Today I saw a news article saying the Ministry of Public Security issued a “fatigue driving regulation,” and ride-hailing drivers working over 8 hours continuously will come to an end
Fatigue driving situations
If any of the following apply, it should be recognized as fatigue driving:
a) The motor vehicle driver continuously drives for more than 4 hours without taking a break or with a break time of less than 20 minutes;
b) Passenger transport motor vehicle drivers continuously drive from 22:00 to 06:00 the next day for more than 2 hours without a break or with a break time of less than 20 minutes;
c) Passenger transport motor vehicle drivers accumulate more than 8 hours of driving time within 24 hours.
Just reading this news feels off. Based on my own experience, for example in conversations with ride-hailing drivers or videos about the lives of ride-hailing drivers on websites, most ride-hailing drivers work ten-odd hours a day, barely earning around 5,000 yuan a month. There are reports (referring to “Job Resilience in Urban Travel: Employment Prospects and Performance of Ride-Hailing Drivers”) that also note, “ride-hailing drivers’ average online time per day is 6.41 hours, most drivers’ daily online time centers around 10 hours, but 0.59% of drivers online超过15小时.” And with such a cut in working hours, won’t most ride-hailing drivers end up suffering?
Moreover, even more barbaric is the state media and the official press brazenly saying
Therefore, whether from the perspective of ensuring passenger safety, maintaining public safety, or considering drivers’ health, it is quite necessary to enforce regulations with rigid constraints and to prevent fatigue driving. When drivers face fatigue driving risk, the platform or operating organization needs to “force shut down” the vehicle.
The regulation is about to take effect, platforms should align their rules with the new regulation, adjusting the billing time limit to 8 hours. Platforms and regulatory authorities should also break down information barriers to prevent drivers from jumping to another platform to take orders during the “forced rest” window.
But isn’t what forces ride-hailing drivers to keep taking orders none other than the platform’s high commissions, high car rental costs? In the end, isn’t it caused by the fascist police state? Many ride-hailing drivers have realized this; when I used to ride-hail, I often chatted with drivers, and topics would turn to opposing the reform. Interestingly, many drivers are very dissatisfied with the reform government. Perhaps this is because many ride-hailing drivers have long been workers who were laid off due to work injury, overwork, or factory layoffs, so they joined. Some entered due to small-production bankruptcies, or even business bankruptcies, etc. Therefore they have some conflicts with the reform government. The news also mentions that drivers were already awakened and resent the parasite that rides on their heads:
Some ride-hailing drivers lament that from car owners to car rental companies, to major platforms, everyone is looking to make money off drivers, “We support the company and platforms, but we can barely support our own family.”
The reform government wants to extend its reach to ride-hailing drivers, I think it’s also to push some drivers out of the industry. Here are my thoughts, not necessarily correct, welcome everyone to discuss.
As early as October 2024, nationwide had issued 7,483,000 ride-hailing driver licenses. In just over a month from April 2025 to May 25, DiDi ride-hailing nationwide recruited over 770,000 new drivers. Now it’s 2026, I don’t know how many ride-hailing drivers there are; surely far more than 700 million. Comparing to food delivery workers, ride-hailing driver strikes and protests seem to erupt less frequently, perhaps because the class composition of ride-hailing drivers is also quite complex. Regardless, this huge group of ride-hailing drivers largely have worked in society, experienced unemployment and bankruptcy, and have sharp conflicts with the reform government. So it is natural for the reform government to target them. Now that ride-hailing drivers are not organized, it is easier for the reform government to suppress, hence the introduction of such a regulation. However, I believe the Chinese people have backbone; ride-hailing drivers who must feed their families and have nowhere to retreat will not let this regulation pass so easily, and the reform government will bite off more than it can chew.
