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Finnish Police: If You See Uber Car, Call 911

Posted by timothy on from the consenting-adults-vs-the-state dept.

emakinen writes: The police in Helsinki, Finland has announced in a tweet that if you see someone driving Uber car, you should call 911 (or actually, 112 in Finland). In an article in the local newspaper they have explained that there is an ongoing investigation to find out whether or not Uber is legal in Finland and they want to interrogate Uber drivers. Normally you should have a permit to drive a taxi in Finland.

8 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Statists will not go quietly into the night by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe, licensing taxies was a good idea at some point. There is very little competition among them, because their usage is sporadic — you need it, you raise a hand to hail one and take the first available without any way of figuring out the driver's and his company's reputation.

    But Uber and Lyft and others have changed that. You can choose between these companies and you know the driver's reputation — and bad ones don't survive there long. A piece of government bureaucracy found itself irrelevant.

    That is a very hard thing to accept and acknowledge even for honest men and women. For the corrupt ones — and, face it, government jobs tend to attract a higher share of such — it is something to fight tooth-and-nail. With laws, regulations, and PR-campaigns... Private victims of the old system may also be used as foot-soldiers against the new. It will not be pretty, but technology is destiny. We'll win, but not easily.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re: Statists will not go quietly into the night by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm a libertarian and want Uber and Lyft shut down, or sued out of existence.

      The only way a business is "shut down" in a Libertarian country, is by not making enough money — from happy willing customers — to continue to operate. If you want it to be shut down by anyone/anything else, you aren't a Libertarian. Thanks for playing.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    2. Re: Statists will not go quietly into the night by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's a difference between a libertarian and an anarchist

    3. Re:Statists will not go quietly into the night by Grishnakh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Bullshit.

      The 30-60 minute wait is mainly because the taxi is busy or will take that long to arrive so that part of your argument is pretty poor.

      100% wrong. If that's the case, why is it that I can get an Uber, in the same place and same time, in less than 5 minutes? Obviously, there's a problem with the cab company, not with too few drivers. Or maybe the regulation has intentionally constrained the supply of drivers and cabs, because the goal of the regulation is to greatly reduce competition and keep prices high.

      And if things are working "well" in other countries, then why is there so much demand for Uber? If things were that great, they wouldn't have any customers there, because the riders would stick with the traditional cab companies.

  2. Re:Where are the Europhiles now? by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Here they come...

    I'm glad they do that because Uber is an illegally operating taxi company.

    And yes, I am 100% pro EU.

  3. Re:Wow Finland! by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm glad Finland has no other problems for the police to worry about.

    Yeah, I don't know whether I want to move there because they clearly have no crime nor emergencies to deal with, or make sure to never visit there because they treat the desire to interview someone like a police emergency.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Re:Wow Finland! by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm glad Finland has no other problems for the police to worry about.

    Law enforcement multi-tasks --- a concept the geek seems to find unusually hard to grasp.

  5. Re:Wow Finland! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The news bit actually says that in an "acute case", people should contact the police.

    An acute case of seeing an Uber car? Like if you see it really really really clearly?