Uber Uber Alles

The mods have ruled that this thread on the Uber cab service cannot stray from discussion on the Uber app.

Nothing can be said against Uber, Uber commands, lest those running the company threaten the complainer and the complainer’s family.

Uber should be taken behind the barn and shot. Uber über alles. Don’t you forget it.

Uber executive says he’d “spend millions” to stalk female reporter and her family.

Reporter threatened by Uber führer reacts to stalking threat.

New Delhi Uber driver charged with rape.

”This city has failed me”

John Hodgman quits using Uber over stalking threat.

Uber is essentially a criminal syndicate running unlicensed taxicabs and getting away with not obeying the law or paying their taxes because millennials will worship anything that comes with an app and can market itself as being “rebellious”.

They ought to be prosecuted under the RICO Act if they’re not going to start doing business on the up-and-up.

Why should Uber get a break? It’s supposed to be just another company doing business with the public. The public should be able to applaud, or complain, about the service, the company, and the employees.

Well, good luck explaining that to your auto insurance company when your Uber passenger is seriously injured or killed in an auto accident. IRCC, your policy does not cover this situation. It’s called the SOL clause.

I wasn’t aware that the US Justice system was so totally under the control of the whims of people under the age of thirty.

:rolleyes:

This is an idiotic argument. It’s essentially carpooling and chipping in for gas. Not “a criminal syndicate”.

And a bus is just a cruise ship without no buffet.

Uber is a business that employs drivers who transport, for a fare, people not known to them. They’re operating a taxi and/or livery car service, and they’re doing so without adhering to the laws that govern either.

I love Uber. I use it multiple times each week. It’s an absolutely terrific service.

Executives of a multi-billion dollar company are assholes? I’m shocked. Better go off the grid if that’s enough to make you boycott a product.

Why haven’t they been prosecuted, then?

Their drivers have.

I think this discussion may be better served in the Pit.

And I’m sure cruise employees have been prosecuted for various crimes without the whole principle of a cruise being a “criminal syndicate”. :rolleyes:

Brooklyn cabbie charged with rape

Delaware taxi driver charged with raping victim inside cab
http://www.wboc.com/story/26346001/taxi-driver-charged-with-raping-victim-inside-cab-in-sussex-county
Nashville cab driver charged with rape

I guess being an Uber :rolleyes: driver isn’t what drives men to rape. It must be being a taxi driver in general that does it.

Okay, I could not even get past this. Just could not.

They can’t help it. They were driven to do it.

Can I hire a handbasket through Uber?

Bus drivers, too, at least in Mexico:

There’s no question they’re violating the spirit of the various taxi licensing laws, but obviously whether they’re actually violating the letter of the law is at least a gray area given that they seem to be able to operate without being prosecuted in most markets. There are incidentally markets where the laws do explicitly prevent Uber from operating and so they don’t.

In a great many parts of the country the laws that govern taxi services serve the function more of providing a state-sanctioned monopoly to one or a handful of operators, not assuring a level of safety or service. In fact it does the opposite since it assures a non-competitive market. If Uber et al can get around those regulations with what amounts to a loophole or just flying under the enforcement radar, more power to 'em I say.

And will subjecting taxi companies to fewer regulations fix that?

Presumably the cruse ship employees aren’t being prosecuted for being employed by a cruise ship.

Sometimes a non-competitive market is in the public’s best interest, especially when it relates to inherently dangerous machines that pollute the environment and compete with mass transit.