Slashdot Mirror
Uber Now Blocked All Over Germany
An anonymous reader writes Following the blocking of Uber in Berlin, DE, the district court of Frankfurt/Main has issued a restraining order for Uber services all over Germany (German original). The district court is alleging "uncompetitive behavior" (Unlauteres Wettbewerbsverhalten) on Uber's part, and has proclaimed that not following the restraining order will result in a fine of €250.000 or imprisonment. This ruling is related to the German "Personenbeförderungsgesetz" and is outlining that no legal entity (person, enterprise) is allowed to transfer passengers without having passed the relevant tests and having the appropriate insurance coverage.
- no insurance in case of accidents (insurance for person transport costs about 10x what a normal car owner pays for his car alone) ...shall I continue?
- no rigorous technical car checks as they are required for cabs
- no transport obligation (a cab here HAS to transport you, even if you just want to go around the corner)
- no reliable costs (cabs here cost the same all the time, no matter whether it's an early morning in march or New Year's eve)
- no proper filing of taxes
- no right for the drivers to form a workers council, therefore dumping payment is to be expected
- no health insurance, no social insurance, no pension payments for the drivers
(it might be, that some of these points don't apply to US cabs as well, here they don't)
The term "Unlauteres Wettbewerbsverhalten" does not mean "uncompetitive behavior"; it means "competition that violates good taste" or "competition that violates moral standards". A better translation might be "unfair competition".
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
It's a grey area and the companies you link already have had some problems. However, the companies themselves already link the limits on their sites themselves:
The NYC medallions are transferable property, so the fee for the medallion doesn't go to the city, it goes to the seller.
To be fair (you're responding to my post), in San Francisco the permit sticker (equivalent to NYC medallion) is non-transferable, so you're paying ~$150,000 to the city. But it's not a real source of income to the city, because they city rarely issues new ones, and turn-over is low. Usually what happens is 3 or 4 guys put up the money together, and also some banks will issue business loans to acquire the permit.
So, again, the whole point of the monopoly is to benefit taxi drivers. It's definitely not a taxation scam by the city or state; not in any way, shape, or form. You can research the history yourself. IIRC it started in either NYC or maybe Chicago, because prior to these schemes everybody with four wheels and an engine would pretend to be a taxi. It didn't provide a stable income, which meant there were serious quality and consistency issues.
I'm just pointing out the facts in the hopes of pointing out some cognitive dissonance here. I don't personally have any strong opinions wrt Uber. Times have changed, and it would be wrong to simple argue that without these regulations we would necessarily revert to the bad old times. But you can't simply ignore their function, either. And that doesn't even get into the whole insurance issue.
Uber, Lyft, etc drivers absolutely-fscking-lutely should be properly insured, often times they're not, and that's just plain wrong.