Comment by techsupporter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by techsupporter | Hacker News Reader

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> Man, the more I read stories like this about AirBnB the more I want them to fail. People hate regulations until they get screwed, and suddenly they understand that sometimes regulations exist for a reason.

Frankly, I feel the same about every single one of the prominent "sharing economy" / "gig economy" companies. Uber/Lyft and AirBnB just seem to be the worst of them because they're the most visible of the visible. All of them appear to delight in exploiting the fact that enforcement of codes and rules isn't (and can't be) 100% universal so it's a "go under the radar until caught" model.

Meanwhile, the rest of us get to live with the obnoxiousness with no effective way to push back. Uber/Lyft "drivers" seem to have zero recognition of traffic laws (stopping in a bus lane during rush hour is practically a given these days), AirBnB "hosts" look at property rental rules as an irritating nuisance that impedes their quick buck. Even food companies like DoorDash flout labor laws and "freshly-prepared meals to your door" companies seem to think that commercial food handling rules are just dumb.

I get that lots of people love having the conveniences of life available at the tap of an icon--I do, too, even though I flatly refuse to use any of those services above--but, damn, couldn't we do it while also being considerate of those around us?

I'm interested to hear more about how Uber behaviour is inconsiderate. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the company itself - but the experience itself seems to be all round good.

In the U.K. the drivers need to be registered for private hire and pay the appropriate insurance. In my experience the drivers abide by the law, are friendly and have nice clean cars. The service itself is miles better than traditional minicabs or black cabs. And it's cheaper too.

As far as I can tell, it's just generally a better taxi service and nobody is getting hurt (though I welcome insights on where that's wrong).

Having discussed it with black cab drivers, the best they've come up with (other than the destruction of their market) is that the uber drivers register in London and then drive in the other parts of the country. Apparently that's bad somehow, but I'm not sure why.

> I'm interested to hear more about how Uber behaviour is inconsiderate.

Certainly, and I think I can sum up why you and I have different experiences in another quote:

> In the U.K.

Your government didn't bend to the "but they're just shaaaaaaring so being licensed is haaaaard" bullshit that many governments here did. (Austin, Texas tried to pull it off and the Legislature of the State of Texas smacked them, hard.)

I live in Seattle. The vast majority of Uber (and Lyft) drivers here are on the "UberX" platform so they're virtually unlicensed--except for a basic city permit and a regular driving license--and have no identifying markings except for a standard vehicle license plate. This makes complaining to any regulatory agency about them problematic and while their behavior in traffic is illegal, it is also difficult for traffic police to be everywhere to write the myriad of citations that could result.

Uber/Lyft drivers know this and the minuscule risk of getting caught is vastly outweighed by getting a crappy rating by picking up a passenger a few feet away in a loading zone versus right in the middle of the bus stop where the passenger has dropped the pickup pin.

That's just one of my huge heap of complaints about how the "ridesharing" drivers actually pilot their vehicles. Making a U-turn in the middle of traffic to pick up a fare that's just popped up on their screen is another. But it really gets my goat how they use bus lanes and bus stops as their own private pickup and drop off areas because that one person in that one car is stopping the 40 of us on the damn bus from getting where we need to go. And Uber/Lyft drivers are almost always the ones doing it. I've very rarely seen a liveried taxicab act like that.

Maybe taxicabs do actually drive as bad or worse as "ridesharing" drivers do. Maybe the don't-call-them-taxis are just more plentiful so they're more visible. I don't know for certain but I'm well and truly sick of it.

Just to add another pain point, in Orlando drivers hire out immigrants to drive for them. I've had many rides where the person driving speaks no English and doesn't match the profile pic despite the car plates matching and having the lyft/Uber app open with my details. Many complaints to Lyft and Uber and nothing has been done so far as I can tell. And as you'd expect those drivers don't obey the laws at all. Last driver I had ran every single red light and stop sign.

I had a similar experience in San Diego. Driver had only been in town 2 days; we had to give him directions (I was there for a conference and had never been to San Diego before!)

Recently Uber will randomly select drivers to submit a picture before the app will let the go online. So it seems someone somewhere is trying now, shrug.

Cabs do this all the time, since the dawn of time

The same drivers for Uber are the same cabbies. It's all the same people, running the same tricks. Uber didn't disrupt anything, just moved the platform and added a new middleman.

Try that bus lane blocking stud fin the uk and you'll find the bus has taken a picture of you, and a hefty fine will land on the door of the registered keeper of the car.

