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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

#131

Post by tracker1 »

foobarqux wrote: post #105
bradleyland wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Surge pricing is not competitive-market based pricing. Uber is a price setter.

If someone isn't willing to sell to you for the price you are wanting to buy at, you have to offer more, or go without... that's how surge pricing works.

Just as the opposite works, if nobody is going to buy at your price, you have to come down, or you will lose business... ideally you will meet in the middle via market pricing. The rates are centered around competition with other sources for similar services. There is competition and market driven pricing, I don't see the problem.

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

#132

Post by tokenadult »

discardorama wrote: post #68
clarkmoody wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 destinati…

I completely agree with your social justice agenda here. But as a historical matter, most forms of invidious discrimination have had to be be enforced by government regulations (for sure, that is the case for why gay marriage used to be illegal) rather than by the market. The market (as a historical matter) does tend to break down patterns of prejudice, because most producers would like to sell to as many customers as they can, and most buyers will shop for the producer who will treat them with respect. The former Jim Crow segregation laws in the south had to be vigorously enforced by the formal justice system and by terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan precisely because many businessmen there would have been happy to serve all their potential customers on an even-handed basis if the law had allowed them to do so.

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

#133

Post by istvan__ »

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.

The irony of this thread is the delays of BART right now. :)

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

#134

Post by prostoalex »

athenot wrote: post #69
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.

Relying on self-driving involves

* owning the fleet with up-front capital requirements

* buying insurance

* owning the parking facilities for such fleet

* operating filling/charging stations for such fleet

* providing maintenance for the fleet on an ongoing basis

* operating car washes

What exactly is Uber's competence in such setup, and why are they in a dominant position to achieve this when compared to, let's say, Hertz, ZipCar, a local car dealership, or some mom-and-pop operation that bought two self-driving cars to rent them out on a busy intersection?

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

#135

Post by prostoalex »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #76

Well that's obnoxious that the insurance companies would play hot potato and not cover the 5 minute pickup windows. But how much is insurance for that period going to cost? Is Uber even going to notice the difference? Or is the problem that a 'work vehicle' is going to have no insurance the entire time it's being driven around? Even when it's not actually being used for Uber? Now that sounds unfair to make Uber pay f…

There's a difference between a 5 min leisure drive and a rush to a hot spot or surge location (such as a sports game that's about to end) to pick up a passenger, because of the driver incentives. Insurance companies are very aware of this, and this causes the price premium between personal and commercial insurance.

As somebody above pointed out, such accident already happened http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Family-of-SF-girl-killed-by... although I don't know if it carries any statistical significance when you count all the Uber rides in SF.

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

#136

Post by vtlynch »

smokeyj wrote: post #124
vtlynch wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are often required for jobs that may directly put other people in danger. If you are getting into the backseat of a Uber you don't want the driver to be someone who has had DUIs or a history of dangerous driving. Hairdressers and other similar jobs are indeed regulated in this way - you dont want your ear getting cut off do you?

But the undocumented workers who handle your food, fix your car brakes, built your house and construct the fairground rides get a free pass. I don't understand the mental gymnastics required to support regulating ride sharing before all these other markets. For every bad story about a bad uber experience are 100's of lives spared from people not driving drunk. It's just mind boggling to me. Only blind ideology can ma…

Only blind ideology could produce this mess of a comment.

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

#137

Post by Dylan16807 »

prostoalex wrote: post #135
Dylan16807 wrote: post #76

Well that's obnoxious that the insurance companies would play hot potato and not cover the 5 minute pickup windows. But how much is insurance for that period going to cost? Is Uber even going to notice the difference? Or is the problem that a 'work vehicle' is going to have no insurance the entire time it's being driven around? Even when it's not actually being used for Uber? Now that sounds unfair to make Uber pay f…

There's a difference between a 5 min leisure drive and a rush to a hot spot or surge location (such as a sports game that's about to end) to pick up a passenger, because of the driver incentives. Insurance companies are very aware of this, and this causes the price premium between personal and commercial insurance. As somebody above pointed out, such accident already happened http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Family-o…

If you're rushing to pick up a passenger you have insurance from Uber. (I looked that up to make sure after making the above comment.)

Rushing to a hot spot seems like a flawed argument, you can do that while totally off the grid. App closed, phone off. That's probably going to get you more money, too.

You could have four of these apps open at once, do you need quadruple insurance?

The app requires no interaction, and you perform no actions for the app until it notifies you about a pickup and Uber's insurance kicks in.

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

#138

Post by prostoalex »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #137
prostoalex wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between a 5 min leisure drive and a rush to a hot spot or surge location (such as a sports game that's about to end) to pick up a passenger, because of the driver incentives. Insurance companies are very aware of this, and this causes the price premium between personal and commercial insurance. As somebody above pointed out, such accident already happened http://m.sfgate.com/news/article/Family-o…

If you're rushing to pick up a passenger you have insurance from Uber. (I looked that up to make sure after making the above comment.) Rushing to a hot spot seems like a flawed argument, you can do that while totally off the grid. App closed, phone off. That's probably going to get you more money, too. You could have four of these apps open at once, do you need quadruple insurance? The app requires no interaction, an…

If the purpose of rushing is to engage in commercial activity, I could see how insurance companies would claim that it constitutes commercial activity by itself. It just seems like a higher risk profile.

> Rushing to a hot spot seems like a flawed argument, you can do that while totally off the grid.

Maybe my original example was misleading, but Uber app points an idle driver towards the areas of increased demand (and surge pricing) by color-coding them http://disinfo.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/s...

> App closed, phone off.

This part I agree with, if the driver has arrived at a pick up point due to inside knowledge of relevant details, and was not guided there by the app, it's a personal ride.

I think any time the app is open, though, you can make a reasonable argument that the driver is guided where to go. However, in the US it only matters what the judge/jury says if/when such case hits the court.

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

#139

Post by smokeyj »

vtlynch wrote: post #136
smokeyj wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the undocumented workers who handle your food, fix your car brakes, built your house and construct the fairground rides get a free pass. I don't understand the mental gymnastics required to support regulating ride sharing before all these other markets. For every bad story about a bad uber experience are 100's of lives spared from people not driving drunk. It's just mind boggling to me. Only blind ideology can ma…

Only blind ideology could produce this mess of a comment.

It's called principled reasoning. Radical stuff man, give it a try. You hold no principle to be true that dictates voluntary and peaceful cooperation should be prevented with threats of violence in order to achieve safety.

The only reason this conversation is being had instead of the conversation about background checks on your mechanic is because one sector is unionized. If you don't understand that you don't understand the politics of the situation. Great rebuttal though - shows what we're up against.

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

#140

Post by Meiscooldude »

slayed0 wrote: post #103
Meiscooldude wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber doesn't do the discriminating. Anyone who drives for uber technically is an Independent Contractor. I.E. They run their own business... separate but in partnership with Uber. They can refuse based on Destination, but not anything that is forbidden by Law. Such as Race, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Handicap, etc... There was a notice to Uber drivers sent from Uber, stating that any driver that gets complaints ab…

It's also governments that require adherence to civil rights laws, not markets. Governments were required to step in to disallow landlords and service providers from discriminating based on race, sexuality, disability, etc when a free market otherwise allowed them to do so. There are two sides to the coin.

Completely agree. You do need a government to set the rules of the game.
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