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Uber Drivers Arrested By Undercover Cops In Hong Kong
The Stack reports that local police have raided Uber's Hong Kong office, "after several officers posed as Uber customers and arrested drivers on Tuesday morning in an attempt to put an end to illegal taxi services. Five drivers who had offered their services across the taxi-hailing app were arrested on suspicion of illegally carrying passengers and driving without third-party insurance. The men are being held for further investigation." Are local police quite this concerned in your city with car-sharing dispatch services?
There's nothing at all related to "sharing" about services like Uber.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Illegal here and illegal elsewhere. Uber is just a new way to find them.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
People have definitely been arrested for lamer reasons. Growing gardens in the US is sometimes an offense, depending on if you have the licenses required to do so. It seems to be much more about money than safety.
But if you give them low-hanging fruit for arrestable offenses, they're going to take it.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Are you taking the trip with them because you both happen to be going to the same destination, or are you simply driving them to the destination to get the money - and not just gas money, but an amount much greater than your total costs, to compensate you for your time?
Trust me, courts are not so stupid as to not see the difference between A) sharing the costs of an activity, and B) performing an activity as a for-profit for-hire service.
I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
Perhaps you should ask that question to your insurance provider - yes, there is a line that is crossed, generally if you are not soliciting for work then you are on one side of it, and if you are soliciting for work then you are on the other side of it. If your friend can call you up at any time and get a lift from A to B, in return for remuneration of some sort, then your insurance company will probably start looking at that as a business venture sooner rather than later, and will start requiring you to take out the right level of insurance.
It would also be prudent to check out your countries tax laws to also see where the line lies - would you be required to pay taxes on the remuneration? If so, then its a business you are running rather than a voluntary service amongst friends.
Certain people seem to think Uber is special in some way, and make weird analogies in order to explain it away as something it is not. Sorry, but the "but what if I take gas money from a friend" argument has been covered for decades, and Uber falls on the business side of that particular line.
Then you share a cab with the company too. The point is you are just putting person A out of business to employ person B.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
This is a loaded question to which you already know the answer. If I'm already going someplace, I'm allowed to take a friend or colleague with me. They can be nice enough to offer me some gas money. If I drive them somewhere that I didn't intend to otherwise go, I'm running a taxi service. There are grey areas all the time with people personally known to you that might run afoul of some interpretations of taxi regulations. When you start driving strangers to places that you wouldn't otherwise be going in exchange for money, it's a clear violation. The fact that some grey area may exist doesn't in any way make blatantly illegal activities any less illegal.
You really charge your friends gas money? Why don't you just do the normal "I pay for the gas, you pay for the food" arrangement if funds are that tight?
But they are concerned with unlicensed, uninsured, unregulated taxi operators masquerading as car-sharing.
So if I take gas money from a friend on a trip am I a chauffeur? Do I need insurance? I bet that there have been instances of people being sued for the if your in an accident.
You are going too far away. Friends are people you know. Uber customers often time are not. However, there are instances that friends becomes ex-friends and sue the other after an accident. Easiest way to see is all those Judge shows :P If you want more reliable examples, look for small claim court cases and/or arbitrary.
If one party gets away with breaking the law due to paying a bribe and another party gets prosecuted for the same offense due to not paying up, the solution isn't to drop the prosecution against the guilty party without the forethought to pay a bribe. It's to prosecute all of the law breakers. I hope that the police in my town are working on this in proportion to how much of a problem it's causing.
Odds are is they their drivers are breaking the law. Commercial insurance is required to take passengers, no different than a limo service. I would bet that a very small number of Uber drivers are properly insured.
You're an idiot if you believe any of the drivel you wrote.
You cease to be "sharing" when you have published rates, a dispatcher, and no existing relationship with the person you're collecting fees from to drive them. That's pretty much a commercial transaction ... and you're a car for hire, and subject to the same laws.
You're not letting people borrow your fucking car, you are agreeing to drive someone you don't know to a destination for a fee.
At that point, you become a fucking vehicle for hire you bloody moron.
Uber isn't ride sharing company. Uber is a bootleg taxi company who publicly likes to claim that they're so special laws don't apply. Uber is full of shit.
