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Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

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Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#61

Post by discardorama »

bradleyland wrote: post #26
discardorama wrote: post #15

If my recent experience is anything, Uber needs some serious regulation. I live in SF, and was flying out of OAK. I had used Uber only once before, a long time ago; but this time, I suggested to the wife that we use Uber again. We had to leave SF at 7:15AM - 7:30AM or so. Around 7:15 I pulled up the app, and saw that there were several cars around (as they usually are). I requested an UberX; punched in the destinatio…

Or, you know, don't use Uber. I get that you had a bad experience, but the response to every bad experience should not be regulation. "Surge pricing" is no more a scam than any other market-based pricing mechanism. To be clear, I'm mixed on Uber overall, and I do think they need some regulation, but not with regard to pricing, coverage, or response time. Those are good fits for self-regulating markets. I'm more conce…

> I do think they need some regulation, but not with regard to pricing,

Would you rather have a service which charges more to (say) black passengers than white? Or which charges more to go to a poorer part of town a rich part?

The regulation I'm talking about is not being able to discriminate based on the type of passenger or destination.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#62

Post by zippergz »

discardorama wrote: post #15

If my recent experience is anything, Uber needs some serious regulation. I live in SF, and was flying out of OAK. I had used Uber only once before, a long time ago; but this time, I suggested to the wife that we use Uber again. We had to leave SF at 7:15AM - 7:30AM or so. Around 7:15 I pulled up the app, and saw that there were several cars around (as they usually are). I requested an UberX; punched in the destinatio…

> a licensed cab cannot refuse to take you to your destination!

They "cannot" but they have done it to me many times in several cities. I also once had a cabbie try to strongarm me into giving a ridiculously huge tip (~100%) "because I won't be able to get a fare all the way back." Not to defend Uber here, but it's not like the cab regulation totally fixes this.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#63

Post by discardorama »

cozzyd wrote: post #52
istvan__ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an edge case, and you can think of it as a side effect coming from living in SF, where everybody has to deal with bay bridge problems. I understand your frustration but I would split the blame 50-50 between the city for not providing transportation, and Uber to not red flagging this problem and offer a special solution for this.

SF provides great transportation (via BART) to its own airport and decent transportation (also via BART) to OAK.

If I didn't have a large suitcase, I would have definitely taken the BART. But getting to a BART station is a PITA if you have some luggage.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#64

Post by smoorman1024 »

bsbechtel wrote: post #23

To me, this seems to speak volumes about the viability of Uber's business model in the long run. If they can't compete because additional background checks and insurance are needed, is it really a $40B company?

It's not that they couldn't afford to do the additional background checks and insurance it's obviously a statement they are making and that statement fits right into the 'Randian' views that Travis Kalanick has already been accused of. He thinks that Kansas will come crawling back after Uber is gone but more likely competitors that are willing to deal with regulation (that is probably righteous) will fill the gap.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-...

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#65

Post by DanBC »

smokeyj wrote: post #57
discardorama wrote: post #15

If my recent experience is anything, Uber needs some serious regulation. I live in SF, and was flying out of OAK. I had used Uber only once before, a long time ago; but this time, I suggested to the wife that we use Uber again. We had to leave SF at 7:15AM - 7:30AM or so. Around 7:15 I pulled up the app, and saw that there were several cars around (as they usually are). I requested an UberX; punched in the destinatio…

One time I went to McDonalds and the pickles were all mixed up with the mustard. This industry really needs a regulatory overhaul.

Luckily food supply is heavily regulated and regulators take cross contamination seriously. Contact your regulators.

If you're going to snark you should at least pick a good example.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#66

Post by Dylan16807 »

mahouse wrote: post #6

How despotic! Lawmakers demanding background checks and insurance from taxi drivers! This is outrageous. Where is muh freedom? I want to be able to hire a taxi with a rapist driver! http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/transportation/article/...

Background checks aren't demanded for a thousand other jobs. An evil person could be hiding almost anywhere. What makes cabs special?

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#67

Post by SilasX »

probably_wrong wrote: post #30
stegosaurus wrote: post #8

All of this nonsense about insurance and checks and blah makes me weep for humanity. If I can hitch hike legally, why can't I pay for the same service? Basically it seems to me that regulation has the effect of forcing lifestyles upon people. You can't just sell people things, you have to be a Thing Seller and devote yourself to that regulatory environment and then you can sell some of the people some of the things.…

Precisely, because you don't pay the guy that gives you a lift when you hitchhike, but you do pay to an Uber driver. Once there's money involved, we are no longer talking about an agreement between gentlemen, but about a commercial transaction, and those require regulations because the incentives are different, and money does weird things to people. A driver maximizing profits has no incentive in, say, checking his b…

Your general point is sound, about the profit motive leading to riskier behavior, but the application to that specific case is questionable. Drivers have the right incentives on brake checks, regardless of profit, by virtue if the fact that they're in the car and would lose control!

It would be more correct to say that the incentive problem here lies in uncompensated danger to other drivers, which for-profit drivers may be willing to ignore when tempted by money.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#68

Post by discardorama »

clarkmoody wrote: post #37
discardorama wrote: post #15

If my recent experience is anything, Uber needs some serious regulation. I live in SF, and was flying out of OAK. I had used Uber only once before, a long time ago; but this time, I suggested to the wife that we use Uber again. We had to leave SF at 7:15AM - 7:30AM or so. Around 7:15 I pulled up the app, and saw that there were several cars around (as they usually are). I requested an UberX; punched in the destinatio…

> Uber needs some serious regulation Too often our knee-jerk reaction is to want the government to get involved. But based on your experience, you are probably a) not going to trust Uber again, at least for this sort of ride b) choose a competitor / traditional cab to get you to OAK c) tell all of your friends / HN about your crappy experience, leading to reduced reputation for Uber The end result is that Uber will n…

> Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market.

I love it how libertarians believe everything will be fixed by a mythical "market". I'm sorry, but if we had left it to the "market", we'd still have separate "white" and "colored" toilets. We'd have no gay marriage. We'd have no voting rights act.

The regulation I'm talking about is not being able to discriminate based on the type of passenger or destination.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#69

Post by athenot »

bsbechtel wrote: post #23

To me, this seems to speak volumes about the viability of Uber's business model in the long run. If they can't compete because additional background checks and insurance are needed, is it really a $40B company?

Their long term goal is to rely on self-driving cars, not drivers. So background checks for drivers and commercial insurance for drivers won't be an issue.

Re: Uber leaves Kansas after lawmakers demand background checks and more insurance

#70

Post by edent »

moey wrote: post #46

I've got mixed feelings. At one end, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the state to require more insurance coverage for Uber drivers since there will be more risk involved than a regular driver. Background checks required by state? That's Uber's job to decide, and they do it anyway. If Uber doesn't do background checks, and there are incidents (even a small number) it will hurt their business at the end of the da…

> If Uber doesn't do background checks, and there are incidents (even a small number) it will hurt their business at the end of the day.

I really hate this mode of thinking. What's wrong with preventing incidents?

A background check isn't going to weed out 100% of muggers, rapists, or Enron Executives - but it will likely reduce the number of muggings, rapings, and fraud.

Your argument is basically "There's no need to inspect restaurants - if people die of food poisoning, the business will suffer."

Well, yeah - but how about we take some simple precautions to stop people getting hurt?

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