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Uber Offers Free Rides To Koreans, Hopes They Won't Report Illegal Drivers
itwbennett writes Uber Technologies is offering free rides on its uberX ride-sharing service in the South Korean capital of Seoul, after city authorities intensified their crackdown on illegal drivers by offering a reward to residents who report Uber drivers to police. South Korean law prohibits unregistered drivers from soliciting passengers using private or rented vehicles and carries a penalty of up to two years in prison or fines of up to 20 million won.
Because we gotta make that paper, bitches.
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Uber is ride sharing in the same way pizza delivery is food sharing. People and companies are making money off of it therefore it is not sharing.
really?
a company comes in, says "fuck your laws, we don't need to follow them, we'll write our own", and the municipality should go "welcome to our city"?
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Criminal records checks
Corporate liability for misconduct
Vehicle checks and certifications
Availability of vehicles in off hours
Services for the disabled
Rate limits.
Discrimination, passengers can not be discriminated against based on protected aspects such as race, gender, age, etc.
All of the above go into the regulation of taxis in most jurisdictions. In exchange for these regulations the taxi companies are given a limited number of licenses so that the limited revenue potential does not get spread too thin to make a living wage.
I used to work for a cab company and they threatened to fine us if we did not put on more handicap accessible vehicles. If Uber takes off the limited amount of revenue will be spread over too many people and full time drivers will find other work. Part time drivers work whenever they want and there is no guarantee there will be divers available to all times.
Uber does not care who drives for them or if they make a living wage. They just want the revenue. There has already been strikes(scroll to the bottom) for higher pay.
Look at it like this: You are a municipality. You have local taxi companies and they're all regulated and pay for their special licenses and whatnot. The system works. You get some money and you can be certain that taxi drivers are competent and relatively trustworthy. This also goes for taxi drivers from other municipalities because those are also regulated and licensed.
Now Uber show up and declare themselves to be exempt from taxi laws because they don't employ taxi drivers, they just make money by "soliciting" "ridesharing", which is somehow different except it seems to work exactly the same*. And they're not willing to enforce that their drivers have valid licenses because they think they're not subject to the law.
Now you have lots of taxi drivers in all but name driving around without a license and you probably can't even get Uber to disclose their identities so you can fine them because, again, Uber thinks there's no legal basis for this.
I think it's fairly easy to see why Uber isn't very popular with municipalities.
* Technically it's a form of outsourcing but to my knowledge they don't require the drivers to be their own proper taxi businesses so Uber is still blatantly ignoring the law by contracting with people they know don't qualify under existing regulations.
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Actually many of the people you listed are definitely licensed. most by the country and many by individual cities/states. especially, plumbers, lawyers, nannies, nurses and most certainly electricians.
In Australia, plumbers, electricians, doctors, nannies and nurses all need to be licensed. You're talking out your arse or you live in the wild west.
But I find it rather amazing how every municipality around the world is rushing to the defense of existing taxicab services.
That is because every municipality went through the time when there was no taxi regulations. There was rampant fare kiting, discrimination, lack of coverage, lack of insurance, poor customer service, bad drivers, poorly repaired vehicles, etc. While regulations have not solved all those issues it has decreased them. The fact that many communities that have gone through the same issue have come up with the same solution is not surprising. Taxi regulations have been refined over decades to produce a system that works. No municipality in their right mind would want to go back to the days before regulation.
regardless of what you think of Uber's model, blatantly breaking a countries laws or incenting others to break laws is just asking for trouble. I am surprised more criminal charges haven't been brought down on the CEO's and other execs at Uber, could see some interesting tests of those extradition laws.
Everyone here is all about "Net Neutrality," because they are against monopolies, yet pile on something like Uber which is an alternative to the licensed taxi monopoly. Furthermore, people are focusing on the positives and negatives of Uber as it is implemented and practiced, and are missing the larger picture. If Uber is a crappy, dangerous way to get a ride, that reputation is going to spread and the company is going to fail. If it's as safe as a regular taxi and provides benefits that people would not find with normal taxi service, it'll prosper. Quite a few comments seem to revolve around the fact that Uber acts as a middleman, and don't like that. Are those same people pissing and moaning about everything from Ebay to Walmart, which also acts as a middleman between producers and consumers? For that matter, what is the practical difference from me asking a person if they will give me a ride for gas money and an extra $20 for their time, even if I don't use an app? Personally, I wouldn't use Uber, but I also wouldn't smoke pot, yet think people should be free to do either if they are willing to assume the risk involved. If Uber sees that people don't have confidence in the trustworthiness of their drivers, then they are going to have to respond to that, or lose business.
Keeping prices high keeps taxis available.
Try to get a taxi at 6th and 44th in Manhattan at 5PM. Taxis are pretty damn expensive in NYC, and pretty much impossible to find when demand is high. Know what is available at 5PM? Uber cars.
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Keeping prices high keeps taxis available.
Let me see if I can follow your logic...Limiting the number of taxis makes the price of taxis high. Keeping the prices high keeps taxis available. Therefore...Limiting the number of taxis keeps taxis available. I don't think that even the great logician and philosopher Yogi Berra could improve on your statement.
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Try to get a taxi at 6th and 44th in Manhattan at 5PM. Taxis are pretty damn expensive in NYC, and pretty much impossible to find when demand is high. Know what is available at 5PM? Uber cars.
If everyone could get a taxi at peak time, would they get home quicker? No, because you'd have gridlock. This is one of the things that city planners take into account when managing taxi licensing.
Public transport is an efficient solution at peak time. It may not seem like it -- what with waiting times, multiple stops, the need to walk a bit and connect -- but mass transit is the only way to keep that many people moving. 25 years ago New York was famous worldwide for its traffic jams -- you don't want that again.
Taxis are useful at times of lower demand, when public transport becomes inefficient.
Unlimited cars leads to a tragedy-of-the-commons scenario. I'd tell you to stop being so selfish, but even enlightened self-interested says you should just get a damn bus.
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