California Regulator Issues Citations And Fines Against Uber, Lyft, And SideCar
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I used sidecar a couple of times in SF and the experience was pretty mixed. It definitely feels sketchy when someone swings by in a Corolla, and it does very much feel like "ride sharing" in the truest sense of the word, with the unmistakable feel of a taxi also. Bizarre.
I much prefer Uber, but the pricing speaks for itself.
I'm not going to complain about the specifics of the enforcement action - no matter which way you slice it SideCar and Lyft most certainly were diving through loopholes. They are meant as a taxi service, no matter how hard they avert their eyes and insist the opposite.
But, and this is a huge but. The taxi experience in San Francisco is horrific - easily the worst out of any city I've ever lived in, and by a wide margin to boot. MUNI is also a perennial joke of a transit system. In a city as dense as San Francisco, dear government, with no functioning taxicab service and no functioning public transit system, how do you expect people to get around?
Uber, Lyft, and SideCar are born from the supremely fucked-upery of SF's transportation situation. Liability, driver training, and all of that are all legitimate questions, but IMO are separate from the question of whether or not these services should exist in the first place.
So how would you envision ripping apart such a system and replacing it with something better? If you are like many people you might say "Oh its freakin' impossible, we've got regulatory capture, crooked politicians, back channel relationships, this will never change." But if you don't just lay down and give up, you do cause changes. That is what Uber started.
But what is interesting is that you start by 'drawing fire' and that exposes these relationships and it forces some of the people in dubious positions to go full criminal or not. One of the weirder things I've learned about large organizations is that there can be 'unwritten rules' which are maintained by people who would rather not be seen as being in control, and so when you start pushing up against them you get this sort of anonymous push back kind of thing. If you do the 'right' thing and ignore the push back then these same people start exhorting their control points to "do something" and that is when the 'drawing fire' part starts.
These companies are handling this exactly right so far, call their bluff. Tell the CPUC "Hey, either give me a rule that I'm violating or go away." and since there aren't any rules really, just people with influence who wish there were rules, the ones that they try to use against these guys don't work well. Time to start watching the bills in congress for some small amendment to some random bill that says "Oh, and if you offer a ridesharing service you are a transportation services company." tacked on to something which gives money to farmers or something. Then suddenly (if you weren't watching for it) you'll get hit with "Well you are violating this Federal Law which just so happens to have been written earlier this week/month/year." But that exposes the congressional rep who is on the playing board, so you go talk to them and figure out how to make supporting this stuff be more useful than opposing it. And then there will be a newspaper report about how some guy offering rides actually has a criminal record about a mile on long and oh my god if you used one of these services instead of a "real" taxi you might be delivering yourself into the arms of a psychopath! And then there will be attempts and DMV regulations that say you can't offer rides in cars that are older than 7 years old. It goes on of course.
It is a symphony of sorts, all the various folks trying to keep the status quo, protect their turf, etc. And this is what it sounds like.
FWIW the noise level indicates success on the part of SideCar, Lyft, and Uber.
In a city as dense as San Francisco, dear government,
with no functioning taxicab service and no functioning
public transit system, how do you expect people to get
around?
You can get just about anywhere in the city easily by bicycle. I live at the top of Nob Hill and from just about anywhere in the city I can get home as quickly as a cab. I've beaten my girlfriend on scooter or in a cab several times. The times I've lost have only been by a small margin. People really underestimate how quickly you can get from point A to point B by bicycle.
I used to live in São Paulo and there they do a test every year comparing several transportation options, car, bicycle, motorcycle, bus, subway, helicopter, etc, and bicycles win every single year.
Uber, on the other hand, looks completely legitimate to me. They partner with licensed and insured companies and provide an awesome experience.
Lyft also has 1MM liability on each driver so nothing about them feels sketchy. [1]
My only complaint is they don't have enough drivers and so I can't always get a lift.
I agree SF's taxi drivers are usually terrible, but I've had good luck with Uber Taxi. I'm not sure how much extra vetting Uber does but it seems to work. Uber Taxi charges regular taxi fares + 20% gratuity + $1, which is well worth it to me if you can get one.
Both are one lawsuit away from oblivion.
So I am glad that these services are under a somewhat watchful eye.