Uber is essentially an international scam, which pretends it is exempt from local laws ... and which is mostly being used to separate idiot investors from their money as they pretend they have a business model which exempts them from the law.
In my limited experience and biased view, it seems most likely that the existent taxi companies got together to push the police force to perceive this as a problem out of scope of it's actual impact. Again, I wouldn't be surprised if it's because they bribed the police to tackle their competition. It's always seemed like bribes are required to make chinese society function, and depending on the venue, that's even more true in hong kong.
If I sign up, using my own car, how am I not sharing the car that I have with others?
Sharing does not imply I'm doing so for free; just that I am willing to let someone else use resources I own and could otherwise deny the use of...
We're you headed the same way they were when you gave them a ride? No, you specifically drove with the intention of picking up someonand drive them around for money? Then you are operating as a taxi.
Plenty of people borrow boats and cars in return for beer or pizza or other favors. That's sharing too. So too is Uber, even if it's more formalized and at a larger scale.
So if your friend want's to borrow your boat for the weekend, do you say "sure, but I have to drive the boat around for you"?
You'd think Slashdot of all places would hold people understanding how others can use technology to share what they have at a larger scale than possible before...
If you are giving/loaning something to someone for the express purpose of receiving money from them in exchange, you aren't sharing. You are selling (whether it be a good or a service).
Compare the definition of sell:
to exchange (something) for money
with share:
: to use, experience, or enjoy with others
There is a pretty big distinction between the two.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
LOL ... hasn't this been settled since the 70s? Ass, grass, or cash.
I've seen the bumper sticker and everything.
The 70s were a bit of a blur since I was barely in grade school by the end of them.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So if I take gas money from a friend on a trip am I a chauffeur?
If your friend asks you to take him somewhere, and he offers you a couple of dollars for gas, that's okay.
If you mention that you're going somewhere, and your friend asks to ride with you and offers gas money, that's okay too.
If you register to use an app that says, "I'll take anyone anywhere they want to go for $X," then you're soliciting for fares, which is generally regarded as a commercial activity. Depending on your location, you may need a commercial driver's license and/or commercial registration and insurance on your vehicle.
Do I need insurance?
In most jurisdictions, you need insurance. The type of insurance may vary depending on how and where you drive your vehicle.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
I mean can I get a ride from them, without paying, and in return in the future give a ride to somebody else? No.... If I could, I would be first in line defending them.
It's a damn taxi service with an app......that is all it is. And currently, the reason they can offer lower prices than most local taxi services in the West is because they don't pay the limited and expensive taxi plates, their drivers aren't tested and given a taxi license (that is usually more expensive than a regular license), they do not belong to some sort of taxi association (which gives you access to their territory, get hails etc.), their cars do not go though taxi inspections.......Which is not to say that normal taxi service is more secure or anything, these are all just hidden forms of taxation who's costs are passed along to the clients.
They are competing unfairly and all profits go to Uber....we the taxpayers get screwed in the end because Uber is not paying their fair share......
Why was it made illegal again? To protect the taxi industry. That's it. Safety, insurance, etc were tacked on later, but the scarcity was created solely to protect the taxi industry - not the drivers, the plate holders
Do you see any other path to breaking the taxi industry monopoly other than disobedience? How?
The law is a living thing and constantly subject to interpretation and modification. Laws come and go, what is illegal comes and goes. Often, very often, the ONLY way to change the law is to break it first, making breaking it popular, and the lawmakers will come around.
Is it still illegal for woman to vote? Smoke a joint?
These rules solve a problem for the taxi industry, not the taxi industry customers. There is a difference.
How the fuck does this "company's" market capitalization rise to the level of $5 billions. It's like a cross between the game of musical chairs and herpes. It's fun while everyone is listening to the music and switching seats, but when your friends find out about the results of your medical tests, you may end up flat on your ass.
Same way the dotcom bubble happened. People that do not truly know what it takes to make something work are looking for the next hot thing to jump on to ride to profit, so they throw money at anything that looks different hoping some of it will work, and thus the hype builds. Uber is the sexy thing right now, and it's growth rate has actually influenced its growth rate in a feedback loop.
Once governments crack-down on Uber for what it is, a passenger livery company operating by ignoring passenger-livery laws, it will either have to meld into the fray of all of the other passenger livery companies and it won't really be cheaper, or it will go bust.
