Hacker News Reader

Comment by 1_2__4 | Hacker News Reader

> Training requirements should be based on safety requirements, which are the same whether you're on the road for 6 hours a week or 60.

While I agree with you in principle, there's no indication that this is anything but regulatory capture. There's no municipality in the western world that requires this much training for Uber drivers; would you say there's a problem there that needs solving, and that Quebec's legislated response is a reasonable solution? I'm personally skeptical.

View on HN

Then they should be arguing to reduce training requirements for all commercial drivers, not saying that Uber should get special treatment because their drivers drive less.

If you want to drive a black cab in London (green badge holders), you're going to have to do a hell of a lot more than a paltry 35 hours of training: https://www.theknowledgetaxi.co.uk/

On average, drivers take 2-4 years to learn London well enough to pass!

London streets are um... a _legacy_ system, so it's not surprising that it takes more time. I'm not sure if Black Cabs hold a monopoly on London taxis, but if they are competing in a market, then it's just that they are providing a higher level of service, and are training at that level. Waze + a human will probably do a "good enough" job.

Yes, which has always been a waste of resources, and is obviously a waste of resources given that the requirements haven't changed since GPS and Google maps became available. It's a textbook example of regulatory capture.

Canada has training requirements for other low income jobs, and the kids take them even if your just going to work part time.

For example, you usually need to take a 1 day foodsafe course to work somewhere like mcdonalds: http://www.foodsafe.ca/courses.html

As a Quebec resident, over-regulation and mandatory time spent in useless training is well known here as soon as you touch a regulated market.

A lot of provincial laws require that you waste time to obtain some license (in opposition to showing that you understand the regulations), and these laws are not going to change since most people in the field already did the time so don't care anymore or didn't do it and don't have to do it.

I hope this event will at least help in fix/expose this problem

I don't see that as a reasoning. I fail to see why Uber shouldn't follow the same regulations as any other taxi/car service.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com