For some reason in London, black cabs (racist drivers with low standards, high fares, and cash only for tax evasion) have lobbied for their drivers to be included in the "public transport" group, meaning bus lanes are full of buses and rich businessmen going to meetings.

Thankfully, at least SF Muni has traffic enforcement cameras on the buses and trains and they issue tickets when folks are in the bus lane & bus stops.

This probably isn't the sort of behavior you expected when you asked for examples but:

Uber and Lyft were required by a municipal ordinance of Austin to finger-print their drivers. They both objected to this regulation and so they got some local folks to promote a ballot issue that intended to free them from the regulation.

There were a lot of questionable things that happened along with this ballot measure like shady local "advocacy groups" and attempts to recall city council members who appeared to be critical of Uber, but my main issue was that they sent me literally 14 of the same exact mailer addressed to me in . This was in addition to their other mailers, which were also duplicated obscenely. Anyways, the ballot measure failed and Uber and Lyft decamped, but only after claiming they were "forced out of Austin."

They wasted $10,000,000 on all this, which could have finger-printed 200,000 drivers.

They seem like wasteful idiots who want to interfere with society to their own benefit. And that's not even me talking about their flouting of 'taxi regulations.'

I drive on London every day. Uber drivers are perpetually distracted. Either looking for a pickup or aimlessly meandering waiting for their next job. There are some serious negative externalities, much like the article.

I find the same thing with black cab drivers or Adison Lee. At least uber/adison lee don't pollute the bus lanes.

I've had a couple of bad experiences with safety. Not many, but a few.

One was when a driver straight-up ran a red light. He had plenty of advance warning. It turned yellow when it was still off in the distance, and it had been red red for a few seconds when he went in. I made sure to file a complaint.

Another driver made a left turn from the rightmost lane of a six-lane road. She had plenty of warning: Google Maps had been telling her to make a left for a while, and I kept telling her "you'll want to get in the left lane". She ignored both me and the nav. That was a one-star ride.

I also had one bad experience with a driver who got furious at me for pointing out a No U-Turn sign to him. This one will need a map.

We were on a divided road (i.e., with a median, no jumping across), and our destination was on the other side of the road. The next intersection after our destination had a No U-Turn sign, and Google Maps instructed us to go on to the intersection after that and make the U-turn there. Driver decided he wanted to make a U-Turn at the intersection with the No U-Turn sign instead.

In case this is confusing, here's a map of what was going on

       | |      |N|
    ===| |======|O|==================
                      <-CAR
    ---| |------|U|------------------
                 T
    ===| |======|U|==========  ======
       | |      |R|       DESTINATION
       | |      |N|

While he was in the left lane with his blinker on, I kept telling him over and over that there was a No U-Turn sign and that what he was doing was illegal. Eventually, he relented, and for the rest of the ride, he started audibly huffing and puffing. He was utterly furious at me for not letting him make an illegal U-Turn.

Oh, and when he let me off, he parked in a handicap spot. I one-starred him, flagged him for Navigation, Safety, and Friendliness, and wrote the details of what he did; hopefully, someone at Lyft noticed.

I've actually seen a lot of drivers let me out in handicap spots. I always warn them, and they say they'll move out right away, but it makes me really nervous every time. I normally don't report or one-star people for that alone, but I made sure to do that in his case because of his huffing and puffing act. Oh, and he left me a really bad first impression when he first picked me up. He locked the front door and told me to get in the back. I'm a large person, and he had a dinky little Nissan Versa. No way am I fitting in the back of that rollerskate. He didn't unlock the front door until I told him I'd cancel the ride if he didn't let me in the front. It really pisses me off when drivers of econobox hoopties act like limo drivers. Dude, you own a Nissan Versa, not a Lincoln Town Car. Act like it.

(actually, I hate it when Uber/Lyft drivers in large sedans act like limo drivers too... as far as I'm concerned, getting out of the car to open the door for me is an automatic cancellation... I find it creepy, and I won't ride with someone who pulls that crap)

Edit: Oh, and I've also had a couple of drivers who were texting throughout the ride.

> All of them appear to delight in exploiting the fact that enforcement of codes and rules isn't (and can't be) 100% universal so it's a "go under the radar until caught" model.

This is true, but in some ways I think it's been a good shock to the system. For example, I think taxi regulation is being rethought and that wouldn't have happened without Uber.

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