The future of passenger livery will be in autonomous vehicles. The bulk of the employees will be office staff that handle company paperwork or will be mechanics servicing the vehicles on a schedule. Actual drivers will be limited to chauffering clients that pay for premium service and don't want to touch a door handle or their own bags, or to senior care or medical transport where the driver may have to work with custom wheelchairs or have to provide assistance in and out of the vehicle. Run of the mill point-A to point-B won't require a company representative to accompany the passenger. The owner or leasee of the fleet will be the licensing point for the livery company, be it one car or a thousand cars.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I have a Class B CDL with "P" endorsement (I can drive a buss with air brakes), and you are correct about state law up to a point. Purely private vehicles such as RV's and such can exceed the 13-Ton and length limits and still be driven by Class C license holders.
However local laws may apply here. In Dallas the city requires a "permit" they call a license in order to pick up paying passengers at the airports and other locations. You can drop off, just not pick anybody up. Even my CDL isn't good enough for the City of Dallas who wants their pound of flesh and to send me to a training course before I can carry passengers....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Taxis used to be like the wild west. You sometimes didn't even know the fare before the trip started. And the vehicles weren't maintained. Another - still valid - reason in large cities is to artificially limit the supply due to a finite amount of roadway. This is a legitimate reason. This is a classic example of "tragedy of the commons." Yes it's a tax. The same as a carbon tax or a parking tax or any of the other things that could be free but we choose to tax because it makes society as a whole better off. Now it may be that our current regulations are outdated now and we need to revise the regulatory system. Another way to break the taxi industry monopoly is self-driving cars and a structure like ZipCar. You just summon your self-driving car from the pool. Of course this brings back the problems of streets being clogged with self-driving cars. And there is exactly one solution. Tax them until the price rises so that demand = supply of roadway. Of course in my solution, you can tax parking more heavily freeing up additional traffic lanes Breaking the law as a means of protest is valid. But there are consequences. Primarily you go to jail and then a sympathetic press publicizes your case and public opinion changes. Then the law changes. I don't see any Uber execs turning themselves into police, asking to be taken into custody in order to draw attention to the issue. If you think that the right to have unregulated taxis is in any way similar to things like universal suffrage, though, there's probably not an intelligent conversation to be had.
blatantly illegal activities any less illegal.
Why was it made illegal again? To protect the taxi industry.
Have you heard of a thing called taxes? It is something you pay when you earn an income as opposed to when you give things away for free. Stop shilling for Ûber
I agree with you. But the solution is to change business practices so that bribery isn't as common. Bribery has the same economic downsides as a tax but doesn't produce any public good.
*puts on sunglasses*
...is over.
YEEAAH!!
You're welcome to take your chances with Jury Nullification. It does exist for good purpose. But I don't consider protecting illegal taxi companies to be a good purpose. Better hope I'm not on your jury.
Yes you need insurance, that's not even a question. Do you need commercial insurancce? Well, probably not. Because, among other things, charging only gas money makes it clear that it's not a commercial activity. However, note that people make money driving for Uber.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Come on guys. There is an obvious analogy here.
We are talking about vehicular prostitution. Pay money and get a ride.
Driving people around is not illegal. The money transaction can be.
Sharing does not imply I'm doing so for free; just that I am willing to let someone else use resources I own and could otherwise deny the use of...
>
It does imply not doing it for profit or monetary return. And, to your other points, sharing is different from trading, you seem to conflate the two. Borrow boat in return for pizza would be a trade. Borrow boat in return from money would be monetary reimbursement, not a trade or a share.
In a true ride share, the rider would not carry the full expense, but rather share in a portion of it, and both rider and driver would have a common general destination or at least direction.
The government (at least where I am) is not going to crack-down on Uber in the way you describe. You left out one other option, which is that the passenger livery laws will become more lax in order to find a compromise that allows companies like Uber to exist and compete. The service is too popular to do away with, if you get rid of it, you look like you are abusing the wants and needs of the general populace.
