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Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

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Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#51

Post by patio11 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #46

Can someone explain uber to a UK reader who does not understand what the fuss is? I can see its some sort of aggregation service for taxi cabs, but I generally like using one particular firm, that I know vets its drivers well. Some (men & women) I know stick to women only driver firms and so forth. A nice UI is good but I dont get it?

The attactiveness of Uber varies with regards to locality in the United States. Many cities have taxi systems which are deeply non-functional:

a) So few taxis on the roads (because the laws forbid anyone from adding more) that it is virtually impossible to hail one, like San Francisco.

b) Drivers who habitually discriminate against customers by race, desired travel location, etc.

c) Routine fraud conducted by drivers over e.g. whether a payments mechanism which is legally required such as, say, the credit card machine is actually functioning or not. (Taxi drivers in the US prefer to be paid in cash because it makes fraud easier.)

By comparison, Uber is "You push a button. A car picks you up and drives you to your destination. You do not get cheated." This is a severe competitive threat to taxis in many US cities, even at a hefty premium to what taxis are charging.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#52

Post by mikeash »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #50
readme wrote: post #27

This is just a side note, but on april 2 every cab in my city was suspended from service for safety violations. http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/All-Manchester-taxis-suspen... The taxi industry is not a good thing to leave unregulated. If you think uber wouldn't operate just like the rest of them because they're a trendy startup, you're delusional. I acknowledge the call for regulation is over travel destination, but…

OK, that got me. It took a few minutes, and rereading the above link to work out it is not Manchester UK (pop 1/2m) but Manchester NH (pop 100K) However 19 cabs total for a population of 100,000 is really low. A quick google / yell shows me 109 listed taxi firms in Manchester UK. Thats about what I would expect. Why are there only 19 actual cars in Manchester NH? - http://www.taxinumber.com/taxis/manchester/?page=5

I would naively expect the number of taxis used in a city to scale with something like the square of the population. The smaller the city is, the fewer places there are to go, the farther away basic things tend to be, and the more likely people are to have and drive cars.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#53

Post by chollida1 »

nodata wrote: post #20
illuminate wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the taxi can leave you wherever, whenever they figure this out.

So then you report them.

It doesn't help you get home if they pick you up in a high density area and then drop you off in an area where cabs aren't likely to come by.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#54

Post by a2tech »

newbie12 wrote: post #28
[deleted] wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Why do you assume the regulated entity will be better? Private carriers UPS and FedEx deliver to the doorstep of my farm, whereas the "universal service" US Postal Service won't come near us and requires we have a PO Box in town.

What? Where do you live? The USPS will deliver anywhere in the United States-including via float plain and mule train. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and every farm had a mailbox. Now, if you live on a private road they may require you to put a mailbox at the intersection of your private road and the public road, but thats the only rule I've ever heard of.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#55

Post by readme »

driverdan wrote: post #42
readme wrote: post #27

This is just a side note, but on april 2 every cab in my city was suspended from service for safety violations. http://www.wmur.com/news/nh-news/All-Manchester-taxis-suspen... The taxi industry is not a good thing to leave unregulated. If you think uber wouldn't operate just like the rest of them because they're a trendy startup, you're delusional. I acknowledge the call for regulation is over travel destination, but…

Your example is a clear case of regulation failure. The cab companies knew of the inspection but took no action to comply with the regulations. In smaller cities like Manchester where there are only 19 cabs there is very little market pressure. Competition in large cities will put more pressure on companies. The risk of a significant lawsuit is also significant pressure to maintain vehicles.

How is it a case of regulation failure? If there were no regulation, all the defective cabs would still be on the road right now.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#56

Post by watsonc73 »

zimbatm wrote: post #8

Uber must be doing something right to get this kind of trouble.

The taxi regulators were always going to put up a fight and use whatever lobbying they could to nip them in the bud. The reality is that Uber have done a great job of ploughing on regardless. In Ireland and the UK, Hailo have managed to keep the taxi regulators on side and the taxi drivers love them. A bit like Spotify vs Napsters approach to the labels. Seems like the carrot works better than the stick!

