Angry London cabbies attack Hailo taxi app office | Hacker News Reader

Angry London cabbies attack Hailo taxi app office

bbc.co.uk

44 pointschoult50 comments

A classic problem with the free market. As it makes something more efficient, it creates pain as this change happens. Government rules designed to be protectionist exacerbate the matter.

I feel sorry for the London Cabbie, he has passed The Knowledge, which I believe takes more than 2 years to study for, he pays a high fee for his license.

But ultimately, driving around waiting to find someone needing your service is not efficient, environmentally friendly or the most convenient solution. Their days are numbered, it's just a matter of when.

Well, you can call a cab in London too. What the drivers are understandably pissed off about is that they spent 2 years developing the navigational knowledge to get people from A to B quickly, so they could get their cab license, and now these other people are competing with them without havign had to had to meet any particular standard to start doing so.

The London cabs aren't just a monopoly as in a lot of other places, they have a very strong meritocratic basis. I was extremely surprised when I came to the US and cab drivers expected me to know how to get to my destination. I said to one 'isn't that what I'm paying you for?' and his response was 'I ain't no computer buddy, find it on a map.'

Of course the problem for London cabbies is that cheap GPS makes 80-90% of their knowledge redundant, so their hard-earned skills have literally been automated away. However, there needs to be a better response to this from the tech community than simply dismissing those skills as worthless. After all, it would be foolish to dismiss the effort required to get a medical degree just because of the existence of WebMD. This is more complex than a simple monopoly/disruptive competitor situation.

> What the drivers are understandably pissed off about is that they spent 2 years developing the navigational knowledge to get people from A to B quickly, so they could get their cab license, and now these other people are competing with them without havign had to had to meet any particular standard to start doing so.

No, it's not understandable at all. It's no different from Luddites destroying machinery that allowed unskilled workers to replace skilled ones. Progress might be a bitch (for the cabbies), but that doesn't give them the right to obstruct it.

It is very different, because there were no laws requiring weavers to meet exacting standards of manual skill before atetemtping to make a living as a weaver. Of course, a a pracical matter a weaver without those skills would get no employment, but that was the market at work.

London cab drivers, by contrast, had to make a significant economic investment (as well as meeting character requirements like having a clean criminal record) in order to get a cab license, a requirement imposed by the government body responsible for transit oversight (Transport for London). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge#The_Knowledge

I find it quite reasonable that cab drivers question why standards should suddenly vary for other people such that they can offer similar service without having to meet any special requirements. This is not the same as an arbitrary monopoly grant like cab franchises in the US.

> London cab drivers, by contrast, had to make a significant economic investment in order to get a cab license

you think your average Londoner cares? all they want is a service that gets them where they want to go; a random guy off the street with a £150 satnav will do this 95% of the time without issue, for a lot less than the same ride in a black cab.

They will quickly start to care when the number of hailed rides increase 10 fold. Which will gridlock the streets and bring the city to a halt.

There is probably a market for some of The Knowledge folks. Someone gets into a cab, announces their destination, and the cell phone in the back seat transmits his voice to The Knowledge person sitting in an air-conditioned office at a PC. That person then uses his knowledge and skills, combined with a live street map of actual traffic conditions right now, to put a path into the driver's GPS.

I'm hand-waving that this market would support maybe a quarter of the old positions for a while. It's probably time to restrict new entrants and let the current workers attrition out.

"Their days are numbered, it's just a matter of when."

Eventually robots will be driving. At least they live in a socialistic country, so there is some security.

You're confusing "more efficient" with "deciding to not abide by licensing regulation".

Regulation exists to protect consumers. It's like that shady hotel chain that sidestep any regulation - airbnb.

Only in the startup bubble is "Ignoring consumer protection laws" spun as "distruptive".

Good on the black cabs I say.

Well. If you're going to make a moral appeal to The Law, my question would be whether the laws are actually there to protect the consumer, or whether they're actually there to protect the entrenched interests under the guise of protecting the consumer.

So here's my challenge for you: If these Uber cars are, in fact, injuring the consumer, you should probably be able to find a bunch of reports of disgruntled consumers who were injured in some way (bad service, ripped off, etc).

