Cheryl Hawkes sits in the nearly empty audience area of Committee Room 1 in Toronto City Hall — just as the public meeting into reviewing ridesharing bylaws begins.
She doesn’t want to be there. She’d much rather be home in her pajamas. But she believes she has a duty to find some sort of justice for her dead son.
“We all are devastated,” said Hawkes. “And it takes a lot out of us.”
It’s been almost six months since 28-year-old Nicholas Cameron was killed in the back of an Uber vehicle on his way to the airport.
Toronto police said 23-year-old Abdihared Bisha Mussa was behind the wheel and had pulled his Hyundai Sonata onto the shoulder of the Gardiner to pick up a fallen cellphone. He slowly merged back into traffic when another vehicle slammed into his from behind.
“My son was almost like a textbook case of everything that is wrong with ridesharing in our city,” said Hawkes.
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Now, Hawkes is trying to spark change by attending all nine public consultations the City of Toronto has scheduled this year on reviewing regulations around private transportation companies like Uber and Lyft.
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“Now, it’s time to look back and say what worked and what didn’t.” said Vanessa Fletcher with the City of Toronto’s Municipal Licensing and Standards department.
The industry has boomed since the city decided to allow ride-hailing companies to operate legally in 2016.
READ MORE: Uber driver facing charges after fatal crash on Gardiner Expressway
And that surge means they’re also now causing unique problems.
“We have been directed by our city council to look at accessibility issues, the congestion management and the labour market impact,” said Fletcher.
“They’ve also asked us to look into cameras to make sure the drivers are safe and the customers are safe,” added Fletcher.
“Part of the working we’re doing is looking at all aspects of the bylaw and that also includes training.”
Back in 2016, the city also scrapped a mandatory 17-day training course for both taxi and ridesharing company drivers. The goal was to make it easier for ride-hailing companies to enter the market.
READ MORE: Uber to invest $200M on new engineering hub, expand self-driving centre in Toronto
But now, Beck Taxi is calling for a return to those mandatory training sessions — and it continues to make their own drivers go through a five-day training program.
“These drivers need the tools and the confidence to be able to do a good job,” said Kristine Hubbard, the operations manager for Beck Taxi.
“People need to understand between the distraction on the streets, how to interact appropriately with the people they’re providing services to. These are all really, really important things to us.”
That’s something Hawkes supports — which is why she may attend more public consultations on updating ridesharing bylaws to push for driver training.
“It’s imperative that all taxi drivers, all limo drivers, and all ridesharing drivers have some level of mandatory safety training,” Hawkes said.
“Defensive driving, sensitivity, just where the main intersections are, where the airport was, the emergency rooms for the hospital,” she added.
Tuesday night’s public consultation included a roundtable discussion between several taxi and ridesharing companies, including Uber and Lyft.
Hawkes was the only member of the public who took up a seat in the audience area.
With a pen and a notebook handy, she jotted down notes and asked pointed questions to city staff and representatives for private transportation companies.
She hopes that more members of the public will join her for the remainder of the consultations — and she may be able to spark some change in memory of her son, Nicholas.
Lyft and Uber representatives denied on-camera interviews.
Uber sent Global News an email instead, stating:
“We welcome these public consultations and look forward to continuing to work with the city and residents to support mobility in Toronto. Safety is our first priority and we will continue to invest in advancing Uber’s safety program that extends before, during and after every trip.”
The public consultation sessions run until the beginning of October — with more consultation happening in the new year.
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