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My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

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Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#31

Post by breckenedge »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #17
mtmail wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Abu Dhabi there is fleet of taxis which are "GPS controlled". The driver stayed exactly at the speed limit on an empty 4 lane highway at night for half an hour. Somebody in their operating center probably has a job to watch the drivers.

Or they might log the speed every n seconds and store it in a file for a program to analyse later.

This is the more typical use case. Managers/safety officers will want a report of "who sped the most in the last X days" both in terms of highest speed and average over-the-limit driving. In extreme circumstances, such as when onboard sensors detect an impact or impending rollover, the logging can ramp up to multiple times per second. Great for insurance purposes.

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#32

Post by steveklabnik »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21
VLM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possibly useful data point is this is Denver Colorado and the "local" airport for Denver can be a good 30-40 mile drive depending on where your Denver side destination is located. Its entirely possible he's only paying $1/mile or so which isn't all that bad for door to door service. Or put another way the driver is only grossing in revenue maybe $30/hour and has expenses and probably doesn't earn revenue 8 hours…

Unless your train stations are out further than your airports with poorer transport connections into the city. So is life in china.

Ha, train stations, that's rich. So is life in the US.

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#33

Post by Napapijri »

ck2 wrote: post #20
Dylan16807 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality check, this dude had taken a plane and needed transport around his destination - this is very much how people live when on a trip. This is perfectly normal behavior in most of the world, especially when it's a trip for business purposes. The only change is that the price of travel varies extremely between countries.

No, I can safely say there are billions (with a b) of people in this world who could never afford to take a $100 car ride across town and back. If you think this is normal, you are in an elite group and only use people in your group to compare to. Even if there are a million people in that group, it is still elite.

There are also billions of people that will never fly.

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#34

Post by nathanb »

gedrap wrote: post #25

Drama drama. It seems like 'police are bad' is such a popular prejudgement, and if a police officer pulls you over he definitely wants to throw you to jail for no reason. Police officer pulled over. Anything wrong with that? Nope. Officer asked for the documents. Anything to get offended with? Nope. >>> “Seattle man arrested for taking Uber to the Denver airport.” Did officer mention anything about arresting, anythin…

I take it you've never been in a similar situation?

If you've ever dealt with an officer of the law in an adversarial situation where you believe you've done nothing wrong, it can be an unnerving or even terrifying experience. The power imbalance is immediately and palpably felt (what I think the author was trying to convey by mentioning the clearly-visible gun). If the officer had wanted to arrest the citizen (who, if he was doing something wrong, was doing it in good faith with the belief and understanding that his actions were not only legal but encouraged by the governor -- an unnaturally well-informed citizen for being a temporary visitor to the state), he would have been well within his rights to do so.

Is this some rogue cop enacting some personal vendetta against alternative hirecar arrangements? Probably not. But did the officer act unprofessionally? Entirely. Not answering the questions, throwing the license back at the passenger, offering a free ride to the airport (which may very well be inciting breach of contract)...and what will happen to him? Possibly a slap on the wrist.

The only way the police can justify the power they are given is by wielding it appropriately and heavily penalizing its abuses. I don't expect the former to happen 100% of the time -- we are fallible humans -- but when it doesn't, I do expect the latter. And I rarely see it.

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#35

Post by will_hughes »

ck2 wrote: post #20
Dylan16807 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality check, this dude had taken a plane and needed transport around his destination - this is very much how people live when on a trip. This is perfectly normal behavior in most of the world, especially when it's a trip for business purposes. The only change is that the price of travel varies extremely between countries.

No, I can safely say there are billions (with a b) of people in this world who could never afford to take a $100 car ride across town and back. If you think this is normal, you are in an elite group and only use people in your group to compare to. Even if there are a million people in that group, it is still elite.

Of the roughly 750 million people who caught a plane in the US in the 12 months to April 2014[1], many of them will have paid a driver to get them to and from the airport.

Arguing that they shouldn't complain about crappy service or being harassed by authorities, because billions of others can't even afford a taxi is a pretty bad argument.

Person A: "We should be demanding that our authorities look more closely at the quality of water in our town. Having it contain high amounts of flammable gasses is not ok."

Person B: "But there's billions of people in the world who don't even have clean drinking water"

It doesn't invalidate person A's argument - yes, there's lots of people without drinking water or without the $100 to spend on two taxis. Yes, we need to do something about it.

