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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 Justices were relying upon Uber's patent, which clearly said the technology was new because it included the words "...but on the Internet" at the end.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A better headline would be:
There is a law involving cabs that Uber isn't breaking.
They did not declare Uber legal. They just declared that smartphones aren't taxi meters.
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
The judgement did not say that Uber is lawful.
It only said that Uber does not violate the law against minicabs using taxi meters to determine charges. There are other lawsuits pending.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!