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French Cabbies Say They'll Block Paris Roads On Monday Over Uber
mrspoonsi writes Parisian taxi drivers have vowed to block roads leading into the French capital on Monday to protest a court's refusal to ban urban ridesharing service UberPOP. Like their counterparts in large cities across the globe, Parisian taxi drivers are fed up with what they see as unfair competition from Uber's popular smartphone taxi service. UberPOP, which uses non-professional drivers using their own cars to take on passengers at budget rates, has 160,000 users in France, according to the company. A commercial court in Paris ruled on Friday that a new law making it harder for Uber drivers to solicit business could not be enforced until the government had published full details of the restrictions. "It's the straw that breaks the camel's back," said Ibrahima Sylla, president of France Taxis, whose organisation has joined several others in calling for the early morning protest on Monday. They have urged taxi drivers to gather at the northern Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport and the southern Orly airport at 05:00 am before slowly converging on the city in a bid to block arterial highways. "This is a fight against Uber. We're fed up. Allowing UberPOP means leaving 57,000 French taxis high and dry, and thus 57,000 families. And that is out of the question," said Sylla.
I travel all over the world for business. As such, I take a lot of taxi rides each year. But it doesn't matter if I'm in NYC, London, Paris, Berlin, Toronto, LA, Sydney, Rome, Vancouver, Chicago, or even my home base of San Francisco. Regardless of where I am, taxis are an awful experience.
Why is it that, in any major Western city, all of the taxi drivers are from the Middle East, India, or Pakistan? Why is it that they can't keep their vehicles clean? Why is it that they can't speak a fucking word of English? Why is it that they're always chattering on in Arabic, Hindi or Urdu through their mobile phone's earphones/mic, while driving? Why is it that they often don't have any frigging clue where they're going? Why is it that it always costs so goddamn much for such shitty service, especially when this industry is allegedly "regulated" in most areas?
I don't like the idea of Uber, or Lyft, or any of those services. I don't want some untrained, possibly-uninsured hipster driving me around. But then I look at the alternatives, and these amateurs actually look pretty damn good compared to the so-called third-world "professional" taxi drivers!
As a customer, I'm fucked either way. I'm guaranteed either shitty service when I go with a taxi, or I'm guaranteed a higher degree of risk when I go with some online service. I just can't win!
Oh, yes, causing massive traffic snarls is a sure way to with the hearts and minds of the public. Reminds me of the German train drivers who keep striking, not for more money or better working conditions, but because their union bosses are at risk of losing their negotiating power to a larger union. Makes everybody in German just love the train drivers.
Paris taxis charge to just come and pick you up. Get in the car, and find that the meter has already been running from wherever the driver let off his last fare. Given a new competitor, the taxi drivers could always compete by offering better service, or lower rates, or more reliability, or... Nah.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
I've never driven a cab for a living but I've spoken w/ cabbies about it, and it's not an easy job. A good cab driver knows the turf. S/he gets you to your destination safely and efficiently... and doesn't rip you off or make you feel creeped out. Over time, failure to meet these criteria has resulted in licensing and regulation. The licensing requirements also provide a barrier to entry. So "official" cab services have evolved an ecosystem of sorts. And a skilled, hard-working driver can make decent, but not great, money. Here's a Huffington Post article that asserts some numbers for both Uber and traditional cabbies:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Now along comes Uber. Cool business model. Flexible price structure. Apps that get a ride to where you are when you need it. Disruptive to the old order. If you know what you're doing, you can use Uber to get around conveniently. If I understand it right, the Uber system addresses, using the clout of the company, some of the good cab requirements (e.g. they'll monitor their drivers).
But Uber disrupts an existing ecosystem... a system that lots of licensed, chartered drivers depend on for their livelihoods. While tech types typically revel in so-called "disruptive technologies," I worry that Uber spells the demise of yet another low tech job. I mean, shouldn't there be something between fast food workers and cube dwellers? So I can see both sides of this. There's not a simple answer to the problem.
No, the taxi drivers are arguing they can be the only ones to drive people to their destination and charge them for the ride.
Not quite. In Detroit a church started running a free van to help people who couldn't afford a car. The free bus was shut down by the taxi commission. Taxi commissions, in general, are against anyone giving anyone else a ride who isn't a taxi driver.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I have this great APP!
It allows everyone to be a doctor and you can order an operation with simple click of a button and even pay for the surgery with it!
Who cares if that person is certified doctor, that's just bad government regulation! BOO!
The problem I see with Uber is taxes and fees. As the financial side is completely handled via the app, how can I be sure that the company running Uber actually covers the mandatory employee fees for the driver and pays the taxes required by the local government?
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
I had to pay $60 for an eight mile (12 km) taxi ride from the Portland Oregon airport to downtown because the idiot public transit system there stopped running from the airport at 11:25pm. All the flights from the East coast and Midwest USA leave in the late early evening and arrive between 11:30pm and 1:00am. The local public transport system (TriMet) spends millions of dollars each year telling people how wonderful they are, but they can't even get one single bus an hour on this most important route of the city: the airport to the downtown.
To hell with taxis, and especially to hell with Tri-Met!
Anything that improves the basic transport needs of any 21st-century city is welcome!
Do you know that the number of cab drivers in Paris hasn't changed since WWII? It's always been around 57000. So it's very hard to get a taxi in certain regions and at certain times. So the fucking cubbies should shut up.
See, this the the weird thing. As someone in Auckland, NZ, this simply makes no sense to me. The local taxi company already *has* computer-assisted hailing (complete with updates on current cab location as it approaches -- on iOS and Android) and, of course, can take payment via credit card. (Real chip-based credit card readers with PIN, so it's more secure than any website or app).
There's no limit to the number of cabs any particular company could run, nor any limit to the number of taxi companies (just certain registration, a level of knowledge requirement and certified taxi fare meters and cameras etc.) Because of our already deregulated nature, people simply are not permitted drive a car for hire-or-reward without the right type of driver's license ("P" endorsement).
Thus, all uber, thus, gives me is a snazzier app. That's it.