I'm fucking furious about this. Uber has made a great improvement to my parents' lives that are very hard because of disability and chronic illness.
The standard UberX service is great for my mum as we can get a car within 5 mins any time and see where it is, so there's no worry about it arriving too early (like happens with ordinary mini cabs), no need to book in advance, and I can follow her progress from home through the app, etc, etc.
Also the Uber Access service - with specially adapted vans to take a passenger seated in their wheelchair - has been invaluable for my dad who can hardly get in an ordinary car. It's not even any more expensive than UberX. Hospital-supplied transport, Dial-a-Ride, etc, just don't provide the same level of convenience. And convenience is very important when you're as ill and disabled as my parents.
Anyway, regardless of all that, even for ordinary healthy able-bodied people, it's just ridiculous to go backwards and not use current technology for booking and managing minicab use. Because that's all Uber is, basically. It's just a big minicab service that happens to use highly efficient systems. The operators and drivers have the same licences and checks as old-fashioned minicab ones AFAIK.
Ok, if safety needs to be improved, then improve it. They will not get away with throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There will be massive demonstrations of all sorts and Kahn hopefully will eventually resign. He'll never be re-elected anyway. I'm embarrassed that I voted for him. I must have been ignorant on his policies. My mother (with generally opposite political views from myself) says this would never have happened under Boris, and she's right.