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Comment by iamben | Hacker News Reader

Last time my (getting rather elderly) mother came to London I told her and her husband to get an Uber as it was easier than them standing in the rain trying to hail a cab.

They flatly refused. They'd been told by a black cab driver the night before there was a 'strong possibility' they would get raped or robbed by 'foreign' drivers.

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Why not suggest one of London's myriad of other options, which don't have so much in the way of unethical baggage?

The tube is fine for the most part but it can be a drag going from the eastern parts of London to LHR directly (or to Paddington or Victoria)

Addison Lee is a good alternative. Drivers tend to be a bit more professional, prices are not that much higher and cars are generally nice.

Their previously voiced views on cyclists should be taken into account though.

http://road.cc/content/news/56999-addison-lee-chairman-airs-...

The Keen Group have always been reliable for us (but could hold similar views for all I know)

You can downvote, but I hate cyclists in cities, because many of them break road rules. They think of themselves as neither pedestrians, nor vehicles. When they drive on pavements, they presume being pedestrian and expect to be treated equally (even though they operate a large mass of steel, often with high speeds, enough to cause serious injuries). When they are on the road, they like to be pedestrians and cross traffic lights, when cars have stopped. Don't know why cyclists constantly show such a selfish attitude. I am not singling out London, as I witnesses similar behavior in many European countries.

So, the cyclists behave just like car drivers then ... /sorta-joking

(FWIW I'm both and sometimes ride a motorbike or drive a van.)

What is the problem with cyclists cross the road on a pedestrian crosswalk (with a reasonable speed of course)? In some European countries cyclists are actually forbidden to take direct left turn on the road and have to use pedestrian crosswalk for that.

This is why cycle infrastructure, like one finds in Perth, WA is so good. In some places there is a separate cycle-road distinct from both pavement and road, in others there are cycle tracks running alongside train tracks, away from cars and pedestrians. It works really well, because someone bothered to plan.

I've seen many cyclists go through red lights in cases where doing so is obviously safe. But for comparison I don't think I've met a single car driver who obeyed speed limits, indeed they seem affronted when I raise that question.

I have never seen in London a car driver run a red light but I regularly see cyclists blast through a red light at > 20mph and it is always the ones on fixies or racing bikes not actual bikes built for commuting.

I have also seen bikes blast through pedestrian refuges during the rush hour

Black cabs do it regularly on Oxford Street.

Then let's ban cars in cities, considering the harm car traffic has caused to inner cities andvtgeir inhabitants.

Oh, and don't complain that infrastructure built for cars sucks when used by bikes.

Better to have the selfish people on bikes than in cars.

I'd not sure I'd call the AL drivers professional. A number of them are complete psychopaths around the Heathrow area.

More so than cabbies or Uber drivers?

Considerably worse. Some people use them as a cab service for the local school and it's like a pinball machine.

There are lots of private hire car firms, Addison Lee springs to mind immediately. And practically every street in the city has a minicab firm...

Not that I use Uber (not really necessary in Edinburgh and they don't operate where I live) - but one of the problems with there being so many taxi and minicab firms is how do you tell which ones are actually any good when traveling to a new location?

I've had great experiences with taxis, but also appalling ones... At least Uber seemed to be trying to solve that problem - shame they decided to solve a real problem while being a shamelessly immoral company.

I agree to some extent. Having a single app you can open, regardless of what city or even country you're in, and knowing you'll get a good service at a good price, that's a great idea!

The behaviour of Uber has been terrible, and it's a shame they don't operate much more like a passenger->service matching system with ratings, rather that operating their own fleet kinda-sorta-maybe (but they're all self-employed!)

It would be kind of neat to have a standard platform for location based services....

Edit: Not just discovery, but transactions as well

Mini cab drivers are often self employed, they pay a "radio fee" for the booking office, provide their own vehicle, licensing etc, have fares set centrally, and they keep their fares (and take cash to avoid paying tax).

How is uber any different?

On that regard I would say that the court case a little while back about the employment status of uber drivers might have some bearing. IIRC they demanded some drivers be available at certain times, and did other things that put the lie to "self employed" status.

Don't get me wrong, I know all the shady shit that goes on in this direction with delivery drivers etc, and I expect at some point we're going to end up with a big shift in the rules.

With Uber it's just one of many things that I dislike about them.

In my experience Addison Lee, Kabbee and the other private mini cabs are completely useless for uber use case. Unless you booked them in advance you need to be prepared to wait up to 30 minutes or more. With uber I can request a ride and I'm pretty sure that at worst in 5 minutes I'm inside the car.

And you're just as likely to be attacked/raped/whatever with a local minicab firm, probabpynmore as there's less tracking of what's happening.

Odd then, that the police are specifically calling out Uber for non-cooperation on this, and a failure to put proper checks in place.

Will be resolved with crossrail next year, thankfully.

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