Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 520 posts

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#511

Post by NeedMoreTea »

johnnycab wrote: post #228
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I remember London black cabs as mainly being a reliable service with reliable drivers. I'd rather have a driver with their route knowledge in their head than one blindly relying on GPS. At least they can make intelligent choices when problems crop up. Not that it was completely without problems, but compared to say NYC cabs they were worlds apart. Sure, there was a problem for a while with rogue unregistered c…

>I remember London black cabs as mainly being a reliable service with reliable drivers >The cliche of not going south of the river held up to some scrutiny too. >At least it was a two way conversation with a cabbie. It seems that you rode a black cab very occasionally, if you never experienced a cabbie getting lost. Much has been made of the knowledge, which was dense where the routes being traversed were frequent bu…

Considerable spell of using a London black cab twice daily, whilst I was contracting in London. I explicitly said the cliche of south of the river held up to some scrutiny, i.e. was based on fact. Far from universal though, unless you caught a street cab - the hail only black cabs without possibility of radio despatch. They wanted to stay central. Choose cab firm accordingly.

I've had cabbies get lost twice, that I can remember - once he was claiming to be new, and he was stressing like crazy about it. The other time I went a fair way out of local area. Both times resolved amicably. Sure, I've also had a fair selection of less than perfect routing - but overall, far less than some of the games Uber drivers have tried.

I almost always got conversation or quiet and can't ever remember an unsolicited diatribe. I'd steer conversation away from the political, and if that's what the driver wanted to chat about, I'd ask them to shut up.

I would take the overall service received every time over the comparative service from Uber. Neither was or is perfect. Uber's cheap, and it shows in what and how they deliver, and the complete lack of quality and standards for drivers. It's essentially the only selling point. I'm a long way out of London now, but I've gone back to exclusively using cabs and private hire.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#512

Post by NeedMoreTea »

johnnycab wrote: post #260
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I know, that's why I pointed out that it was mainly private hire. Yet it wasn't solely them as most black cab firms also took calls and bookings and despatched just like minicabs, opening them up to the same scam. Genuine street hire only black cabs still exist, but they're pretty damn rare now.

>Genuine street hire only black cabs still exist, but they're pretty damn rare now. They are not rare in city centres, which is their natural habitat eg. take a trip into Central London/Westend/City of London etc., you will find them everywhere. Unless, you are talking about the suburbs, where they have always been as rare as hens teeth. https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing...

They used to be more common and a higher proportion of the total. Lots have moved into minicab-like firms that add bookings, despatch etc.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#513

Post by Terretta »

dangus wrote: post #109
Terretta wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party... You sure can’t rely on the Uber, Lyft, Juno ratings. It’s 5 stars or bust. The social pressure on 5 stars is enormous. Netflix moved to thumbs up, thumbs down. YouTube did the same, after showing a graph of the 5s and 1s: https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/22/youtube-comes-to-a-5-star-... I relentlessly give an average delivery or ride 3 star…

Your inability to follow the cultural norm is actually at fault here, not the rating system. What you’re doing is akin to tipping 5% in restaurants in the US and only tipping 15% when you have an outstanding experience. In reality, restaurants workers in the USA would expect 15% to 20% unless they dramatically fucked up. I don’t like the tipping system either, but I’m also not going to be that asshole who tries to ch…

Not inability, choice.

If enough people make the right choice instead of the herd behavior, the commons will be less tragic.

“If the driver didn’t fuck up it’s five stars” is aggressively harmful to any above average or excellent drivers out there, with no reward for trying to be either.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#514

Post by [deleted] »

Terretta wrote: post #513
dangus wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your inability to follow the cultural norm is actually at fault here, not the rating system. What you’re doing is akin to tipping 5% in restaurants in the US and only tipping 15% when you have an outstanding experience. In reality, restaurants workers in the USA would expect 15% to 20% unless they dramatically fucked up. I don’t like the tipping system either, but I’m also not going to be that asshole who tries to ch…

Not inability, choice. If enough people make the right choice instead of the herd behavior, the commons will be less tragic. “If the driver didn’t fuck up it’s five stars” is aggressively harmful to any above average or excellent drivers out there, with no reward for trying to be either.

[deleted]

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#515

Post by KaiserPro »

andy_ppp wrote: post #427
acallaghan wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market is skewed as Uber runs huge losses and is operating at a loss, that's how it's different to other markets. Also, Uber are paying under the minimum wage in the UK, or at least the regional minimum living wage in London. Uber don't pay taxes in the UK like a London minicab company would, then they underpay their drivers and expect our welfare system to pick up the slack on their crummy wages. Minimum wages s…

If Uber had to buy the vehicles, service them and pay full tax and fines it would be nearly as expensive as black cabs. I take my fair share of Uber rides but I can see the next dot com bust happening now when this unprofitable business model all washes out. See also WeWork.

see addison lee. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addison_Lee)

This is the reason why I find this "TFL is against innovation" rubbish is so annoying. AL had an app way before uber was in london.

