Take off, eh, you Uber: Ontario lobs $300m lawsuit at cab app biz Uber has been hit with a CAN$400m (US$305m) lawsuit in Canada accusing the upstart of violating taxi laws. The class-action suit, filed on behalf of cabbies in the Ontario province, claims Uber's dial-a-ride service operates as a fleet of illegal cabs, picking up people and taking money for journeys without obtaining proper …
government subsidized monopoly for old world Taxi companies.
You don't need a special license to pick up extra passengers so you can use the HOV lanes during the Pan Am games, do you! The government is FORCING you to carry passengers so you can efficiently use the roads YOU paid for, or you get a ticket!
So why do you need them for Uber? Besides a hundred years of corruption and protectionism for Taxi medallion holders.
There is NOTHING different between the functionality of any ride sharing app and putting a sign on a company bulletin board asking for riders; besides the form of communications being used.
"There is NOTHING different between the functionality of any ride sharing app and putting a sign on a company bulletin board asking for riders; besides the form of communications being used."
Yes, there is. In a word: payment!
The moment you start accepting payment, you become a commercial service. When you engage in commerce in a regulated industry while disregarding the regulations, then you are operating illegally.
As I've said before, the regulations governing cars-for-hire (as well as other industries affected by the sharing economy) are probably in need of review and revision. That doesn't give companies like Uber a free hand to just do as they please. Not all those regulations are protectionist of the incumbents in the industry.
'Ride Sharing' is disingenuous, it's a commercial service and so should play on equal terms with the other commercial services. Win by being better, not by cheating. Hailo benefits everyone, black cab drivers add a couple of hundred quid a month (actually one driver told me he did the sums and it was worth that a week to him), passenger can flag a taxi from a back alley, pay by card, get email receipts for expending, etc., all for no premium. Being better, on fair terms all round.
There's another industry we can look to, here. Aviation. Commercial pilots can be paid for flying, private pilots can only *share* costs with passengers. Not pass the costs to then, but on an equal share basis. That is ride sharing, if you and a friend go for a fly, and it works. The commercial pilot has better training and checks, and gets the benefit thereof.
"government subsidized monopoly for old world Taxi companies."
You knob. Taxi laws are there primarily for the protection of customers. You want unregulated taxis dominating? Then you'll have to get used to nasty news stories of attacks, rip offs, etc. With a regulated taxi service you have some assurance that the driver is not going to rob, rape or kill you.
What Uber have forgotten is that the taxi laws also protect the taxi company. Play by the local laws and the company cannot be held liable for anything if it does go wrong. "We did what we were obliged to do" is the defence. Ignore the local laws and the company can be taken to the cleaners and perhaps a few company officers can go to jail.
The government has a responsibility for keeping its citizens safe.
The taxi service and hired car service are regulated businesses. Depending on the country and state, you have to have a special drivers license, and your car has to be inspected.
(Note: How well is debatable.)
And livery services / taxis carry proper insurance.
Your personal car/driver insurance doesn't cover you if you're driving commercially.
From the article:
"Though its high-end services use licensed commercial drivers and vehicles, the more popular UberX (known as UberPop in some locations) uses drivers who often don't have commercial licenses or local taxi medallions."
This is the largest problem and its also the majority of drivers for Uber.
This is where Uber has the largest risk.
And as others have already pointed out... there is something different between a ride share and driving commercially.
"putting a sign on a company bulletin board asking for riders"
Do you regularly pick up people from your place of work and take them to places you don't want to go just to be a nice guy, and maybe for small fee just to cover a share of the fuel cost? Or do you only take people if it's more or less on the route you are taking anyway? Now do you see the difference between "ride sharing" and being a taxi?
Ride sharing is about minimizing traffic: you get together a group of people going the same way. I don't mind if the company doing the organizing or the car owner gets some money in the process. In Uber you pay a guy to drive you (and nobody else) the way you want to go. So you are increasing traffic because all the uber drivers now hover around the city (parking being unavailable/expensive).
I would love to see the face of the uber passenger when the driver announces that he is making a small detour to pick up another load going the same direction since you are paying for a rideshare not a taxi...
I know this is in bad form for internet commenting, but I will relate some actual experiences using Uber.
I recently took some rides to Dulles airport from the last Metro stop in Washington D.C. This is about 4 miles. On my way to the airport the fare was $8, on the way back the driver following his GPS got a bit lot (10 miles), so the fare was $23. I complained to Uber pointing out a) the error b) equlivalent traffic conditions and c) fix your GPS app.
They reviewed my previous trip and gave a refund so the later trip was the same cost as the former ($8).
Until such time as you can show the same behaviour from *any* taxi firm (post journey review?), Uber will have the upper hand.
On the actual subject of the lawsuit - yeah they really should be using the power of lobbying to sort their case out, but we live in a time where the vested interests of the preceding centuries are being challenged, so not always possible to work within such deformed regulatory environments.
Here in TN they have been made explicitly *legal*, putting the taxi firms in an awkward position of having to up their game....
Popcorn icon?
P.
They reviewed my previous trip and gave a refund so the later trip was the same cost as the former
Which is virtually admission of the charge of employment…
Uber seems to do well in America where local taxi services seem disorganised and rarely run in the interests of passengers. The solution there is to beat Uber at its own game and provide more convenience, capacity and flexibility. But it is wrong to assume that this is the case the world over.
You do realize that Cabs are licensed and are supposed to know the routes so that you're not supposed to be taken for a ride.
Also if you have an issue of a cabbie doing something like that... you call 311 and report the cab.
Many years ago a buddy and I were sharing a cab back to our apartment building and the cab meter was fast. we knew the price of the ride and for the amount of traffic we knew the range of the price of ride. This meter was way out of whack. When we said we're only paying X, the driver started to get irate. That is until the doorman asked us if we wanted to call the cops... then the driver took the cash and disappeared. In hindsight we should have called the cops on him anyway because he'd just look for a tourist to rip off.
My point is that you always have options.
Uber operates like a livery service. UberX... that's what is known as a gypsy cab.
Recurring sting. Use the app itself to beckon the miscreants. Issue ticket. Ideally impound vehicle for a week or two, or for auction if you want to play hardball. It wouldn't be worth it to be ignoring the local taxi regulations. The whole thing would be run out of town in several weeks.
If only all law breakers could be so easily beckoned. The app makes it trivially easy to wipe out.
Self funding too (fines or auctioned vehicles). If not, in fact, a highly profitable sting operation.
If Uber didn't act like pricks, perhaps they'd have fewer enemies.
Taking the car of the driver, rather than going after Uber?
Talk about acting like a prick. While you're at it why don't you just go ahead and kick the driver out of his house/apartment and incarcerate him for life?
NOT DEFENDING OR PROMOTING UBER HERE - The problem that keeps coming up, and keeps getting missed, is that most places have definitions as to what constitutes a taxi or hired driver service. Uber frequently doesn't meet the codified legal definition. The taxi companies coerce the local government to try to apply taxi law against Uber in order to preserve the taxi company government-sanctioned monopoly. Uber typically wins those fights because of the codification of what is and isn't a taxi service. It's sort of like being told you need a business license because you decide to have a rummage sale at your house and the local Walmart or whatever threw a hissy fit over it being "competition".
All that said, they are skirting the rules but until the rules catch up there's not much that can be done
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