I live in a notably large US city with very shitty public transportation options for a large number of neighborhoods and destinations. Cabs have always been extremely overpriced (not the drivers' fault, but due to the monopoloy on the medallions), and the ride was typically a crapshoot between being the most disgusting experience of your life, to being a basic ride somewhere. The presence of Uber fixed a lot of that. Not to mention helping dismantle some of a very old, very bribed, bought, and paid for power structure that did nothing to help the public, or the cab drivers, and never wanted to embrace any new technology.
While the system is not perfect, it would be extremely difficult for my town to get rid of uber at this point...especially in the wake of other online/phone-based services that purport to be 'free' that would simply crop up in its place. Fortunately my town understands this and has worked heavily with Uber and Lyft to make compromises.
I offer this argument:
In collage I often gave people rides to work for 5 bucks for gas. And gas was only $1.xx back then so I made a small profit. The only difference here is that this is a business model to tie supply and demand together. And unfortunately for Uber / Lyft they made it centralized ( like Napster ) so they could make a profit for providing the service ( unlike Napster. )
Like Grokster they could decentralize and offer both driver and passenger a service for a connection fee, they set up the means for connecting but allow the participants to directly connect with each other without ever recording which ( driver or passenger ) they are. This WILL lead to a degredation of service, but allow for the model to continue.
They are not about the propagation of the business model... they are about making money. Which will lead to failure.
If I sign up, using my own car, how am I not sharing the car that I have with others?
So, generally, by your logic if I show up to work with my own tools I'm now in a tool sharing business?
For example, how is a home renovation contractor not in the "tool sharing business"?
Actually even more generically, this sounds like all jobs. The fry guy at mcdonalds. He's big into the the time sharing economy. He has spare time, he arranges to share some of it with mcdonalds in exchange for money.
Plenty of people borrow boats and cars in return for beer or pizza or other favors. That's sharing too.
No, that's bartering. Giving something with the expectation of payment in return is not sharing.
Uber provides the same coverage of service as a Taxi in most areas: if there is no money/safety in it for a Taxi driver, an Uber driver won't miraculously be encouraged to serve an area. The only exception is areas that have no viable taxi service (rural), and the on-call nature makes it something attractive for someone to get some extra cash.
Do you really you think an Uber taxi monopoly is somehow better than a local government one...
You are incorrectly assuming Uber will be a monopoly, possibly just because the taxi cartel was one. Uber already has competition in this very same marketplace from Lyft. Furthermore, just because the taxi companies' current monopoly would be broken doesn't mean the taxi companies simply go away. They can adapt their model to compete with Uber and Lyft. There's room for more than one revenue model in the marketplace, but the government needs to back down the level of regulation so that people have room to innovate and try new ways of doing things.
Were you already on your way to school when you took them, or were you doing it just to drop them off?
Even if so, that's extremely small scale and without a large corporation overseeing and approving the whole transaction. Even if you were directly selling rides, it was illegal, but about as severe as a couple of kids selling lemonade without a license, or maybe like not reporting the $100 you made at a garage sale to the IRS. Technically illegal but completely different in scale and nobody is going to give a shit.
If you take money to take some one in a vehicle from point a to point b you are a cab driver. It's really simple. Why do people think it should be any different if you use an app?
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Precisely. We agree. Yet you seem to have missed my point.
The point is we only do that wordy nonsense with uber "ride sharing", which creates a sense that it's somehow different than other jobs.
But as you just agreed, its really not different after all.
So if we normally say the fry guy has a job working for mcdonalds, than lets just say an uber driver has a job working for uber.
What reason is there to say a fry guy has a job at mcdonalds while the uber driver is "part of the uber ride sharing economy" as if that was somehow a different thing than just having a job?
How about we just call both of them jobs.
Cops in SF were ticketing Uber drivers this week at Outside Lands Festival because they were double-parking on the main exit roads from the festival as well as parking at bus stops...
Also here, one of the incumbent cab companies (DeSoto) has rebranded themselves as flywheel and gotten themselves a web app, so Uber is causing some positive response from the taxi industry here at least....I would still take a real cab over an Uber car given the choice myself
-I'm just sayin'
And even if Uber requires proof of commercial insurance from a driver in order to begin to drive for them, I can call up my insurance agent, get any insurance changes I need made and pay the premium over the phone, get paperwork sent to me to prove it, then call that agent up again a few days later and cancel the policy and get a refund sans the days that have already passed that I was covered for.
