Uber or UberX? I’ve never had anything other than great service from Uber drivers. UberX has been generally very good, but not to the standard I expect from the black car drivers.
I’m in Chicago and post#7 above indicates the options available to me. I have used Uber Taxi, Uber SUV and UberX. UberTaxi and SUV were fine and I only used them once each; cost wise UberTaxi is basically the same as a regular cab and UberSUV is quite expensive (I was desperate and this was my only option at the time). So my negative experiences have all happened with UberX. As far as I can see UberX is the only reason to use Uber at all and they’ve failed me. I want Uber to work out for me but it just isn’t. I guess I’ll use it if I’m faced with no other alternative.
Well, they have a growing public relations problem right now.
We used them twice this past weekend while in Nashville. I wanted to use taxi drivers, but I was vetoed.
I continue to use Chicago Uber multiple times each week and have had nothing but positive experiences.
A pretty baseless article. Lets hope the Dailybeast exposes the crimes and mistakes of other local or international cab companies with the same zeal.
Why do you say baseless? It’s multiple claims from multiple people at multiple sites.
The CEO even apologized for threatening to call investigators out on one of the company’s critics “and her family”.
So if you take an Uber, you’ll be raped or kidnapped.
Anyway, Uber is the easiest thing in the world. It works pretty much like everyone has said: You pop open the app, it knows your location (or close - sometimes you have to correct it manually), you tell them where you’re going, then boom, someone picks you up, and you’re done. Already linked to your credit card, no tip, no hassle.
The only thing worth mentioning outside of that is to get a fare quote beforehand. Uber likes to engage in this nonsense called “price surging,” which means they charge double, triple, quadruple, whatever-the-hell-they-please the normal rate. The good news is when surge pricing is in effect, there’s a giant alert the moment you open the app that’s impossible to miss. Despite this, some people still complain about the prices of their ride. Dude, they warned you, bro. To be extra safe, you can request a quote to see if you think it’s worth it (I always request a fare quote anyway), and the quotes are pretty accurate. I’ve never had a quote exceed my actual cost.
Uber’s kind of great for me considering I’m not in a neighborhood where it’s easy to catch a cab, but I can have an Uber at my door in less than five minutes, and I can request it from my couch. Also, I don’t have to worry about dickhead cab drivers giving me attitude because I don’t have cash. I try to pay cab drivers in cash, but sometimes I don’t have any on me and I need to get my sorry ass home. With Uber, not a problem. I mix up my cabbing and Ubering depending on my location and if Uber is doing their surge BS.
Are cabbies in Chicago still giving grief over credit cards these days? I got razzed by one, once, maybe five years ago. I nearly always use a cc because I don’t carry cash and if I have to grab a cab it’s usually unplanned and because I’m going to be late if I don’t. After getting razzed that once years ago, I made a habit of asking before giving my destination whether a cc was okay. It’s been fine for so long that I stopped asking a couple years ago and still haven’t had an issue.
My latest phone software added the Uber app. I still haven’t decided whether it’s worth signing up. I’m usually in an area where I can just grab a cab by stepping over to the curb, and rarely go further than a $15 ride. I car share for more involved stuff and round trips. I’m not sure this thread is convincing me to try.
So we create this super slick only-for-those-with-smartphones (none of you dirty, unwashed with plain phones allowed), charge whatever, deny all responsibility for any/everything.
And we’re worth billions, so we can just keep doing the same!
See eBay 1999 vs ebay/paypal/own credit card/ megalith.
Not cute.
Same! Paper money is seldom in my wallet and sometimes shit happens that leaves me stuck outside after the CTA stops, unless I’m drinking along the Blue Line, then woot! Gotta pay the driver with plastic. Yes, they’re still giving people shit, and yes they’re still pretending their credit card machine is broken, or whatever, then it magically becomes fixed once you tell them you don’t have cash, so no payment for them. Annoying. The ones that have the cc terminal in the back seat I’ve never gotten lip from, but the others can be relied upon to act like assholes.
For me, Uber is just easier. Even if there are cabs readily available where I am, I’d rather just press some buttons from my bar stool, then walk directly into my ride two minutes later. The automatic payment thing is great, too. Unless Uber is surge pricing, I’m using it. I’m completely amazed by how cheap it is with regular fares; it always ends up being cheaper than a taxi somehow. But if they’re surge pricing, then yeah, fuck them. I’ll deal with taxis.
