So have we decided that the key difference is the street-hailing? Out of all the times I’ve taken a taxi in my life, I don’t think I’ve ever hailed one on the street, I’ve always either called for it to get me, or worked with a curb-side dispatch person.
No. It depends where you live. Some places taxis are permitted to provide livery service, in addition to other hired vehicles.
Yes. Consider the differences. If you are phoning for a ride you can phone half a dozen companies, and choose the cheapest or whatever other criteria you choose. And certainly if that company doesn’t treat you right they are not going to get repeat business. But a street hail is different. You need consumer protections to ensure the driver is not going to charge $100 for a usual $20 fare, etc.
That’s probably a reasonable and legally correct expectation but it sure looks like in reality the industry they are killing is the taxi industry.
I guess I should mention, Id be fine with some deregulation of the industry and not an Uber-hater. Just pretty obvious to me that they are not playing by the current rules.
We didn’t buy into their bullshit in Nevada and shut them down. Only when they agreed they were, in fact, taxis and would be subject to the same regulations did we let them do business in the state. At one time tho they did try to pas a law that would have defined them as both “not taxis” and “totally legit”.
Uber is still bullshit. I don’t use their services (and encourage others to avoid them).
I was thinking that it was established earlier in the thread that regulations exist for taxis solely because of the street-hailing way that you can hire one. Why do you want Uber to be subject to those regulations if street-hailing is not how they work?
I’ve street hailed an Uber driver in NYC. It was after a game at Madison Garden and he was one of a bunch of cars idling on the street outside one of the back entrances
Taxis have lobbied for their protected definition for decades, why could Uber just automatically qualify after so much successful effort to prevent that exact thing from happening?
Why is it bullshit?
To this outside observer, who uses neither taxis nor Uber regularly, Uber seems better. Accountability, accuracy, ease of use. If not necessarily cheaper, then at least a pre-known price for the trip. Plus, not driving you the circuitous route to increase the fare.
People whined in the same way when Super Shuttle opened out here - how it was an evil service, and a bunch of other bullshit arguments that basically whittled down to “they are cutting into our business. Waaah!”
But Super Shuttle is still here, and still works well. The way I see Uber or Super Shuttle is, you give people what they want, and they’ll buy it. And conventional taxis were not what people want. Don’t like it, don’t use it. But don’t deny me the choice.
Are you suggesting that how long a special interest group lobbies has something to do with whether a policy is a good idea or not?
All of the “new economy” “gig economy” etc. business models seem to incorporate three components:
[ol]
[li]There’s an app for it, which makes it totally new and cool and different from anything that’s come before.[/li][li]A “corporate server” management model that insists they’re just facilitating communications and transactions between cool, connected citizens.[/li][li]A sense that absolutely none of the other rules apply to them.[/li][/ol]
And, so far, things like Uber, Airbnb and so on have figured out that they can get away with skimming large amounts of real money off of their “power to the people virtual transaction model we have no actual involvement in and thus no responsibility.”
So yes, it’s the very textbook model of technology outpacing law.
Neither, just in this case that it has created a high bar to entry, preventing those who would like to enter from doing so, which prevents Uber from operating as a taxi.
Building high strong walls act as much as a fortress as a prison.
To drive for Uber in New York City, you need a chauffer’s license and have to go through the paperwork and being registered with the whatchamacallit bureau (sorry, but there is one). Had a housemate who was an Uber employee driving in NYC. It’s very different from signing on with Uber in Podunk where you just join up and go pick up people who have indicated that they want a ride.
I think you’re missing something vital here. A core component is: someone has something on a small scale that’s useful to someone else. A spare room. A seat in a car. Going back a few years, something to auction, or a few used books to sell. It’s a very valid model to give small-scale owners of such things an opportunity to exchange them, via new technology.
It’s not the tech that’s outpacing law, it’s the ability of “medium to large scale” sellers to avoid regulations meant for them, by pretending to be small-scale.