All I've heard about is very-happy consumers, and disgruntled taxi drivers (who have a conflict of interest here). So please forgive me if I think this matter is about the cabbies who think of the passengers as some form or another of chattel. :P

I very much doubt Uber does enough business to draw any conclusions.

Look at another example though - airbnb negative reviews and experiences - you'll find millions of them.

> Regulation exists to protect consumers.

Some regulation, sure. But quite often it exists to protect producers and consumer protection is merely an excuse, and even regulation passed with the genuine intention of protecting consumers often has the effect of protecting producers.

Regulation exists to protect consumers, or at least that is what voters are told.

So regulation never protects consumers?

No, it's a classic problem with protectionist measures. Black cabs have been protected from the reality of their market for far too long, and so when the whole thing collapses all at once, rather than being gradually eroded by competition, it hurts all the more.

Of course it's a shame that a lot of people trusted the government to keep up their end of their bargain. It's a costly mistake that people seem to insist on making.

It is mostly a traffic control measure rather than protectionism. Someone should run a simulation about what happens when the number of vehicles which stops randomly for 60 secs increases by a certain percentage.

I'm not sure that's a correct analysis. As far as I know, anyone who can pass the knowledge test can get a cab license, so it';s not like there's a quota on the number of cab drivers or something, as you find with many US taxi monopolies (and which I have no time for).

Having service standards isn't exactly the same as protectionism. For example, it's easy to see the problems that would arise if someone just bought a bus, painted it in the same livery as public transit buses, and started picking up passengers on a popular route. I find the Black Cab situation interesting for similar reasons - they're not regular cars with a taxi sign on the side, but special-purpose vehicles, capable of accommodating a wheelchair, with the ability to use transit lanes, and so on. I think their beef with the regulator seemingly dumping licensing requirements on a whim is quite understandable from an economic point of view.

It's worth remembering that regulations governing cabs in London are not the result of regulatory capture by market incumbents, but were drafted centuries ago to deal with a tragedy of the commons problem, ie too many horse-drawn carriages causing traffic problems. The distinctive design of the modern cab (which are made by two firms, a British one that just does taxis, and also by Mercedes-Benz) meets standards set many years ago for ground clearance, disability access, and turning radius. Taxi firms have often asked for conditions to be relaxed over the years (especially the turning circle requirement, which allows cabs to do u-turns in places that would be impossible for other vehicles) but they remain pretty stringent.

If every taxi ride I have ever taken wasn't so shitty I might care but they were and I don't. I live in Lexington, Kentucky and I don't use cabs very often except to get home from the bars on occasion, get a ride to the airport, and once or twice when my car got locked in a parking garage downtown.

On 2 occasions I distinctly remember calling (or used online tools) to scheduled a cab ride for ~1hr in the future only to be called less than 15min later by the cab driver letting me know he was out front. Also I've called a cab on at least 3 occasions and they never showed up and I had to call again. Every cab I have ever taken only accepts cash which I rarely have on me and getting change back is awkward and so I normally end up overpaying so I don't have to deal with it.

I have been patiently waiting for Uber/Lyft to come to Lexington and about a month ago Lyft came. I was ecstatic and signed up right away and a few days later had my first Lyft ride. It was the most refreshing ride I have ever had. Not only did I not have to worry about the driver not showing up but I knew what car he was driving and had his picture on my phone and so it was very easy for me to spot him. The drivers have all been very nice and their cars have been clean and took me straight to my destination without me having to give directions unlike the dirty cabs I've ridden in with drivers that barley speak English and don't use GPS.

I will never use a taxi again if I can help it, Lyft has provided me with an amazing alternative and I would gladly pay double for a Lyft driver because the experience is so much better than a taxi.

YMMV.

This is about cabs in London, which have exactly nothing to do with cabs in your home town other than being vehicles available for hire. London drivers use specially designed vehicles the drivers go through an incredibly long and challenging training regimen, and they'r held to very high standards of behavior.