Go take a nap, grandpa. Even my 70 year old mother who refers to the internet as “the online” has a smartphone. If you don’t own or want one, you’re free to mosey down to the nearest phone booth and look through the Yellow Pages for your local cab company.
It was more of the 10 Uber horror stories I was getting at. The main part of the article. All of these allegations are day to day operations of large transport or cab companies. Very few of which recieve such a public airing.
As for digging up dirt on a female reporter; that’s what companies, politicians and more importantly journalists do all the time. It’s part of journalists and politicians trade to dig up information on individuals and run with it. Sure, its a PR disaster for Uber. THe executive who said it should rightly be getting condemned. If you are to do these things as a company then make sure your not caught out doing it. My problem with the article was the rest of the rubbish it contained. The article was mainly a hatchet job.
Without knowing all the details it seems most cab companies have not been held to these same high standards as you suddenly demand from Uber. Meet John Worboys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys
Multiple rapist of women in his London Black cab. A quick google has shown no report of his cab company admitting liability for his crimes. Yet his company are behind much of the media and legal campaign to highlight Uber driver wrongdoings.
This.
Unlike a random yellow cab with some anonymous driver, the Uber app tracks each driver and they are rated by their customers.
I believe customers are rated by their drivers as well.
One thing to keep in mind is that the legal status of Uber cars can be somewhat questionable, depending on your community. Local taxi unions tend to not like Uber for obvious reasons. Depending on the local politics, police will sometimes pull over and ticket Uber drivers as unlicensed cabs (which means you might have to get out and find alternate transportation).
Although from what I’ve read, Uber will pay all legal costs when their drivers receive such a ticket. Which makes sense from a business standpoint.
Stories criticizing Uber’s safety and quality are largely the product of the taxi unions. Your typical shitbox yellow cab and it’s driver screaming at you in broken English and reeking of Pine-sol air freshener is not any safer than the meticulously maintained private Uber vehicles. What they really mean is that Uber threatens their monopoly on $300,000 taxi medallions.
“We” are not creating anything. Some bright guys had this idea for utilizing smart phones (which unless you are Amish, is considered about as ubiquitous as having a television or kitchen refrigerator) to meet a particular need. Specifically, on-demand local transportation that provides a higher level of service and availability than a yellow cab but is more cost effective than a livery car.
If you feel that your personal transportation needs does not require such a service or your participation level in available consumer technology does not meet the minimum requirements to access this service, then perhaps you are not it’s target market. In which case, you would be free to use more traditional services like the bus or calling your local cab company for a pickup.
Uber is quite blatantly breaking the law in many cities in which it operates, and they’ve made it quite clear that they intend to continue ignoring the law, so I have absolutely no intention of giving them any of my business unless they start playing by the same rules that legitimate taxi companies have to.
Yeah, I Guess
This is precisely the case. Another example is currently doing the rounds. Here’s a link to today’s google news.
A rape in India by an Uber driver is being reported. Note its not reported as a taxi driver but headlined as an Uber taxi driver. Of all the hundreds(if not thousands) of rapes by taxi drivers around the world in any given year suddenly one by an Uber driver gets most of the publicity. Not just any publicity but publicity explicitly shouting of Uber’s involvement. Had this been done by a driver working for a local firm called New Delhi Cab Co. it would have barely registered abroad. Certainly the company name would not have appeared in the headlines. Uber is being dragged through the mud when most taxi companies would not.
As far as I can tell, most of the rules that legitimate taxi companies have to abide by were created with the purpose of creating a barrier to entry in the market and maintaining high profits for the owners of taxi medallions, or are no longer necessary in the age of smartphones. I’m fairly happy that Uber is forcing an upheaval in that market.
I don’t think this worry stands up to scrutiny.
Uber GPS must be accurate enough to locate the person within, say, a block, because otherwise they couldn’t the passenger to pick up. Similarly, the destination has to be about that accurate, or they wouldn’t drop you off at the right place. Since you have the two endpoints, the distance between them can be calculated precisely regardless of whether the GPS accuracy during the ride is affected.
Note that GPS pathfinding for cars is a very different problem than GPS route discovery for a run. In the former, you just have to figure out the best path to take and give directions. As long as the driver isn’t obviously doing the wrong thing, the GPS will get you there even if there are large areas where the signal doesn’t provide a precise location. In the latter case, the GPS has to try to figure out where you are at any time, and calculate the total length of your path. If you spend a while in a “GPS shadow”, then the best it can do is assume that you took a straight line path between where you entered the shadow and where you exited it.
I’m hoping you mean that you’ve never had your actual cost exceed the quote.