Comment by kovacs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kovacs | Hacker News Reader

Uber/Lyft are taxi services. They need to be regulated. The cars need to be marked, have numbers, drivers accountable to the community (not just the passenger), for bad driving.

As a driver who's lived in SF for a long time I've seen first hand the terrible impact these services have had to the city. They clog streets and disregard any and all traffic laws. Just yesterday an Uber driver made a left turn from the middle lane on Hyde street. He backed up traffic as he refused to move until someone let him make his illegal turn. He was the recipient of a lot of honks.

His response? Gave everyone the finger after he finally made his left hand turn. Lovely. He should lose his license, period. In the days before these services existed cab drivers were petrified of getting in trouble. Many Uber/Lyft drivers are modern day lawless pirates.

A modern medallion system driven by traffic/ridership data with as little chance for corruption as possible would be the best answer to these problems. Uber/Lyft as they exist today cannot be allowed to continue if we value quality of life/safety.

Meanwhile in Canada..

The situation is exactly the opposite. The taxi licensed taxi cartel have no fear of blocking traffic, speeding, making illegal turns, parking in bus stops or anything else because they are a licensed taxi. They refuse to take any rides that don't suit their plans because there is more demand than taxi licensed so if you need a taxi from downtown to suburban neighborhoods you might wait 2-3 hours until you get a willing driver or just end up taking the bus.

Uber/Lyft drivers on the other hand are very respectfully following the rules of the road because if they cause undue attention someone will report them and they'll be fined, and they don't have the money of the taxi cartel behind them to pay the fine for them.

Why should Uber/Lyft be treated differently than FedEx, Walmart, and the hundreds of other companies with vehicles "clogging our streets"?

Taxi service regulation in the US are why those systems are unusable. I can't get a taxi if there aren't enough medallions issued.

There's no regulatory body preventing me from getting into the car I purchased. It makes no sense whatsoever to suggest that suddenly we need regulation simply because I rented the car in a particular way instead of driving it myself.

The regulations that matter with respect to taxi services are those that protect consumers -- there is no basis for using regulation to limit a consumer's access to the service.

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