Struggling to make ends meet on just the salary from his day job, Mario Peters* started working for inDrive in April of this year. After taking home nearly $200,000 in his first full month of offering the ride service in May, it seemed like he had made the right choice. But a crackdown of the growing industry threatens the livelihood of Peters and many others who have turned to the sector in recent times to supplement their income in Jamaica’s tough economic climate.

“It works out,” Peters, a 33-year-old father of two, said of his gig as an InDrive operator. “I could hardly find money to put food on the table, but last month was the most stress-free I have been in a long time.

“The announcement (by the Government) mash up mi meds,” he told Observer Online on Wednesday.

The “announcement” that Peters makes reference to is the temporary ban on ridesharing providers implemented by Transport Minister Daryl Vaz on Tuesday, a day after the police said a convicted sex offender who offered the service is implicated in the murder of teacher Danielle Anglin who went missing after taking a ride to work.

WATCH: Suspect in teacher’s disappearance previously arrested for sexual assault

Rideshare drivers are calling the action by Government a knee-jerk reaction to a horrendous crime that appears, on the surface, to be “hasty”.

“I think the minister is being hasty, Vaz didn’t think this one through, this is just causing unnecessary stress and difficulties for law-abiding Jamaicans trying to make extra money as rideshare drivers,” Marlon Williams*, a driver who has been working with inDrive for the past year, said.

“The rideshare services offered by inDrive and Uber are by reputable people, some of whom already have a nine-to-five. In life, everything comes with a risk, but rideshare drivers can be safer for the public, because as a driver, you have to provide your driver’s licence and address to be able to provide services, so there is an information trail if anything illegal happens,” Williams added.

He said that rideshare providers offer an important service to the Jamaican public while allowing drivers to earn valuable extra income through the gig economy, on their own work schedule.

“inDrive allows you to make extra money on your own time, it’s very convenient. Drivers on the app will reverse into lanes in tough ghetto areas while regular taxis don’t do that. They charge less for the same services offered by regular taxi drivers and they have more comfortable and cleaner rides in general, so they provide an important and valuable service” he said.

However, since the introduction of the services to Jamaica four years ago, stakeholders of the public transport sector have expressed concerns over the absence of a regulatory regime for ridesharing providers who, according to Egeton Newman, president of Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS), operate in the country “without proper documentation of the Government.”

He said Monday’s discovery of the remains of the young teacher “brought into sharp focus the need to bring to books the Uber/inDrive ride-sharing companies”.

Vaz has proposed an immediate ban on the services pending adherence to regulations, saying that the directive will remain in effect for 12 months or “until a regulatory regime for the use of ride-hailing applications and services has been established”.

READ: Red light

The ban covers all ride-hailing services, including inDrive, Uber, 876OnTheGo, Lyft and Ride Jamaica.
Rideshare driver Robert Jacques, who has been offering the service since 2021, is lamenting the impact the ban will have on his finances while dismissing the action by Government as premature.

“The rideshare apps help me out a lot, mi have pickney ah go school, mi have lots of bills,” Jacques said.

“Mi have a problem with the banning, most people who do rideshare have to have police records, Uber and inDrive have all my information, so we can’t hide. The system used the same information to track and catch the person who killed the teacher, so why should they ban it? It works. The government ah move too hasty wid this ban,” he said.

Jacques believes that there are other deeper economic factors at play, especially as it relates to fare structures, behind this proposed ban.

“Mi feel that the Ministry of Tourism is the real problem behind this one. JUTA, which is a red plate service, gives a lot of money a year to the government, but when the tourists come, it costs dem a whole heap of US money to move the tourists around. But when the tourists can book Uber and inDrive, which is white plate drivers, tourists find it is way more cheaper and nobody nah tek JUTA again like first time. Dem ah use one terrible incident as an excuse to ban it,” Jacques mused.

He said the government should actually be establishing protocols to protect members of the transportation sector, including rideshare drivers, from predatory criminals.

“A lot of times, dem tek weh Uber and inDrive (drivers) and nobody not trying to protect us. Just the other day, dem find an inDrive driver inna one gully dead and nobody not talking about that,” Jacques said.

In the meantime, Vaz says some of the ride-hailing transport services that were not engaging the Government have reached out less than 24 hours after the ban was announced.

“Within hours, there has been several ride share companies who we have not been able to contact for months, neither the police in their recent investigation of the murder of the school teacher and all of sudden, everyone is coming out of the wood work, so it has had its effect of getting everybody at the table,” Vaz said.

There was a meeting set for Thursday between the solicitor general, the lawyers for the telecom companies, the Ministry of Transport and the police to discuss the proposed ban.

In the meantime, Peters says he is hoping “cooler heads prevail” and the ban is reversed.

“I am hoping that the minister will consider the amount of livelihoods that will be affected by this move, which is not necessary at all. He is going about this the wrong way,” Peters said.

*Name changed upon request