Do you have some proof for this? (aside from PR spewed from the taxi companies) Somehow I doubt that the citizens that use the taxis would agree. I may be wrong but just because the official line is "very high standards of behavior" doesn't mean that's how it works in practice.

I would love to be wrong but I can't help but think the taxi drivers are protesting because Uber and other ride-sharing problems are stealing customers left and right due to providing a better service.

> due to providing a better service.

And let's not forget skirting around existing laws & regulations. Speaking just for myself, I'd be pissed if my neighbor, who makes the same salary as I do, just decided to stop paying taxes, and suddenly was able to bank ~30% more than I do. Is it because he works harder, provides better service, or is it just because he decided that somehow rules don't apply to him?

This is a very good point and frankly I don't have a good response to it. I'm not sure the argument holds up completely though. I think a better one might be:

You both own computer consulting companies but you have government clearance while your neighbors company does not. One day government agencies decide they don't care if you have the clearance or not and decide to hire your neighbor because they have better programmers and can get the job done faster.

Government contracts is another sector that I think is overly-regulated and give an unfair advantage to the companies that can throw people at money at getting clearance so that only they can bid absurd amounts of money on contracts just to fuck them up and go way over budget but I digress...

"is it just because he decided that somehow rules don't apply to him?"

They prefer to refer to this as "disrupting".

Right. But getting angry at him is not productive. Either convince the government to enforce the law, get the law changed, or use the same weakness in the law yourself.

Why not? By evading the law he's creating additional expense for taxpayers, compounding the free rider problem with the need for greater expenditure on enforcement.

I agree with you that it's totally unfair that ~30% are taken from you, but not from your neighbor. This is why we need to abolish regulations and taxes.

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/become...

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/knowledge-exa...

London 'black cab' drivers are individually licensed by the city government, you can't just sign up for a job at a Taxi company and start driving. The qualification requirements are onerous, as you can see in the 3rd link. If you had to go through all that just get your cab license, you too might question why the same standards are not applied to others attempting to enter the market.

OK, have you ever been to London? Have you ever taken a taxi in London? Because it sounds a lot like you haven't and you're still applying experiences from elsewhere. The fact that you even refer to "taxi companies" suggests that you do not understand the London taxi market.

London cabbies are highly trained, and I've never had a customer service issue with them. At least part of this is because of how highly regulated they are - it's pretty laughable to hold up Uber and "your driver but they're not a professional driver" services as places you'll get a better experience.

In addition, London black cabs have technical advantages. One thing is they can use bus lanes, another is that they have a much tighter turning radius than most cars so they can get out tight spots.

I had to laugh at Uber's advertising during the last tube strike... the last thing you want to do during a tube strike is get in a car in central London, especially one by a disadvantageous vehicle drive by someone who does not have deep expert knowledge of the roads.

All that said, I'm a cyclist, so fuck taxis :)

While i agree with your pointing out the difference(hometown vs england), if they are so well trained they shouldnt have a problem competing in the marketplace.

Their service and skill should be much higher than the untrained right?

I think it is, but you're neglecting the opportunity cost of certification which the new drivers don't have to go through.

Assuming you drive, how would you feel about it if the DMV started handing out licenses to people without making them take a driving test? Realistically, many of them would be able to drive OK most of the time, eg a friend taught me to drive before I went to get my license.

Well for one thing, they don't accept credit cards without giving you a really, really hard time about it.

> and they'r held to very high standards of behavior.

So is it safe to assume anyone involved in vandalizing this office will lose their license? Or is the standard of "Not a Hooligan" too high for a London Cabby?

I can't say for sure, but a conviction could indeed present a licensing problem depending on exactly what it was.

Every hotel I've stayed at in Lexington Kentucky (which is a number more than two) has resulted in a horrible experience, but I'm not going to let myself generalize that into some anti-hotel belief.

Uber drivers will do the same thing when Uber start shifting to Google driverless cars.

I walked past the Hailo office earlier (it's right next to a taxi drivers café, by the way). If anything was scrawled on any walls, it must have been inside. The outside looked normal.

I'm torn, on the one hand we've put up huge barriers to becoming a cab, and cabbies went through all the necessary steps (including set fares, mandatory pick-up rules, etc) to be a legit cab service.

