Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mschuster91 | Hacker News Reader

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> drivers are forced to purchase a medallion

In Germany: while taxis are required to have licenses, we don't have such things as taxi drivers renting their medallions for a day.

> and abide by other silly regulations

Regulations usually exist for good reasons. Let's just take the common complaints about the German ones:

- cab drivers have rigorous tests on their knowledge of the city's streets: you don't want to have drivers which are stuck on the side of the road if their GPS fails and also you don't want them spend a minute idling and typing the destination in the GPS. Furthermore, it makes for a more professional experience.

- cab drivers have to know lots of tourist info (this applies at least for Munich, Berlin and Hamburg): you don't want to have cab drivers unable to at least explain a bit about the city. Cab drivers are, airport staff aside, the first point of contact for tourists.

- cab drivers have to keep their car clean and maintained: once again: Cab drivers are, airport staff aside, the first point of contact for tourists. Which means that an unclean, falling-to-pieces cab will leave a negative impression on the city as a whole. Also, not properly maintained cabs are a safety risk.

- cab drivers from city A may drive passengers to city B, but not pick up passengers in city B. Once again, this is not just to protect taxi drivers in city B (because the meter in taxi A may have lower tariffs), but also to ensure a competent driver for passengers in city B.

Uber didn't grab much of a hold in Germany because the cabs here are not the total desaster that is found in other countries. Especially, we have the Beförderungspflicht, which means that a cab driver must transport you inside the licensed area, no matter how short or long the route, and especially discrimination on race or the 'hood where the passenger is hailing the cab is forbidden. The only reason for a cab driver to deny you transportation is if you're too drunk/drugged or armed/aggressive (both of which are a danger to the cab driver) or the destination is outside the licensed area (the cab driver still may set his/her own price for such routes, but very well deny you transportation if it's too far away).

I haven't verified this for Germany, but I'd venture that cab drivers are probably required to have adequate insurance (which would be the most important thing to me).

As I recall, one of the things Uber got in trouble for in Germany was not meeting the insurance requirements.

> you don't want them spend a minute idling and typing the destination in the GPS

And yet this happens to me in probably one in four rides in Berlin (which adds up to a lot of rides), and not really anywhere exotic: Tegel to Kollwitzplatz for instance.

(I agree with all your points and I use MyTaxi which I find good enough, but I think the street map knowledge of Berlin taxi drivers has radically decreased in the last ten years. No idea why.)

> And yet this happens to me in probably one in four rides in Berlin (which adds up to a lot of rides), and not really anywhere exotic: Tegel to Kollwitzplatz for instance.

Obligatory BER joke: Taxi drivers think they're at BER and are a bit confused why it says TXL? ;)

Some regulations are fine. Like requiring that your drivers have insurance. Or even requiring that your drivers pass some sort of test which demonstrates that they are actually skilled drivers, if you want. But I actually don't like any of the regulations you mentioned.

The most egregious is this one:

cab drivers from city A may drive passengers to city B, but not pick up passengers in city B. Once again, this is not just to protect taxi drivers in city B (because the meter in taxi A may have lower tariffs), but also to ensure a competent driver for passengers in city B.

This is almost always a rule to protect cab drivers in city B. And it's horribly inefficient as it means the cab spends 50% of its time empty. If driving between cities is common, fares have to be much, much higher to compensate drivers for this.

Knowledge of local roads is close to ok, it ties into being a good driver. The other items on your list are nice-to-haves, but at what cost? If tourists really want all this stuff, they can take the cab at the stand outside their hotel or at the airport instead of calling an Uber. But, speaking for myself, I'd prefer to save 10-20 euro on a trip from the airport.

Disclaimer: the closest I have come to Germany is flying through the airports. So feel free to critique my lack of local knowledge.

> This is almost always a rule to protect cab drivers in city B. And it's horribly inefficient as it means the cab spends 50% of its time empty. If driving between cities is common, fares have to be much, much higher to compensate drivers for this.

Most of the time, that rule doesn't hit at all - the major exceptions are the Berlin and Munich airports, which are located outside of the city borders. The remainder that gets hit by this policy are fares crossing regional boundaries on the countryside where it doesn't really matter anyway if a cab goes 5km empty.

All the major cities are in one regulation zone exactly to avoid this - which has the downside that in the mega-urbs Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin the amount of knowledge required for taxi drivers is immense, and it doesn't really help that there are often enough more than 2 streets of the same name in Berlin (mostly, an aftereffect of the DDR/BRD split and reunification).

