Driver T&Cs

1. About these terms

These Driver Terms & Conditions apply to every taxi or private hire driver and operator who receives bookings through WhyDrive. WhyDrive is operated by Vamalio Technologies Ltd (company number 17460666, registered office 5 Brayford Square, London, E1 0SG) (“WhyDrive”, “we”, “us”).

You also sign a WhyDrive subscription agreement before any payment is taken. If anything in the agreement differs from this page, the signed agreement takes priority. Our general Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy also apply.

2. Your business stays yours

WhyDrive is a booking technology platform. It simply connects drivers and operators with customers who want to book a taxi in an app. WhyDrive does not provide transport and is not your employer. Joining is not a franchise or a takeover. You keep:

• your registered business, trading name and branding;
• your vehicles, staff and existing customers;
• your operator, driver and vehicle licences, and full responsibility for operating legally;
• your own payment arrangements, and the fares for your journeys (WhyDrive takes no commission);
• the freedom to take work independently of WhyDrive at any time.

3. Joining & your home base

• You apply at whydrive.co.uk/join. We email you to request your documents, and check them before you receive any bookings. We need: your company or trading name; your home town or village (your home base); your badge number and expiry date; your insurance certificate; your MOT expiry date and interim MOT (where your council requires one); and a photograph of you.
• Every driver sets a home base: the town or village you work from, for example Bude, Davidstow, Poundstock or Marhamchurch. You enter it once, when you register in the WhyDrive Driver app. After that only Dispatch can change it: if you move or start working from somewhere else, email driver@whydrive.co.uk.
• Your home base is used to plan advance bookings and to give you return journeys back towards home (see section 6). Tell Dispatch straight away if it changes.
• You must keep your badge, vehicle plate/licence, insurance and MOT details, with expiry dates, up to date in WhyDrive. We send reminders 30 days before a document expires.

4. Price, pausing & cancellation

• Price: £39 per vehicle per week, paid by standing order.
• Fixed for 3 months: the £39 weekly price is fixed for your first 3 months from the date you sign up. It will not go up during that time.
• After 3 months: the price is reviewed. Any change is given to you in writing in advance, so you can decide whether to carry on.
• No commission: the subscription is a flat fee for the platform. You keep the fares for your journeys.
• Pausing: you can pause your subscription for holidays or a quiet season, where your agreement allows. While paused you receive no WhyDrive bookings.
• Cancelling: you can cancel at any time with 7 days' notice in writing to driver@whydrive.co.uk. Cancelling the standing order alone does not end the agreement. Please tell us in writing.
• WhyDrive does not promise any particular number or value of bookings. That depends on demand, your availability, your vehicles and where you work.

5. How bookings are allocated: the automated fairness module

Every WhyDrive booking is allocated automatically by the fairness module. Nobody (not an owner, a dispatcher or another driver) hand-picks who gets the next booking, and paying more never buys priority. The same rules apply to every driver.

5.1 Step 1: who can take the booking?

A driver is only considered if all of these are true:

• your account is active and your subscription is not paused;
• you are online in the Driver app with an up-to-date location (for bookings that are due soon);
• your documents are valid and you are not on a review hold (section 9);
• your vehicle has enough seats (and wheelchair access, if the customer needs it);
• you haven't already passed this booking, and the customer hasn't asked not to have you;
• you can reach the pickup in time, and taking it won't make you late for a booking you already have.

Being unavailable is never held against you. If you're offline, on holiday, paused or busy with your own work, you are simply skipped and keep your place.

5.2 Step 2: who gets it?

1. Return journeys first. If a booking takes a driver who is away from their home base back towards it, that driver is offered it first (section 6).
2. Closest arrival. Otherwise the driver who can reach the customer soonest is preferred.
3. Fair share when it's close. If other drivers could arrive within about 5 minutes or 1.5 miles of the closest, the booking goes to whoever has had the fewest jobs in the last 12 hours. Then it goes to a driver already finishing a job right by the pickup, then to whoever has gone longest since their last WhyDrive booking, then to whoever has been waiting longest.
4. Busy drivers nearby. For a book-now job, a driver finishing a job close by can be offered it if they would reach the customer sooner than a free driver further away, but only if the customer agrees to the slightly later time.

5.3 Step 3: the offer

• The booking is offered to one driver at a time. There is no race to press accept first.
• You have a short time (normally 30 seconds) to accept. If you don't respond, or you decline, it moves to the next driver. A missed or declined offer is not a rule break.
• If you accept and then can't do the job, press Pass booking as early as you can. WhyDrive finds the next driver and you never have to arrange cover yourself.
• Advance bookings are allocated in the same way, using your existing bookings and your home base to work out where you'll be.

5.4 Records and transparency

• Every allocation decision is recorded with the reason a driver was chosen or skipped. You see your own bookings in your app; if you think an allocation was wrong, ask Dispatch and they can check the record.
• Manual changes by Dispatch are limited to exceptional situations such as safety, cancellations or system failures, and are recorded too.
• A driver returning from a review hold starts at the bottom of the fairness order (section 9).

