Yes, you can tell that someone is trying to make it sound bad by using the inflated 'trips' figure rather than number of drivers. This is mostly the fall out of political pressure from black cab drivers and their associations.

I'm certainly not keen on Ubers business practices, it's lacklustre approach to safety and poor record when it comes to employment regulations. However I think acceptance that the taxi industry has been changed forever will come eventually, these luddite challenges will eventually be forgotten and we'll all move on with our lives.

If we're lucky Uber will crash and burn and someone will pickup the baton, ideally in a more fair and sustainable way.

There are some other accusations as well and it actually says "at least 43" so that could be open ended. I guess they found 43 and weren't sure if there were others they hadn't found. But I'm just speculating.

You can read the article without a subscription if you google the URL and then click on it from the search results.