Virginia orders Uber, Lyft to stop operating in state
wtop.com
wtop.com
Amazed at the reasons they point to in an attempt to justify their actions. In all my encounters with Lyft and Uber the cars conditions are well above a taxi. A typical taxi ride includes squealing brakes and bottoming out due to suspension falling apart.
"Save the children!" plus an appeal to authority. If your argument has no substance, you might as well go full fallacy.
Uber to me is reliable, it's cheaper and it's safer. I couldn't count the number of times I've ordered a taxi that just didn't show up (presumably they took a more profitable fare elsewhere), rude drivers, drivers that speed without any kind of accountability. You complain to the taxi company and they couldn't really care less.
Instead of embracing change, taxi companies are clinging to their lobbyist and broken ways. Look how well that turned out for the music industry when they tried to fight digital music and streaming... It's the same situation happening all over again. Uber and Lyft will eventually win, it's only a matter of time.
I just called Time Warner yesterday to complain until they gave me better pricing and ended up arguing with the retention guy about how it would cost them less if they just killed their analog output (which still runs in my area) and gave internet users the BW. TWC is finally doing so in the area, but not after milking every last drop out of the aging analog cable crowd.
>You complain to the taxi company and they could care less
...twitch...
couldn't care less
And there are many different laws affecting who can operate taxi services in those areas.
I don't know how things were in Virginia, but in Chicago regular taxis are vastly better than uberx/lyft in every way except price. Also, taxi drivers are required to have a chauffeur's license that tests them for TB along with city knowledge.
Uber works well for you and many of us. But don't portray this as a hero's fight against a broken industry when in reality it's a nuanced decision and there are valid points of view on both sides of the argument.
This.
In SF bay the traditional taxi drivers are great at just not bothering to come, and the dispatchers will yell at you and make you call back if you happen to call the wrong city's number for the same company. Then they practically threaten you if you try to pay with a card.
But sometimes, just sometimes some of the regulations and restrictions are legitimate consumer protection mechanisms that benefit all of us, and we should think before we throw them out in the name of progress.
That said, it's too bad that the two sides represent the extremes and there is no entity representing the sane middle ground. On the one hand you have an entrenched industry resistant to any form of change (and not willing to abuse politics to do this), on the other hand you have companies that laugh in the face of decades of learned consumer experience and have a history of abusing the market to push out competitors (see: Uber and the call-and-cancel-against-competitors debacle).
I'm for more taxis on roads. I'm for more technology in taxis. I'm for transparent payments and real enforcement against bad drivers (and bad passengers!). I'm also for proper licensing, proper insurance, consumer protections (e.g., being kicked out of a cab for a surge pricing fare), and trustworthy metering.
I suspect most people are in this middle ground, but no one represents us. I don't want Uber to the arbiter what goes forward, and I don't want the taxi lobby either. Both scenarios are distinctly dystopian.
Uber and Lyft are able to get traction because the government is being too slow to meet the demands people have within their cities/states. Regulation is good for consumer protection, but when it's preventing services to reach consumers, there is a problem. These companies are willing to go around the laws cause the government is not doing their job.
But Uber isn't exactly a beacon of fair business practices, and in all appearances seem anti-regulation overall, even the ones that are pro-consumer.
This is a bad position with no easy way out. Clearly the current regulations aren't working, but the only two players in the game support either near-total deregulation, or complete stagnancy. There is no actively engaged party that represents the "we should probably regulate less but not throw out the baby with the bathwater" side.
The government will respond to whoever exerts the most pressure (whether that's a vindication of democracy or an example of its failure is another discussion) - but the only two parties exerting pressure are both fairly evil in my books.
1) Government gets free (non-taxing) income from the cab drivers.
2) Government officials have to deal with a voting bloc (and potential strikes) if they don't comply.
3) Cab drivers get to limit supply, and all the advantages that brings, like for example not paying 2%-5% of the fare to the card companies, plus paying $1000 a month to the banks for having a payment terminal at all (not, of course, including the separate cell subscription the payment terminal needs) (yes I know the situation in America is slightly better, but ...)
4) Let's face facts here, regular people don't, or very rarely, use cabs because of the price of that service. So they don't have an incentive to go against this.
5) There is some limited value to the regulations : they are probably overkill, but they do keep out bad drivers. Bad as in criminals, and bad as in drunk and so on.
Bottom line : this is a problem with the democratic system itself, and specifically a point where it doesn't agree with what the tech scene wants. Tesla has effectively the same problem.
Oh yes. The taxi commission isn't pushing out competitors whatsoever with bans on Uber/Lyft. You're completely right.