What a huge loophole, I'm surprised insurers and businesses they cover haven't found a way to prevent that.
Oh wait, they have. If Uber required that drivers obtain commercial insurance (individual policies are probably much more expensive than you think), they'd also require that Uber be listed as a Additional Insured on the policy, so they'll be notified if you cancel the policy.
You would still be breaking the law because you'd be driving without the coverage required by the law. It may also be fraud
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
The only time I used uber was in San Fransisco, yes, I could use uber x, and save a little money, but what I actually did was use Uber to hail a cab. It wasn't about saving money, it was about finding an empty Cab three blocks away to come get me. There was also black car service. I'd actually be surprised if the majority of their business in areas with a semi decent taxi system is the private drivers ( not shocked, but a little surprised). The people I know that use them primarily use the black car and cab services in DC and San Fransisco.
Now, where I live, I've used UberX, but there isn't really an alternative to getting picked up and delivered locally in general.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Why didn't taxi/cab companies come up with better service like Uber? Cost seems only one differentiator - at least in the area I live there's no cab company that has an app as sophisticated as Uber in terms of knowing where it is, how long does it take to come, estimated cost...etc.
It's also common for a new player to play to somewhat disadvantaged groups first in order to let the goodwill from their actions help force the changes they need to be in the market, only to drop those disadvantaged groups once they no longer need them anymore.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
So if we normally say the fry guy has a job working for mcdonalds, than lets just say an uber driver has a job working for uber.
Although that's sort of true, the difference is that the Uber driver comes and goes as he pleases, while Fry Guy has a fixed schedule he must meet or be fired.
Because the Uber driver works completely at his/her own desecration (auto-correct error left intact because I found it amusing), it's truly a more "sharing" arrangement where the Uber driver says "I have some free time now, I'm willing to share my car and drive now". That's why to me the term is meaningful in a way for Uber drivers it's not for other jobs.
Do you think sharing is not the right term for Air BnB hosts either? If not, why not?
think about it from the standpoint of a technology metaphor. Lots of things in programming and computer hardware are "shared", otten with carefully controlled limits. It's ok for those uses of "sharing" to be used in other real world activities.
To summarize what I'm thinking here, I think any time you can arbitrarily offer up assets to other people whenever you feel like it, that is part of the "sharing economy" rather than something that is offered by a company according to the company schedule and needs.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Uber doesn't care about it's serfs.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Doesn't work that way in the UK. "Named drivers" do not get told of anything, only the person taking out the insurance policy does.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Doesn't work that way in the UK. "Named drivers" do not get told of anything, only the person taking out the insurance policy does.
"Named driver" is different than "additional insured", at least in the USA. Being additional insured means that you *are* notified about changes in the policy. I'd be very surprised if the UK doesn't have a similar concept even if it's called something different.
+1.
/. readers don't get this. We like to think that we're smarter than the average bear. Apparently not.
It saddens me that this post is scored 0, as I think you've accurately summed up the situation. Uber is what happens when the state imposes limits on a free market. By restricting the licences, the sequence of events is well known and documented:
1. The market becomes closed.
2. The licences become a commodity.
3. The value of those licences climbs disproportionately to the value of the service.
4. Gradually, the price of the service rises above CPI due to the prohibitively expensive licences.
5. As the cash flow exceeds the value, corruption and rorts are introduced to the system.
6. Eventually, someone reveals the problem. In this case, it is Uber.
One state in Australia has taken the courageous step of offering to buy back the taxi licences. I think that this is potentially the best possible outcome for all involved.
These arguments about untested drivers are not true in all countries. And the arguments about uninsured drivers are invalid - that is a self correcting problem. The state does not mandate insurance for surgeons. Why should it do it for drivers?
I am also immensely saddened that so many
but they are far more professional.
Gogo van is the cheap one!
In collage I often gave people rides to work for 5 bucks for gas. And gas was only $1.xx back then so I made a small profit.
Ride sharing is legal and applies if:
1.) You were already going to the destination and 2.) Each passenger pays at most their pro-rata share of the expenses.
If you were making money doing it, you were breaking the law. Any legal ride sharing is losing money by at least 1/(number of passengers+1).
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If I sign up, using my own car, how am I not sharing the car that I have with others?