6. Return journeys: fewer empty miles

When you finish a job a long way from home, WhyDrive tries to give you a paid journey back instead of an empty drive.

• You count as away when you'll be free about 10 miles or more from your home base.
• A booking is a return journey for you when it picks up near where you'll be free or anywhere along your way home, and drops off closer to home without a big detour.
• It must fit your timings: you must be able to reach the pickup in time, and not be left waiting more than about 75 minutes.
• Return journeys are offered to you ahead of the normal fairness order. If two drivers are heading home the same way, the one with fewer jobs that day gets it.
• A booking that would take you further from home is normally given to a driver nearer the pickup instead. You'll only be offered it if nobody else can do it.

Example: a Bude driver takes a customer to Newquay Airport. A booking from Newquay Airport to Camelford, or a pickup in Wadebridge or Camelford on the way home, goes to them. A booking from Newquay Airport to Truro does not; it goes to the nearest local driver.

Return journeys depend on bookings, timings and licensing; not every trip will have one. A hackney carriage can only be pre-booked outside its licensed zone, and private hire work must be booked through a licensed operator.

7. The rules

To keep WhyDrive safe, fair and reliable, you and any driver using your account agree to:

1. Stay licensed and insured for every WhyDrive journey, and keep your documents and expiry dates up to date in WhyDrive.
2. Only do jobs allocated to you, in the vehicle recorded for you, within the terms of your licences.
3. Charge the agreed fare: never more than the fare shown for the booking or, for hackney carriages, the council's maximum tariff.
4. Turn up on time for jobs you accept, or press Pass booking promptly if you can't.
5. Keep your availability accurate, and tell Dispatch if your home base changes.
6. No poaching and no side deals. Don't ask WhyDrive customers to cancel and book with you privately, and don't offer or accept anything to influence who gets bookings.
7. Protect customers' data. Use it only for the booking. Never share it or use it for marketing.
8. Treat people with respect. No discrimination, harassment, abuse or unsafe driving. Legal duties for disabled passengers and assistance dogs apply.
9. Keep your vehicle roadworthy, clean and matching the details in WhyDrive.
10. Co-operate with complaints, lost property and safety reports, and tell us straight away about any licence suspension, revocation or investigation.
11. Pay your subscription on time.

8. What counts as breaking the rules

Breaking the rules means doing something on this list, or allowing a driver on your account to. Some breaches are recorded automatically by the app; others come from customer reports, Dispatch or the licensing authority.

9. What happens if rules are broken

9.1 Automatic pauses

If a required document has expired, is missing or can't be verified, or your profile is incomplete, you stop receiving new WhyDrive bookings automatically. Your subscription isn't ended, and bookings start again as soon as it's fixed.

9.2 Warnings and review holds (standard breaches)

Standard breaches are counted across different bookings:

• First breach: amber warning. It's recorded, you're told, and you keep working.
• Red review hold when you reach: 5 late arrivals, 3 no-shows, or 3 customer declines. You stop receiving WhyDrive bookings until Dispatch has reviewed what happened with you.
• After a review hold you rejoin at the bottom of the fairness order, for up to 12 hours or until every other eligible driver has had a booking. Repeated holds can lead to suspension.

9.3 Serious breaches

• A vehicle or driver mismatch puts you on an immediate red review hold after one report.
• For any other serious breach we can suspend you straight away while we investigate.
• If a serious breach is confirmed, or breaches keep happening, we can end your subscription without the usual notice.
• Where the law or safety requires it, we will report the matter to the licensing authority or the police.
• Money owed for overcharging may have to be refunded to the customer.

9.4 What doesn't count against you

• Being offline, unavailable, on holiday or paused.
• Letting an offer time out, or declining an offer.
• Passing a booking promptly because your plans changed (as long as you're not doing it to game the system).
• Delays caused by the customer, roadworks, accidents or weather that you reported in the app.

10. Reviews & appeals

• We'll tell you what was reported and why action was taken, unless that would put someone at risk or harm an investigation.
• You can give your side, with any evidence, by emailing driver@whydrive.co.uk within 7 days.
• Dispatch reviews every red hold and can clear a warning that turns out to be unfair. Every decision is recorded.

11. Ending, data & law

• By you: 7 days' notice in writing, as in section 4.
• By us: for serious or repeated breaches, loss of required licences, fraud or persistent non-payment, or with the notice in your agreement if we withdraw WhyDrive from an area.
• When your subscription ends, access to WhyDrive bookings stops and any future WhyDrive bookings allocated to you are given to other drivers.
• We keep records we're legally required to keep, as set out in our Privacy Policy.
• You are responsible for the journeys you provide. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't be limited by law.
• These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. Questions: driver@whydrive.co.uk.