An entrepreneur cannot influence his employee - an adult capable person, except for the not completely legal and humanly unfair threat of dismissal. I speak only for warnings from the inspection authorities, fines are possible only in exceptional cases, "Titov said. However, the Moscow mayor's office ignored this remark.

As for cash registers, this is a requirement of the Federal Tax Service, which must begin to be fulfilled no later than July 1 of this year . An online taxi desk should now be in every car, and the passenger needs to issue a check after each trip. No more than five minutes should elapse between the transfer of funds to the driver and receipt of the check. According to the regulations, at the time of registration of a new type of cash register with the Federal Tax Service, the documentation indicates the place of its installation. For a taxi, the vehicle data (brand, model and registration number) is registered as such a place of installation. The same information is recorded in the fiscal receipt. To install a cash register, a taxi driver must register as a legal entity with appropriate tax burdens. Which also reduces his profits. If the cash register is not installed, the taxi driver will face fines, and considerable ones. For individual entrepreneurs and organizations that provide services for the transportation of passengers without an online cash register in a taxi, a punishment is provided in the form of an administrative fine: for officials from a quarter to half of the amount of the calculation, but not less than 10 thousand rubles; for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs from three quarters to the full amount of the calculation, but not less than 30 thousand rubles. In case of a repeated violation - transportation without an online cash register - there is a threat of disqualification for a period of 1-2 years for officials or suspension of activities for up to 90 days for individual entrepreneurs and legal entities. An online cash register in a taxi can be either physical or virtual. But in both cases, this promises additional costs.

All this creates the prerequisites for a massive outflow of professionals from taxis. Predictably, they will be replaced by those who have nowhere else to work or have nothing more to lose: the marginalized, former prisoners, people with an unstable psyche, unable to work in a team. And aggregators will have to put up with it. As for the prices, they will continue to grow with the low quality of services. And we will be told again: "This is the market."