> Regulations usually exist for good reasons

It's just a very small group of people telling everyone else what's good for them. I have a better idea - create regulations that "protect the innocent" but at the same time allow people to opt-out from such "protection" and use whatever transportation service they fucking please (but at their own risk).

It sounds fine at first glance, but it's actually ignoring two important points.

1. In this case, there's no opting out of personal protection without endangering innocents - as long as you're using public transportation infrastructure (i.e. roads), an unmaintained and/or uninsured car is a danger to others. There is public interest in ensuring such cars do not drive alongside regular traffic.

2. Such "protection" through enforcement of some minimal standards is a cost; if you remove that floor, the market will push straight down. What you intend as a voluntary opt-out mode will become involuntary, as prices adjusts to reflect the added costs of those standards. In other words, it's not just those who're willingly opting out that will be using "unprotected" services, but also those who can't afford the "protection" but need the service.

Point 2 can be also restated as: safety standards are a cost, the market will happily get rid of it (by externalizing them onto society at large) if you allow it to.

an unmaintained and/or uninsured car is a danger to others

In most jurisdictions, it is illegal to drive a car without a specific level of insurance or with safety-related maintenance issues independent of whether it is being used for some commercial purpose.

Commercially used cars have different insurance and maintenance standards; this was one of many issues with Uber - drivers lacking proper insurance.

Most personal insurances will not pay out if they discover that you were driving for commercial purposes, as there is a different risk profile for commercial drivers.

How would this work with taxis? Do I need to research every taxi I hail to find out if they meet reasonable safety standards?

And we end up with almost every single contract including the opt out language. The majority of people don't read contracts, and many of those who do have no access to recourse to do anything other than walking away from the entire field of services. (While in theory the market should fix this by having service offers without those clauses that people who read their contract and walk away from bad ones can use, the total number who are willing to walk away are far too smaller.)

For example, look at arbitration in the US.

Want a retirement account? Arbitration clause.

Bank account? Arbitration clause.

Cell phone contract? Arbitration clause.

Insurance? Arbitration clause.

Online video game account? Arbitration clause.

And most people don't realize how one sided these are until they end up on the wrong end of the legal system.

> the total number who are willing to walk away are far too smaller

Because people are too lazy to walk away from a bad deal or simply don't want to read the contract they're about to sign is a really poor justification.

My point there is that so few do that the market doesn't respond to capture those who do so. The justification isn't about why, it is about the money in capturing them. Making an offer for people who want to buy cell phones without arbitration, and advertising it so those people know about the option, won't cause a positive return on investment and as such doesn't happen. It is a comment on why 'just go buy from someone who doesn't do it' isn't a solution.

Look at th5dv, who doesn't have any Apple or Google accounts, or use a major U.S. mobile phone carrier. Otherwise, he has agreed to a binding arbitration clause.

Is it really being lazy to not want to go without a bank account?

if you think it's about being too lazy that says a LOT more about you than them.

Making a personal remark on someone just because (presumably) they have a different opinion on certain matters is pretty low.

German taxis actually allow that.

Services that are technically "rent a car with a driver" can operate like taxis, but not do on-street pickup.

Only regulations: Needs driver license, needs insurance.

That doesn't work. It's been tried, some people are just too stupid and they'll hurt themselves and complain about it.

By your logic we shouldn't regulate smoking or guns or a million other things we regulate, for good reason.

> some people are just too stupid and they'll hurt themselves and complain about it

It's not just about stupid people. It's also about people who get deceived by marketing (i.e. all of us, in some way, at some point). It's also about the market adjusting prices so that the unsafe option will be the only option available for some people, while true costs are externalized onto society.

But the point still is, as you say, we regulate a lot of things for good reason.

> It's also about the market adjusting prices

Yes, but it'll work the other way around - the "safe option" will become cheaper, otherwise services that provide it will go out of business. What makes you think that "unsafe option will be the only option available for some people". Feels a bit like you're demonising the free market.

> some people are just too stupid and they'll hurt themselves and complain about it

stupid people will hurt them self, one way or another. You can't protect people from their own stupidity by introducing more and more regulations. Soon, you won't be able to purchase a kitchen knife.

Just to give an example that kind of goes against what you were saying: cars were invented and at first there were not that many regulations.

Now we have:

- speed limits

- car making regulations

- fuel regulations

- ...

And 99% of those rules are good for society as a whole.

Regulation isn't bad in and of itself, abuse of regulation is. Focus on the real target ;)

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