The only difference for the end user is that AL is more expensive. (because whilst the drivers are "independent" they lease the cars from AL, and have an exclusive contract with them)

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#516

Post by KaiserPro »

traceroute66 wrote: post #105

The problem with Black Cabs in London is that the drivers go around like they are god's gift to Earth. Sure "The Knowledge" is an impressive feat of learning, but more often than not the drivers don't make use of it because the best route is not the most profitable one for the driver. I have lost count of the number of times I have been subjected to the "tourist tax" where the driver heads straight for the major arte…

Black cabs are not uber's competitor.

Minicabs are.

There is stiff competition, if uber is banned from london permanently, the drivers will be going to one of the three+ alternatives.

Uber's idea isn't new in london, Addison Lee had a "app based booking" since at least 2013. The _only_ thing going for it is that its ubiquitous. Its not even the cheapest.

I rarely get taxis anymore, because frankly its pointless unless you're drunk. However when I have been forced to (wife in hospital, post tube closing time) The fastest, cheapest and most comfortable was the black cab.

Failing that there was a really good minicab firm round the corner from my old house.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#517

Post by KaiserPro »

robocat wrote: post #451
travisoneill1 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there actually any data that shows traditional taxis are safer? I bet there isn't because if there was it would have been used by the taxi companies by now.

"A few years ago a genuinely licensed black cab driver was convicted of rape and sexual assault, and as a result the community was shaken: it was the first time in over 300 years where a licensed operator had been convicted of such a crime" - PaulRobinson - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21630846 Do we have any numbers on sexual assaults by Uber drivers in London?

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/safety-and-security/security-on...

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#518

Post by KaiserPro »

mkolodny wrote: post #244
omarhaneef wrote: post #191

Something about this doesn't make sense to me. I take it for granted that the staff at Uber would do anything not to lose the license. I am sure that, for 17 months, they've been investing heavily in security systems, ID verification etc. They must have followed up on every complaint. If I were them, I would have just manually followed everything that the Cabs do till I had a technology in place. It also seems that t…

One possibility is that, as in the US [0], the London taxi industry has a lot of sway in politics. I'd guess that the taxi lobby had a lot to do with this decision. “Any London politician wants the black cabs on their side. They carry a political and electoral clout that is way beyond their numbers. There is nothing secret about that,” says Daniel Moylan, who was deputy chairman of TfL under Mr Johnson. [1] [0] https…

it really doesn't. The worst they'll do it block off a bridge.

Plus, there are two taxi systems, the Black cab, and the minicab. There are way more minicabs than black cabs, and they are a much bigger competitor to uber than black cabs.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#519

Post by ClumsyPilot »

erentz wrote: post #465
remote_phone wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in London recently. I took Uber 15 times in 2 weeks. I never had a single issue. The only problem I had is that the culture in London appears to be to give 4s as default instead of 5s. Other than that I felt it was better than SF Bay Area.

I wish the culture was to give an honest star rating everywhere. A 4 is an excellent rating to get and should be treated as such. Instead we’ve set everything up so that if you aren’t getting 5 stars you’re a failure. What’s the point of stars 1 through 4 then? We should just ditch this system for a 0 or 1 star system instead since that’s how it’s treated. Same problem has infected everything from rating your apartme…

A pet peve of mine, surely the average rating should be the average of the scale, and 5 starts ought to be reserved for something truly exceptional

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#520

Post by oliwarner »

Jommi wrote: post #126
oliwarner wrote: post #61

I don't usually use Uber —we live in a place where it just doesn't exist— but I've been exposed to it a couple of times this last weekend. It's private hire but worse. A family member booked. A driver committed. The wait got shorter. Then it got longer. And longer. And then our trip was cancelled without reason. Another was booked. Same gig. We had no opportunity to 1-star those drivers for being dicks. The third arr…

Is HN really the place to conflate a single digit amount of personal anecdotes into a reason why someone should not use an app? What year was this? Where was this? This comment is worth absolutely nothing without specifics, and even then its a tiny data point which cannot offer any real perspective on the current news about Uber in London.

I said it was "this weekend" and the complaint, that two drivers, one after another can ditch you at the eleventh hour and you get no compensation, no indication of what happened, no ability to rate that driver for letting you down.

Those issues are all systemic. They apply to Uber everywhere today just as much as they did six days ago when this happened.

Post reply on HN