So, generally, by your logic if I show up to work with my own tools I'm now in a tool sharing business?
No, you also have to have an app. And even though many other contractors may have apps and still manage to operate according to state laws, you have to claim you are a technology company that provides tool sharing services and that you are then somehow immune from all the licensing, bonding, training, permitting and other regulations.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Why was it made illegal again? To protect the taxi industry.
And lucky for you, because you are operating a Taxi if you are doing it.
The FAA has exactly the same rules about commercial flights, and yet oddly, there doesn't seem to be any air taxi cartel.
You can attribute it to the taxi cartel if you want. I would be willing to bet that these laws predate taxis and probably go all the way back to the days of horse drawn carriages.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Lol, well played.
By the same token, if I connect People to booze for money, I'm not a bar, I'm beer sharing.
If I connect Prostitutes to Johns for a cut of the money, I'm not a Pimp, I'm body sharing.
So clearly someone giving rides for money isn't running a taxi service.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Actually you have that backwards.
It was safety, protectionism was tacked on later and this is evidenced by places where there is no taxi protectionism like London where Minicabbing has been done for decades. The famous London black cabs have not been killed by pimply teens mincabbing in a VW Lupo who dont know where they're going for some strange reason.
To figure this out you need to step out of the bubble you live in and look at places where there are no taxi restriction (or they're universally ignored). What always happens here is that the taxis form gangs and prevent any competition from forming. This is why Uber doesn't really operate in Phuket, the local Mafia will find Uber drivers, drag them out of their cars and beat them.
The same happened in western countries 70+ years ago, over 100 years ago in some cities which is why the restrictions were put in place that long ago.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
some of it, like safety and taxes, is valid and important and not a joke
Uber provides insurance to drivers, and other guarantees to riders.
Uber is *safer* that taxis because of all the tracking going on. The Uber app is tracking both rider AND driver so there is extremely strong disincentive for either party to do anything to the other.
With taxis the driver may well not be tracked at all, or can chose to disable tracking. With taxis you, the rider, are probably not being tracked so the ability to just drag you off to an abandoned warehouse and kill you is just as easy as delivering you to your destination.
Or perhaps you meant car safety? I have been in many cabs that had terribly worn interiors, some that had obvious mechanical defects. I have never been in a poor quality Uber car, not town cars nor UberX - because Uber inspects them. Uber does not want a ratty car representing the service where taxi companies literally do not have to care at all because they are a monopoly with guaranteed business in many locations like airports.
Similarly for driver safety - with Uber bad drivers get bad ratings and are dimmed out quickly. Evil taxi drivers get sent to Miami to work the airport run.
Honestly, if someone were concerned about security alone they would NEVER take a taxi over Uber. That's my feeling now, after years of horrific taxi experiences.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think the point to be taken here is that this regulatory racketeering is totally unnecessary and if I was given the option to sign a waiver to take the uber then why not? Its much more convenient and economical and cuts out all the middle men. Fuck the insurance industry and the government. What have either of them done for me?
At least they collect revenue providing a tangible service u like the government and insurance industry who funnel money up to the 1% the cost of which gets handed down to the end user
Insurance as a tax? No thanks. Income taxes should be the only tax.
Ask that again after taking an uber ride and being involved in an accident that leaves you seriously insured.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
These arguments about untested drivers are not true in all countries. And the arguments about uninsured drivers are invalid - that is a self correcting problem. The state does not mandate insurance for surgeons. Why should it do it for drivers?
Are you sure about that? Sounds pretty unlikely.
I am also immensely saddened that so many /. readers don't get this. We like to think that we're smarter than the average bear. Apparently not.
Well, maybe the way to fix this is... to fix it? Allow more cabs, but keep requirements for insurances and other measures intended to keep drivers and passengers safe intact? Just because this weird "medallion" system is broken in many parts of the world doesn't mean uber's model is much better, it just replaces one drawback with many others.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
I talked with and signed up for Uber as a driver and they are on purpose breaking the law in Missouri. In Missouri you are required to have a "Class E" license to drive for pay. It even says in the state driving handbook that taxis, couriers and even pizza delivery drivers are suppose to have "Class E" license. I met Uber staff here in St. Louis at one of their events and point blank asked them about this and was told by the staff that I didn't need a "Class E" license to drive for them. I asked specifically about it saying the state requires it for this type of driving and was told "well we don't require our drivers to have it."
