Some 8,000 drivers for taxi-hailing company Didi Dache in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province have been suspended from using the company's platform after a female passenger in the city was robbed and killed by a Didi Dache driver.
The suspension was imposed on drivers who have allegedly violated company rules, and drivers will be required to reverify their qualifications, China Central Television (CCTV) reported Sunday.
A March inspection by Shenzhen police found that 1,425 drivers for five major car-hailing apps - including Didi Dache and Uber - had histories of drug crimes, and 1,661 had major criminal records, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Car-hailing companies, whose drivers are mainly private car owners, have come to the attention of supervision authorities after several recent incidents, CCTV said, adding that a regulation on the management of car-hailing services is expected by mid-May.
Yang Chuantang, China's minister of transportation, said during the annual sessions of legislative and advisory bodies in March that the regulation will bring the new industry under legal control to optimize its development, the Beijing Times reported.
A 24-year-old woman in Shenzhen was robbed and killed on May 3 by a driver registered on the Didi Dache car-hailing platform. The driver - who has been caught - was later found to have used his real ID card and driver's license when registering with the app, but later used a fabricated license plate during operations.
On May 1, media reports said four teenage girls in Haikou, South China's Hainan Province called the police to report that their Didi Dache driver was masturbating while driving.