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#57

Post by pifflesnort »

lucasvo wrote: post #37
pifflesnort wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unregulated innovation often innovates fraud and crime when you're talking about unmarked, unregulated cars driven by unknown people, picking people up off the street. If you go anywhere in the world with less strict taxi regulation, you'll run into this. In Prague, my wife and I hopped into a cab only to find that the meter seemed to exist in a time bubble that ran 10x faster than the rest of the known universe. I a…

I can agree with what you're saying though I want to share an anecdote from Moscow where there is pretty much no regulation and pricing varies by car company. Instead of having a meter you negotiate the price in the beginning. To help users out with ordering cabs Yandex released an app that actually let's you order cabs and shows you pre-negotiated prices, you can pick whichever one you like (economy, premium, luxury…

I can share an anecdote from the reverse perspective. When traveling in Morocco, I didn't speak any local languages (eg, French or Arabic). I also was entirely unfamiliar with the city, the distances between points, or even how much something should cost. If there was a Yandex app, I wouldn't have known about it (... although the last time I was in Morocco predated smart phones by about 10 years).

This meant that negotiating a price was pretty much out -- I paid what they asked, and had no real way to gauge whether that was reasonable other than asking a local. I also had no recourse if they overcharged -- what was I going to do?

Information asymmetry is a potent weapon for taking advantage of people, whether it involves taxi rates, or just how clean the restaurant's kitchen is, or how fresh the ingredients are. This is why we have regulations that attempt to provide some of the symmetry required for fair exchange.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#58

Post by sqs »

kyro wrote: post #19

I felt I got burned by Uber the first time I used them during Hurricane Sandy when I was charged a hefty fee because of their dynamic pricing. I gave them another try a month back and now find myself using the service no fewer than 5 times a week. It literally eliminates every thing I hate about calling a cab. I love it now and almost rely on it at times. I make sure to ask every single new driver about their experie…

Yes, I've also gotten universally positive feedback from all of the Uber drivers I've talked to (Uber Taxi, UberX, and Uber Black in SF). Whenever I take non-Uber cabs, I ask about Uber, and the response is also usually positive. Some of them say they have already applied to Uber and are waiting to hear back.

The one negative thing about Uber that I've heard is from a non-Uber cab driver who said that Uber is bad because it cannot be anonymous. He then told me about all of the people he has driven who are committing crimes and marital infidelity, which are not the best examples to use. To be fair, I can think of much better examples where anonymity is valuable.

I am a HUGE Uber fan and regular user, but he did make a good point about the loss of an anonymous travel option for those who need it.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#59

Post by jellicle »

mikeash wrote: post #52
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, that got me. It took a few minutes, and rereading the above link to work out it is not Manchester UK (pop 1/2m) but Manchester NH (pop 100K) However 19 cabs total for a population of 100,000 is really low. A quick google / yell shows me 109 listed taxi firms in Manchester UK. Thats about what I would expect. Why are there only 19 actual cars in Manchester NH? - http://www.taxinumber.com/taxis/manchester/?page=5

I would naively expect the number of taxis used in a city to scale with something like the square of the population. The smaller the city is, the fewer places there are to go, the farther away basic things tend to be, and the more likely people are to have and drive cars.

Not population. The number of cabs is strongly related to the number of people WITHOUT CARS in an area. No matter how heavily populated, if an area is built in the standard car-centric suburb design, there won't be many cabs since car ownership will approach 100%.

Re: Taxi industry lawsuit against Uber transferred from state to US court

#60

Post by rhizome »

Fizzadar wrote: post #34

I find it so depressing that traditional taxi company's wish to stifle inovation (which, as far as I can tell, is much loved), simply because they have failed to innovate themselves. IMO this is similar to the music industry and hollywood, where companies are 'stuck in their ways' and will desperately try to keep the status quo at the expense of the consumer. Where's the love?.

And cable companies and garbage collection and all the other industries that have been captured by organized crime, fraud, and cry like little babies whenever their comfy fiefdom is encroached upon. They're like siblings who whine, "Mommmmm!! Billy's on my side of the back seat!" Sheer territorial corruption.
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