Cite?
As of earlier this year NV Uber drivers still couldn’t accept street hails or pick up at taxi stands. Has something changed since February?
This is a very narrow and self-serving interpretation, if not close to nonsense.
Every industry that serves individuals has a variety of regulations, some of which may serve only the powers-that-be, but most of which are to ensure fairness and safety and recourse and “community suitability.” Coming at this market from a different direction doesn’t make the reasons for those laws and regulations go away.
We’re in an era where some bright college student can use easy tools like a phone app to create a shadow version of taxi service or hoteling, and it works just great on a FOAF and FOAFOAF basis among lightly connected, hipso, similarly-thinking college students. So far, no harm no foul although it’s technically operating outside the law.
But when you suddenly scale that up to literally hundreds of thousands of users, the groovy-cool insider FOAF vibe isn’t going to work any more, and it’s going to break in spectacularly awful ways, sooner or later. Ways that can largely be prevented by following the regulations established for the general industry type, no matter how “different” it is from existing players.
But no, the cool crowd with their app insists it’s just a thing between friends (500,000 of them) and the regulations are just Big Brother trying to crush the rising tide of free enterprise and web-driven couch sharing. It’s not, and they’re not.
boffking, you were instructed to start no more than one thread per week in Great Debates. This is a warning for violating that instruction.
That would be the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC - I kid you not). Uber vehicles also have the license plates indicating that they have TLC clearance.
As a NYer, Uber is doing some good, IMO. Street hails are easy in much of Manhattan, but if you are in any other borough, one shouldn’t hold one’s breath waiting for a free cab. Uber came in, and suddenly the yellow cabs start expanding into the outer boroughs with green cabs. Uber instituted an app where not only can you order a car online, but you know where that car is and when it will arrive. As someone who has missed trains and planes due to taxi dispatchers promising the “driver will be there soon”, knowing exactly when my ride will show up is a huge improvement. Some of the larger black car services are instituting the same thing with their fleets now. I can guaran-fucking-tee you that none of them would have improved their service one bit without a disruptor coming in with an improved service. Lastly, yellow cabs took forever to start accepting credit cards (and some drivers were so reticent in the beginning that they would break the machines) and many black cars, especially the smaller companies, still don’t. If one is out at night, has little cash, one can order a car, know when it will arrive, not have to worry about cash AND the driver never has to worry about being an attractive target to criminals because he’s got a bankroll.
Uber (and it’s clones, like Lyft) is far from perfect, but Uber has brought about market improvements that the existing closed shop network never would have considered.
Uber claims it is not a transport company at all. It is a technology company, putting passengers together with thousands of transport companies (each driver, according to Uber, is running their own business). And Uber’s position is that it’s driver’s responsibility to comply with local law.
But Uber helps with this. In Wisconsin, a number of cities including Milwaukee and Madison, passed local ordinances requiring cars and drivers to similar licensing and inspection requirements to regular cabs. Uber bypassed the cities and went to the state government. They successfully lobbied for statewide legislation that provided almost no oversight of Uber, but prevented cities and counties from passing any local rules to interfere with Uber. It may have been cheaper to buy the state legislature than to buy each separate locality that decided to get in Uber’s face.
Boyo Jim – Uber driver
Here’s my experience, FWIW. I recently took a trip to Salt Lake City. I used Uber while their and the experience was excellent. Short wait times, clean vehicles, reasonable fares, and all the drivers drove safely. I had one driver who let me help her navigate in an area she was not familiar with. I’ve taken cabs in other cities before, including Los Angeles, Houston, and Austin. The cab rides usually involved longer wait times, higher fares, and older less comfortable vehicles, sometimes smelling of smoke. I have ridden with a taxi driver before that got lost, and they definitely have no interest in a passenger helping them navigate. I’m as liberal as they come, but if Uber can force the taxi industry to up their game, I’m all for it.