Somebody want to clue me in on the Uber hate?
Which one do you hit? There are a number of ways to solve this problem. Using hive mind tech to decide what the best choice of action is given a specific scenario, or look at legal precedent. Which one results in fewer and less expensive lawsuits.
Given that a computer’s reaction time is significantly faster than a human’s, that alone will decrease the chances of these scenarios happening.
As mentioned by an earlier poster, given the amount of information a sdc would need, it would have all the necessary information for a clear picture of what caused the accident and everyone’s reactions to it. I would hazard a guess that the days of insurance scams where someone cuts quickly in front of your car and slams on the brakes would be over as well.
Uber has basically violated taxi regulations all over the world. And is violating employment regulations all over the world.
“Move fast and break things” is a fine motto for an innovative business. Until the thing you decide you’re going to break is the law.
Break cartels & conventions & “the way it’s always been done”? Sure. But in accordance with what the law says, not what you wish it said. Unilaterally declaring that the law doesn’t apply to you because of some transparent fig leaf excuse is anti-social garbage that has no place in an advanced civilization.
If they’re harbingers of the future, it’s a piratical one of businesses deciding which laws they like and which they don’t. Hint: real soon they’ll like none at all if these guys aren’t stopped in their tracks.
Damn near any business can be a competitive success once it decides to play by only the rules it likes.
Eh, taxis are a useless monopoly. I have no problem with companies that try to break monopolistic powers.
They’re not a taxi service, and in most parts of the world, they’re still not an employer. For the most part, governments are recognizing this. In some spots, the government and activist courts are not recognizing this. Overall, the question is still open.
+1. Taxis have provided substandard service in my area. I have little love for them. I am happy to pay more for Uber than a cab. (And I do with the tips I leave.)
What do you do when taxi regulations exist solely to create and protect a taxi cartel?
If Uber didn’t break taxi regulations, operate outside the existing cartel, there would be no Uber. The clear improvement they have made in the ‘car for hire’ market would not exist at all, and there would be no pressure to change.
What part of “change the law using democratic means” is so hard for people to accept?
The problem with Uber is it’s in exactly the same moral sphere as any other example of “The law doesn’t apply to me because I’m special”.
I have a feeling the USA is about to have a 4 or maybe 50 year lesson in why that’s a bad thing. It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of other historical or current international examples to look at. Greece, Italy, and Russia in the last 30-ish years are all good, but very different, examples of how well that attitude works for the public at large.
The idea that a company breaking monopolistic practices is in any way similar to autocracy is laughable.
I confess I don’t see what the problem is with the Uber business model in its current form.
It is another option to get me from a to b, an alternative to existing taxis. As a consumer I approve and I suspect that that the only people who don’t are the existing taxi owners.
…this is what Uber is getting up to at the moment in San Francisco:
They’ve been ordered off the road: Uber’s response was “fuck you.”
What has any of this got to do with “breaking the taxi cartels?”
Uber has been a disaster in New Zealand. They complied with the law for a while. The law requires any drivers who drive passengers for “hire or reward” to have a P Endorsement on their licence. Earlier this year Uber told their drivers that they didn’t need to have this endorsement, then they dropped their fares by 20%.
This screwed over the drivers who had been following the law: who had invested the required $2000 for the licence (which includes medical tests and a “fit and proper person” test) and were paying their taxes and were running their Uber businesses as proper businesses as they had their income drop by 20% and put them into competition with other Uber drivers who didn’t have the same overheads. (Many of these drivers quit the business when Uber dropped their fares because the business became uneconomical) And this screwed over the drivers who signed up and didn’t follow the law: because those drivers got pulled off the road and fined.
Uber here tells its drivers that they only need to take out third party insurance when third party insurance wouldn’t cover them in an accident here (they need commercial insurance.) They are a bad corporate citizen: paying less than $10,000 tax on 1 million dollars of income.
Uber are a bad company. There is nothing inherently wrong with “drive sharing.” But Uber don’t want to follow the rules, they treat their drivers like shit and they don’t pay their dues. And I’m only talking about New Zealand. Each and every other place in the world where they have entered the market can tell a similar story.
So I’m starting my own [del]police[/del]security force, which I’ll call Fury. People will use an app to let me and my goons, er, I mean my associates know where there is trouble and we’ll go put a stop to it. Fury will go ahead and set up a “court system” too, so that the “jails” are “legitimate”.
Fury can do this because any laws that say Fury can’t operate don’t apply because Fury isnt doing what they say is illegal, it’s completely different because there’s an app.
If Fury didn’t break laws and exist outside the existing police cartel, there would be no Fury. The clear improvement in the “force for hire” market would not exist at all, and there would be no pressure to change.
Right?
:dubious:
:rolleyes:
It will be under 15 years. I think any accidents are just going to execrate the programs instead of sideline. The safest scenario for AI cars is total share of the road meaning zero human drivers. Any accidents will be blamed on the human element until privately owned cars are just a distant memory. That may take a little longer then 15years but once these culture crushing cars start rolling it will snowball faster then the Patriot Act.
You clearly have no idea what Uber is or how it works, the fact that it has an app is irrelevant to whether it’s breaking the law or not.
You also seem to be unaware that private security companies are very much a thing - and that, like Uber, they operate within the existing laws, and act to get laws they disagree with changed.
You clearly have no idea why I wrote what I wrote, nor how Uber works. Uber does not, as a default, work within the law. Sometimes, after they have been forced to stop offering their services, they have worked to change the laws to suit themselves (my own state of Nevada is one where they did that), but it is a fact that their default has demonstrably not been “working within the law”.
Uber has attempted from the start to claim that they are not a service that provides vehicles that transports people from one place to another; they are not a “ride sharing” company any more than a restaurant is a “food sharing” company.
you just gave me an idea for a startup.
Uber doesn’t own the vehicle, the drivers are self employed and use the software platform from Uber to organise the rides.
The driver keeps most of the money and Uber takes a cut.
It certainly sounds like a ride-sharing setup.
so you think most Uber drivers are actually going somewhere near their passengers’ destinations? I highly, highly doubt that to be the case.
Your post contains a number of assertions, I’ll grant you that. :rolleyes: I’ll also grant you that those assertions are mostly wrong.
Uber does sometimes own the vehicle. [
](Uber leases cars to UberX drivers | Fortune)[
](Uber’s car leasing program turns its drivers into modern-day sharecroppers)Also, who do you think owns Uber’s self-driving cars? :dubious:
When Uber has been challenged, both in court and with Departments of Labor, Uber drivers have been found to be employees, not self-employed contractors.[
](Court: Uber drivers are company employees not self-employed contractors | Ars Technica)[
](California Uber Driver: Employee or Independent Contractor? | Nolo)[
](Uber Drivers Are Employees, New York Agency Finds | WNYC | New York Public Radio, Podcasts, Live Streaming Radio, News)Ah, the old “it’s an app so it’s different” argument. :rolleyes:
There’s no such thing as “ride sharing” for a fee any more than there’s such a thing as “food sharing” (or any other kind of sharing involving a fee). It doesn’t matter that you call your horse a cow, it’s still a horse. Up is not down, down is not sideways and Uber is in the business of transporting people from one place to another. Their basic business model involves exploiting labor and flouting the law.
Fuck Uber.
We have a metropolitan taxi service that functions as a non-profit co-op, organizing and dispatching a bunch of privately owned and operated cabs. Just like Uber, except, operating within the law.