Plight of the Pedallers: Colombian rickshaw drivers in London
Diego Perilla waits for customers in Covent Garden. Photo Credit: Jaime Concha
On a busy Saturday afternoon in Covent Garden, 28 year-old Colombian Diego Perilla parks his rickshaw in a side street to rest and light a cigarette. As he catches his breath and puffs on his fag, he looks around and his eyes flinch. “I know this guy,” he says. “This copper is going to make me move.” Within seconds, a community officer motions at him and without uttering a word urges Diego to move on. Such is the life of Colombian tourist rickshaw drivers in Central London.
Westminster City Council has been on the lookout for misbehaving ‘pedicabs’ ever since November 2008 when a Polish rickshaw driver crashed into a Soho restaurant and injured two diners.
Perilla, an English language student who works as a rickshaw driver in the weekends, has felt the full extent of the crackdown on this popular form of transport. “My cycle was taken from me last October because I was parked in a double line curb in front of a theatre,” he says. “I had to go to court, as if I had committed a felony – it was kind of funny really.”
Diego had to plead guilty in order to receive a fair sentence. He considers this made the judge take a liking to him since he only received a £50 fine, while others have received penalties of up to £300.
Hostility in the trade
Other Colombian rickshaw drivers feel that in addition to the police, taxi and mini cab drivers in London have been increasingly violent to them. Another student from Bogotá, Daniel Felipe Dueñas was a victim of such an incident.
“Last Halloween at around one o’clock a mini cab was speeding and hit my bike, breaking one of my back tyres and smashing my rear lights,” he says. “As he sped away, several rickshaws and I chased him to a traffic light where the cab was stuck, when suddenly three drunk and fully costumed pedestrians alerted by our shouting and chase began smashing the windows of the car.”
Daniel said that when the police finally appeared, he was arrested without being questioned and had to spend the night at a police station. He thinks that this was because he was Colombian, and to make matters worse, a rickshaw driver. “Eventually,” Daniel said, “I was released and a week later got a letter from the Council saying that the CCTV had recorded the crime and that all charges were dropped.”
Diego Perilla agrees on the fact that taxi drivers hate the rickshaw business. “They say that we take clients from them, but no – we mostly work at night and only in the Westminster area,” he says. “But they loathe us. They cut us off in the street and insult us, shouting at our customers: ‘Don’t go with them, they are illegal, they are uninsured’.”
Such discrimination has taken a toll on other rickshaw drivers. “I think it is illogical that the police is chasing us instead trying to improve security in the city,” says Oscar Andrés Dueñas, a 24 year-old Bogotá native. “There are also undercover cops that are putting fines on rickshaws and taking away their bikes. Someone has to let people know about this and hopefully do something about it.”
Rickshaws drivers are often chased off their parking spots during their breaks. Photo Credit: Jaime Concha
The pedallers fight back
A group of Colombian rickshaw drivers, in collaboration with two of the biggest rickshaw companies Bugbugs and Prometheus Bikes, are planning to create a trade union to provide a voice for their plight.
“Last Monday we had a meeting and we are planning to speak with the police so that we have more freedom to park and do our job,” Daniel Dueñas said. “We don’t have motors and it’s 15 hours that we are pedalling – not even Lance Armstrong can last as long.”
Daniel Alejandro Rubiano, a driver from the remote Colombian town of Guateque feels that the union is a great idea, offering the idea of collaborating with the police in controlling traffic and pedestrians. “This is a problem that can only be resolved by being very organised and cultured, since it is very difficult making everybody agree,” he says. “Consider that at the moment we are more than 200 or 300 rickshaws, where maybe a hundred are Colombian.”
As the Saturday crowd begins moving once again towards the theatres in the West End, Diego Perilla has to continue working – with or without having regained his breath. Pointing to the officer who has just moved him, he considers the idea of a union preposterous: “I don’t think it will have an influence, truthfully. The problem is that nobody has wanted to commit themselves and that is why nobody makes up any rules for this.” Standing up on his seat, with both hands on the handlebars and preparing to pedal off, he scoffs and adds, “Westminster will not care one bit.”
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