The announcement that everyone have been speculating for months is finally announced today!
Main highlight
1. Background screening – Scan for criminal offence and if you are mentally sound perhaps?
2. Medical screening – If you are able and fit medically to handle a vehicle and maybe lousy riders?
3. 2 years driving experience prior to PDVL application – Driving is serious and is not for newbies
3. Demerit Point system (Vocational Licence Points System) for unacceptable practice like touting for street-hail jobs like taxis, unprofessional conduct that bring disrepute to the industry.
4. All PDVL holder must either be
(A) Employed as a driver for a limousine company or car rental company
(B) Registered owner (Sole-Proprietors/ Private Limited) of a limousine company
5. Attend and pass the 10 hours Private Driver Vocational Licence (PDVL) course. Attend a 3 hours refresher course once every 6 years. Active drivers with a clean record will be exempted. Drivers hired by limousine companies will also be exempted if LTA approves the company’s training programmes.
6. Private-hire cars must be registered with the LTA.
7. Drivers must also display their PDVLs during the course of providing service.
8. A LTA-issued decal that is tempered-proof and not reusable to distinctively mark out private hire cars.
For taxi drivers who wish to convert their Taxi Driver Vocational Licence to Private Driver Vocational Licence, they are only required to attend a 2 hour briefing. They will then be able to hold a dual Taxi Driver Provisional Licence and Private Driver Vocational Licence.
This announcement did not really spring much surprises. Everything announced has been widely “predicted” by our Uber & Grab drivers. The only thing not widely expected is the display of a decal to mark out private hire vehicles.
Who is the biggest winner in this round – LTA !
With the competition reheating up between Uber and Grab with their some-what hard to understand incentives at times, will they be looking to subsidise or reimburse for the PDVL for us drivers as some sort of incentives moving forward ? I would like to make a wild guess that they may reimburse the PDVL course fees if you complete a certain number of trips, e.g Reimburse 10% per week if you do 60 trips , 20% per week if you do 80 trips until you fully redeem your 100%. Rationale being the more you do for one company, the lesser you do for the other. It is just a wild guess but wouldn’t it be a pleasant incentive to have instead of sunglasses and umbrellas.
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