People have commented on here that Uber also inspects the drivers car to make sure they are ok. Nope that is false. I am approved to drive for Uber and they have never seen my car. In fact I didn't even drive the car I listed with them to this meeting. So there was no possible way for them to see it or inspect it.
Now Uber isn't licensed to operate here yet and I suspect they may never be given they don't want to agree to the same type of license requirements here in St. Louis that Taxi companies are required to do. But the funny thing is that Uber agreed to the same type of terms in Dallas to operate. So Uber claiming they can't make money if they agree to the terms the city wants is complete crap.
There is nothing special about Uber and in fact they are in many ways a substandard version of taxi service that just happens to have a phone app instead of calling the taxi company for a ride. Given the process I went through to drive for Uber I am not at all impressed and given news reports of problems with Uber drivers in other cities assaulting people I am not surprised at all.
What 'tangible' service? They are just free riders which happen to be receiving payments in a jurisdiction where the tax authorities of the countries they operate in cannot get a hold of them.
There are three uber-like services at home, they all operate similar web services. The only difference is they provide those services to registered taxi operators -- individuals or companies.
Amazingly, they don't have problems with the law.
Businesses are required to carry a higher level of automotive liability coverage for their vehicle than a non-commercial driver. This is due the higher number of hours spent on the road which increases the total risk of the vehicle being involved in an accident.
Your ability to sign a waiver does not magically cause every other pedestrian, vehicle, and property owner to sign the same waiver that absolves the uber driver and his vehicle of liability for damages that he causes while providing you a service.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
in the UK a named driver has the same insurance cover when driving the car as the policy holder (so long as they have the permission of the car owner to drive it at the time, if you don't have permission you're not insured by that policy). You dont get any notifications from the insurance company. I'm a named driver on my wife's policy, as well as my mum and my dad. my insurance covers me for driving other cars (so long as i have the owners permission) but it only covers me third party; that is to say it'll only payout to fix damage to others not to me or the car i'm driving.
There is in the UK.
* All motor vehicle insurance (private, commercial, passenger service vehicle) policies that are active are on a database, coverage dates are known also all other basic details as you'd expect.
* Ministry of Transport tests (yearly or more frequent vehicle road worthy and safety tests).
* Road fund licenses (a yearly tax based on size, CO2 emissions, type and purpose of vehicle use that is intended to fund highway maintenance although we have very heavy fuel taxation over 70% and VAT on top of that).
* Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, this government body manages vehicle identification, registration plate issuing, ownership. It also regulate driver license categories, you need to pass specific tests for car, motorbike, minibus, small lorry, large lorry, coach/bus driver. Some of these tests are good until old age, some need to be refreshed, some have mandatory medical fitness tests.
These things are all updated in near real-time to all agencies that use the information to monitor and regulate traffic. With the number of road traffic cameras in the UK it is expected many of these to be hooked upto monitor usage of a license plate.
Everything is regulated for consumer safety.
To be a taxi driver you need a vehicle registered for that purpose (and therefore subject to stricter MOT safety testing),
You need a driver with a suitable license to carry other passengers, so basically clean enough without problematic endorsements,
You probably need a criminal background check and other such public safety checks,
You need suitable insurance for the vehicle and number of passengers.
Then you can work as a Taxi driver and work for "Hire or Reward conveying passengers in a vehicle".
So now can Uber work? It costs time and money to get and maintain all these things above. This is why you pay a higher fare.
Blocking uber is a clear and unambiguous test that the local government is corrupt and has been bought off by local business interests. Clearly Uber is in the public interest. Regardless of insurance or other values imposed by the local regulators Uber customers are choosing to drive with uber. They have made a clear and unambiguous rejection of the existing system and any "virtues" that regulation has blessed it with. Yet local governments then proceed to spit in the faces of these users and drivers with the clear goal of protecting the local taxi industry.
How exactly each local government official has been bribed is probably as different as there are governments but when democratic governments are acting in the interests of the very few and against the very many there has to be some form of incentive driving this undemocratic behaviour. Essentially corruption.