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London Mayor Boris Johnson Condemns Random Uber Pick-Ups
An anonymous reader writes: The mayor of London Boris Johnson has written a column in the Daily Telegraph condemning the way that Uber drivers in the UK capital can effectively circumvent black cabs' legal monopoly on being hailed by random passengers. Whilst supporting the principle of free enterprise, Johnson has no solution to the legal quandary, except to hobble Uber's business model in an absurdly Luddite move, or else level the playing field and condemn the well-outfitted but expensive black cab trade to extinction. Johnson is reluctant to ask such a thing of Parliament, noting that many people there don't 'have apps'.
...then what uber drivers are doing, by not being licensed black-cab operators, is against the law.
If I understand it correctly, London is a lot stricter with their drivers than most other cities, such that to simply drive a cab one must pass a fairly difficult testing process before being able to obtain a license.
At this point I'm not really sure why this is a Slashdot story anymore. It's about a livery company whose legally questionable practices and claims have drivers that are picking up hailed fares. There isn't even a technological angle on this aspect of the story, not that cell-phone dispatch is anything especially novel.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"Uber's business model in an absurdly Luddite move"
Uber in Germany now does a registered Taxi service, where their drivers comply with all the taxi regs AND Uber still lets passengers book them.
In Germany it will pay the drivers registration, which is a mandatory step for all businesses and self employed people in Germany to ensure they have the proper business setup, taxes, and comply with the regs like insurance, vehicle standards, registrations etc.
This is a false dichotomy, Uber could offer a proper taxi booking service and comply with local laws, and does in countries where its banned.
But before Ubers trolls pop in with their "Uber is Rosa Parks" nonsense.
1) Ubers maps show fake taxis to lure people into booking. This is similar to Ashley Madison running fake women accounts to lure people to pay for their site. This is fraud.
2) Uber surge prices, Taxis are regulated prices.
3) If Uber is cheap now (largely by the advantage of not complying with laws), once its got the taxi market unregulated, it will take all the profits for itself... marketing 101. Taxi fixed pricing was introduced because once taxi monopolies formed, they ripped people off!
Uber is not breaking some unjust or unfair law. It's breaking basic taxi regs. It is not a Luddite business model, right now you can book taxis across many websites and they book LEGAL taxis, registered and compliant with taxi laws. Uber itself does this in some countries where it can't get away with breaking the laws.
Uber is not special, it just has a nastier political attack machine than most.
Dice, or DHI as it's now know, has a commercial relationship with Uber.
It was disclosed in their yearly statements. But the editors at Slashdot are too cowardly to admit it. No, wait, cowardly isn't the wait; fraudulent?
The real-time traffic information is not real-time, so it doesn't compare. If a cabby comes up to a blocked street, they instantly know which route to take to get around it. Satnavs need time to calculate. The knowledge also improves the cabby's ability to determine the destination address, as such a fundamental understanding of the hotels, businesses, pubs, and former hotels, businesses, and pubs is amazingly useful when finding out where someone actually wants to go. Mumbling a bit of your address or using a long-closed pub as a route reference is something perfectly adequate for a Knowledge-equipped cabby, but nowhere near enough for a satnav. Seriously, these cabbies know London incredibly well, including how London used to be.
So no, London still needs black cabs and the Knowledge.
p.s. I'm very impressed you didn't slip in your usual hate-filled attack on over 1.6 billion people. You might just be growing up.
Just saying "legal monopoly" doesn't mean much without details.
Licensed black cabs are the only vehicles that are allowed to be flagged down for in London. They're governed by Hackney Carriage laws in the UK[1] and also by some London-specific laws. Getting a license is relatively cheap (no medallion system), but does require passing a test that checks that has questions like 'what is the fastest route from A to B, assuming that it is rush hour and road X has road works?' There are 'mystery shoppers' who audit the taxi system: they flag down black cabs and take rides and, if the driver does not take the most direct route then they can lose their license. The mystery shoppers have varying ethnicities and manners of dress, and refusing to carry one will also result in a loss of the license. Black Cab drivers all know that if they break the regulations requiring them to carry anyone or try to scam a customer, then there's a chance that the customer that they're scamming may have the power to take their license on the spot.
The distinction between taxi and hackney carriage is increasingly irrelevant. I can't flag down a car owned by Generic Taxi Company #47 that's waiting near where I'm standing, but I can call the telephone number printed on the side from my mobile and have the dispatcher tell me that the car next to me is now assigned to me, and then get in. Before mobile phones were widespread, it was very different - you could only call that kind of taxi if you were near a landline (or used a public call box, which added a fairly significant amount to the cost for shortish trips). Uber and other taxi apps are the next step in this. It's now more convenient to press a couple of buttons on the phone than to flag down a passing cab, but the taxi that you get is not regulated in the same way. Uber attempts to claim that their reputation system and pricing model means that they don't need government regulation.
[1] This has caused some confusion in previous discussions: In the UK, legally speaking, a vehicle that can pick up people who flag them down on the street is called a hackney carriage, any vehicle that carries people for money is a taxi. In common usage, taxi is used for all categories.
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Really? The liberal London douche mayor is against the working man and for big business and big unions? WOW, who knew (besides anyone with a brain)?
*sigh*
Boris Johnson is a Tory (Conservative). He's probably a "liberal" by American standards in the sense that he doesn't (publicly) believe in slavery or oppose votes for women. He is broadly in favour of business and certainly no lover of trades unions, big or small. I'm not sure what you mean by being "against the working man" unless you only classify Uber drivers as real working men.
So, apart from the fact that you are factually wrong on every point, thanks for your contribution.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it