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UK High Court: Uber Is Lawful (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The UK's High Court has been hearing a case brought against ridesharing service Uber by Transport for London, the government body in charge of public transport in London. Their claim was that Uber drivers' smartphones should be considered meters because they use GPS and data from external servers to calculate the cost of a ride. Meters are banned in private hire vehicles (and TfL's claims were backed by associations for local taxi drivers and private hire cars). The High Court has found that Uber does not run afoul of that ban. Justice Ouseley said the technology was fundamentally different from standard taxi meters. Transport for London welcomed the decision, but transportation lobbyists are likely to continue challenging Uber in court whenever they can.
The Uber cellphone could certainly act sort of like a standard taxi meter, calculating total distance traveled during a trip, but instead it does the equivalent of calling up a central office and having somebody determine from a map an estimated driving time and distance to plug into a formula to determine the appropriate charge. The passenger knows the total cost of the trip when they book it. It's a lot like some transport companies - 'trip from hotel X to the airport? $30'.
Remember, terminologies vary by country and even city. In NYC, Uber is mostly a 'black car' service, just more responsive. They do not qualify as taxis, and they deliberately take actions to avoid being called taxis, at least in NYC.
Nobody here has done it yet, but I have seen posters ripping Uber for not doing x or y, like having meters, saying not having them makes them not taxis, then saying that they should be following the taxi rules...
I don't read AC A human right
Personally, I 100% support Uber because I firmly believe that if I want to hitch a ride with a complete stranger (whether for pay or just hitchhiking), I should have every right to do so.
That said, Uber won this for a completely ridiculous reason. Whether or not a GPS counts as a "meter"? Seriously??? Why the hell do politicians insist on making laws-by-proxy, instead of just addressing what they really mean?
Hey, what do I know? Why just say "Taxis require a special license", when you could instead ban private ownership of some obscure bit of hardware largely peripheral to the core task at hand?
Is there an improper way to bond?
Why should I give a rat's ass? That's the IRS's job.
That's the job of the police and the DOT.
sig: sauer