On the other hand, cabbies are scum and the worst drivers in the world, and maybe we should rethink those regulations.

I do think Uber's made "flaunting regulation as a service" and is pretending that making an app somehow makes them anything other than an illegal cab service.

"cabbies are scum and the worst drivers in the world" - do you count London cabbies in that? They're pretty phenomenal in my opinion.

Maybe if if every time I used a black cab it wasn't one of the worst service experiences I can find I wouldn't be so enthusiastic to move towards companies like Uber, who actually provide a service that doesn't make me fear for my life at times.

My only experiences with normal taxis have all been ones where (a) nobody at the dispatch offices of any of the major taxi companies in my area ever actually picked up, (b) the driver didn't actually speak enough English to be comprehensible, or (c) the driver had no idea where I wanted to go despite referencing local landmarks. Uber and similar services aren't available in my area, but if they were I would use them in a heartbeat, given that their methodology contains reasonably good answers to all three problems.

Interesting. I've only ever had good experiences with black cabs. Especially if there are road works or traffic, they seem to know exactly which street to turn down without any sort of aid.

The Uber drivers I've used in London have always used GPS and gone down routes which I would consider slower and more expensive.

This reminds me of living in Harlem and the battle between the gypsy cabs and the yellow cabs. Yellow cabs hate coming to Harlem and you will rarely see them compared to the gypsy cabs. But yet when Bloomberg proposed new rules to make it easier for gypsy cabs to operate uptown and the outer boroughs the yellow cabs union pitched a hissy fit.

If the yellow cabs were anything but downright hostile to anyone going outside of lower Manhattan and midtown then I would have a little sympathy. But that went out the window when they forced my ex now but girlfriend at the time to get out of yellow cab after they dropped her friends off because she was going back home to Harlem.

£38 from Guys hospital to Waterloo and back is the reality of black cabs. Bring it on Uber.

Don't ask me about other forms of transport as I have to do the journey pushing a set of wheels around and I have a slipped disk myself...

I have fallen asleep on the District line meaning to change at Embankment, and woken up in Essex, this has happened around 4 or 5 times (usually after a couple of beers) and it costs around £120 (~$200) from Dagenham East to Camden – a private hire would be much cheaper – and I'd welcome it.

Though there is something a little more special about the black cab and knowing what the driver has gone through to earn it, compared to any old numpty with a SatNav, it's just not worth the massive difference.

Ha I ended up in Ipswich once (rather than Stratford).

Don't really care what they've been through when I've been told to fuck off four times when I was in a wheelchair with a broken leg and with my daughter in a buggy.

Just drive in now. An NCP plus the congestion charge is better value and Google Maps navigation hasn't let me down once.

Fair enough. I'll give one more story as to why I like cabbies though, after a heavy night in Bethnal Green, I hailed a taxi (hungover) at around 6:00am, told him to drive me to East Sheen and said I'd pay him the next day because I had left my wallet at my friends. He said fine, took me home, and came to my office during the week to collect the money. Nice guy. We've obviously had different experiences with them...

That honestly sounds unlikely as a fare.

That's over 40 minutes each way on a time basis (by distance it should be around £6..7)

Lets assume you did drive around for over 40 minutes uber would want £3+40*0.32p so they would have charged £16 anyway.

> In the Italian city of Milan, taxis have been sitting idle for the past five days in protest at what they say is "unfair competition" from Uber.

They just make the Italian jokes too easy...

Anyway, nobody actually likes taking cabs, so perhaps rather than trying to reinforce their previous monopoly the cabbies should try to improve their own services, maybe with a cab-summoning app similar to Uber.

> Anyway, nobody actually likes taking cabs, so perhaps rather than trying to reinforce their previous monopoly the cabbies should try to improve their own services, maybe with a cab-summoning app similar to Uber.

That's pretty much exactly what Hailo is currently.

Here in St. Louis, Lyft is under attack from the Taxi industry for not complying with the same regulations those companies work under. It's been an interesting battle so far. You can read about it at http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/biznext/2014/05/test....

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