We don't, however, need to completely disregard everything else until that problem is fixed. We're capable, as a society, of dealing with multiple issues concurrently.

[1] = http://apps.bts.gov/xml/air_traffic/src/index.xml

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#36

Post by brown9-2 »

ck2 wrote: post #20
Dylan16807 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality check, this dude had taken a plane and needed transport around his destination - this is very much how people live when on a trip. This is perfectly normal behavior in most of the world, especially when it's a trip for business purposes. The only change is that the price of travel varies extremely between countries.

No, I can safely say there are billions (with a b) of people in this world who could never afford to take a $100 car ride across town and back. If you think this is normal, you are in an elite group and only use people in your group to compare to. Even if there are a million people in that group, it is still elite.

What is the purpose of this line of argument?

"Most people in the world can't afford taxi rides like this so don't complain about how the police treat it"?

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#37

Post by rahimnathwani »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #21
VLM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possibly useful data point is this is Denver Colorado and the "local" airport for Denver can be a good 30-40 mile drive depending on where your Denver side destination is located. Its entirely possible he's only paying $1/mile or so which isn't all that bad for door to door service. Or put another way the driver is only grossing in revenue maybe $30/hour and has expenses and probably doesn't earn revenue 8 hours…

Unless your train stations are out further than your airports with poorer transport connections into the city. So is life in china.

This.

Trains are faster than planes for short-ish inter-city journeys in many other places because (i) you can use public transport to get to the stations, (ii) you avoid the time spent on check-in and security check and (iii) trains are more frequent than planes to the same destination.

None of these is the case in Beijing. I don't know about other cities. I've taken inter-city trains from Beijing a few times. Each time, I've found the experience of getting to the station, and finding the right spot, more arduous than for international flights.

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#38

Post by ryoshu »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #18

Here's a better headline: "My Uber gor pulled over by the Denver Police, and the officer mistakenly told us Uber is illegal." Maybe not so many clicks that way, though. I agree that this was a rather unfortunate and odd experience, but I don't see what the big deal is. The only thing that struck me as "really weird" about this is that the author called a Denver Post reporter to get live legal information while he was…

> Of course, in a perfect world, an officer would know everything about Colorado law. But that is clearly unrealistic.

Citizens of Colorado are supposed to know and obey the law and apparently citizens of Washington state are expected to as well, if they are visiting. Why is it unrealistic to expect a Colorado police officer to know the law?

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#39

Post by stefan_kendall3 »

nathanb wrote: post #34
gedrap wrote: post #25

Drama drama. It seems like 'police are bad' is such a popular prejudgement, and if a police officer pulls you over he definitely wants to throw you to jail for no reason. Police officer pulled over. Anything wrong with that? Nope. Officer asked for the documents. Anything to get offended with? Nope. >>> “Seattle man arrested for taking Uber to the Denver airport.” Did officer mention anything about arresting, anythin…

I take it you've never been in a similar situation? If you've ever dealt with an officer of the law in an adversarial situation where you believe you've done nothing wrong, it can be an unnerving or even terrifying experience. The power imbalance is immediately and palpably felt (what I think the author was trying to convey by mentioning the clearly-visible gun). If the officer had wanted to arrest the citizen (who,…

+1 power imbalance. I had to listen to a cop tell me how shitty his day had been for 10 minutes once while pulled over for no reason.

To be fair, he had had a really shitty day, and was 23 hours into a work shift, but there was nothing I could do to exit the situation without causing a serious problem aside from listen and wait.

I listened and wait, comforted him, and then I was allowed to leave.

Re: My Uber got pulled over by the Denver police – and then things got really weird

#40

Post by scep12 »

gedrap wrote: post #25

Drama drama. It seems like 'police are bad' is such a popular prejudgement, and if a police officer pulls you over he definitely wants to throw you to jail for no reason. Police officer pulled over. Anything wrong with that? Nope. Officer asked for the documents. Anything to get offended with? Nope. >>> “Seattle man arrested for taking Uber to the Denver airport.” Did officer mention anything about arresting, anythin…

I'm in agreement that the author's words are a bit dramatic, but I can sympathize with his disposition. Police often use their power as leverage to put citizens in a stressful, fearful state (as to draw out a confession). It's part of their training. Some use it judiciously; others, unnecessarily.

In other words -- Better watch out, Colorado! The cops are out tonight, and they're giving you the shakedown to make sure your ride to the airport is 100% legal.

>>> The officer was just doing his job

Seems to me he was just trying to play detective.

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