Like I said, the nuances of this topic is frequently lost when discussed in tech circles, where many people seem to view the world as binary, where companies are either benevolent in a Christ-like manner or pure unadulterated evil.
Let's drop the "with us or against us" schtick yeah? It's tiresome and childlike.
The last time I tried to call a taxi (the night before) to get me to the airport, the driver never showed up. So I ended up walking to the train station, luggage in hand, to get to DCA.
I'll be flying in to DCA tomorrow, and I won't be able to call an Uber. I'll have to go get in a dingy, unsafe taxi with some asshole who is almost always driving while taking on the phone.
If the regulations actually worked (I felt safe in taxi cabs, the drivers weren't pieces of shit chewing khat and refusing to turn on the AC, and constantly overcharging you every chance they get by taking longer routes that any local knows are not the quickest way) then maybe I would feel good about it.
But guess what? Technology is crowdsourcing regulation now. We don't need a top down body of lazy fucks who sluggishly work their 9-3 shifts (with 2 hour lunch breaks) going around making sure taxis don't overcharge or are safe. If an Uber driver gets less than stellar feedback, they are gone. I'd call that much better than a fucking bureaucrat. The results speak for themselves. Uber is safer, cleaner, and superior to a taxicab in every way.
When I fly back to Virginia tomorrow, I'll have my wife pick me up. I'm not getting in a goddammed taxicab ever again unless I have absolutely no choice.
1. What are the protections that the regulations give? 2. Are the actually successful? At uber and lyft's scale, we should be able to see how not having these regulations fail the consumer. Are there more accidents? No seatbelts? Longer drives? Overcharging? Kidnappings/rapes/murders (this is not said in jest, I believe it is sometimes listed as a reason for needing regulation)?
Taxis should not be some ultra-regulated industry, and if it is, it shouldn't be near IMPOSSIBLE (read: ultra-expensive) to be part of that regulated sector.
Nowadays, it's a service as basic as being a barista or a dog walker, the dangers imposed on society by having Uber/Lyft drivers pick up willing, paying customers are microscope to naught. (State/County/City) Sanctioned Taxi drivers aren't some elite demographic for honesty and morals.
If it's an insurance thing, (reasonably) legislate it, but until then, don't stop consumers from using a service that they are clearly overwhelmingly pleased with .
I want to regulate on safety and general welfare, not on choice.
With airbnb the problem becomes more complicated because service users can also cause problems (moreso than in most things). But by the nature of the service there are two issues:
- service providers (the subleters ) might not be around to give good feedback
- neighbors are likely not giving feedback
There's no good quality control on the people staying in the house and neighbors suffer.
*except when choosing your own taxi
If it's all about consumer protection why doesn't the Virginia DMV do something about all the sluglines throughout Virginia and DC. Sluglines are the practice of one stranger giving one or more other strangers a ride so that the car can get on the HOV.
Are those slugline cars safe? Are the drivers safe? Have they received proper training?
Maybe, maybe not. But they don't disrupt the powers that be
Here's a Virginia DMV page with a link to a slugline page:
Does the Virginia DMV say anything about slug lines and how unsafe they may be? Or how the drivers may or may not have training? Or how the cars may not have been properly inspected?
NO, in fact they encourage it (see below)
Why? cause it doesn't disrupt the powers that be
They actually link to slug lines - again a popular practice of allowing strangers into the car of another stranger - on this page:
But just want to point out: Because nobody is being paid in slug lines, they couldn't tell people not to do it even if they wanted to.
You make an excellent point about how they claim to care about safety and then tell people to go use slug lines.
For a good laugh, go look at the slug line horror stories. My favorite is a guy who got in a car with a woman who was pulled over minutes later with a suspended license and warrants. She was carted off to jail, and the police officers gave him a ride to a strip mall where he had to call a taxi.
-Francisco D'Anconia
it wasn't that the peer-to-peer model wasn't imagined, it just that the "peer-to-peer" transportation services have been illegal pretty much everywhere. What was changed by Lyft and the likes is the number of "law-breakers", i.e. it seems it reached critical threshold for [considering] regulations change. Laws/regulations is just a written record of the power balance, and as the balance has just somewhat shifted it thus prompted the changes in the written record of it.
However, the second you charge money for the same service, the regulators want to get involved to check for safety, inspections, and licensing.
Its like the difference between me showing a movie in my house to 15 friends And me renting out a movie theatre and opening the doors for everyone to come in. Even if the same 15 friends show up, they do it as members of the public.
I'm sure the taxi lobby would figure out a way to shut that down as well, of course.
However, the second you charge money for the same service, the regulators want to get involved to check for safety, inspections, and licensing.