German court issues nationwide ban on Uber driving services

Over here (Finland), the mandatory insurance covers passengers (and driver) also in your car, not just third parties. Different countries obviously have different practices. I can see that this is a problem in countries where the vehicle's insurance does not cover its own passengers.

(In fact, the mandatory car insurance here even covers personal damages of third parties at fault if they are pedestrians or are riding a bicycle; i.e. if a bicyclist runs a red light and collides with a car and hurts himself, the care cost is carried by the car's insurance. If the bicyclist hits a tree, the tree has no insurance... this applies to personal injuries only, not the broken bike. Any damage to the car is covered by the bicyclist's insurance if any.)

I bet here it covers damages for the people I was driving, and then the insurance company comes after me for the money if I was in breach of conditions. So it is in the interests of the driver to make sure his coverage is OK.

That's just here, of course, different countries have different rules. I don't know those in Germany so well.

I kinda suspect most taxi dispatchers in Germany will speak English.

Also if you have an app then you will have Internet and could just google taxi + city name

That is very very lame excuse. Because it suggests that you are unable to use Google and your preferred App store.

There is an App for it, called "Taxi Deutschland" (how obvious is THAT?) https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/taxi-deutschland/id454467694...

There is even a German wide number, which works in any major city: 22456 from you cell including text service http://www.22456taxi.de/

No cab driver has ever been any of those in the history of cabs.

[0] http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/cabbies-who-kill-or-maim-in-nyc...

[1] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/14/nyc-cab-driver-on-loose...

[2] http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=132684

> Without a driver rating system, I remember getting frequently being asked to leave the taxi when requesting short distance rides.

In Germany? Not saying that it doesn't happen, but it is illegal. (Which often is an important argument to why Taxis are protected against competition, since they are forced to provide services that are not always profitable)

Keep in mind that the taxi situation is very different in Germany. As an American who lived and worked in Germany for a couple years, the taxi service was generally fantastic. Professional and courteous drivers, usually an impeccably maintained black Mercedes-Benzes, and a digital readout of the current fare on the rear-view mirror. And this was 7 years ago. Upon landing in Atlanta, I'd regularly step into a smelly, old van--with a driver who spoke little English and zero knowledge of the city, requiring GPS entry before departing--only to careen haphazardly down the highway. The contrast was rather stark.

As a driving enthusiast, driving in German was a pleasure (minus the traffic). Being able to cruise at 140 mph on unrestricted sections en route to Darmstadt, and feel safe doing so, was wonderful. Then again, obtaining a driver's license in Germany is substantially more difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Vehicle maintenance requirements are likewise more stringent (e.g. mandatory winter tires). Given the different driving environment, this ruling is not surprising in light of Uber's lackadaisical approach (I say that as a fan of Uber's service in the US, not their behavior).

Whereas in much of the US, you can cruise around a parking lot with an instructor, and walk away with a drivers license. It's like the wild west by comparison. Uber is faster, safer, and cheaper than the abysmal service in most US cities; but this isn't universally true. The situation in Western Europe is mostly superior to what you'd find in the US; ditto for Japan and South Korea.

EDIT: Clarity.

I can accept they provide a faster, safer, cheaper and more comfortable service than my Colombian taxi service, and that's probably true for most countries, including the USA.

But can you really use the ANY word?

That's a tall order.

* A median 2 minute pickup time

* Knowing where your driver is and how close, who they are, what they're driving, and what their ratings are before you even climb in.

* Payment is all handled on the back end. You call the cab and don't have to worry about it. Tips are not a thing.

* Bad ratings cause drivers to get kicked out of the program - and since they're automatically prompted for as soon as you get out of the car, they're going to be done more often (and therefore be more accurate) than a complaint-based model. It solves the problem of "Well, this driver was surly and slow, but I've got better things to do than go on the taxi commission's website and fill out a complaint form"

* MUCH cheaper rates than taxis, though that no doubt varies by area. I know in SF, it only cost me $15 to get from SFO to the wharf. (About an hour drive, IIRC) Equivalent shuttle: $34-50. I priced it.

* Random everypeople drivers, rather than career folks. I've met some pretty interesting people via Uber.

* Drivers can't arrive and then refuse to drive you - they know where they're going when the app pings them. If they don't want to drive you, one of the others surely will. Drivers are penalized for dropping rides.

None of this is specific to Germany, the topic of the story notwithstanding. These rideshare outfits face the same government interference in every single country they operate in.

After tooling around California for about a week or so, I am 100% on board with these guys. Uber was consistently awesome and less expensive, taxis were consistently more annoying and more expensive.

It's cheaper. Until something horrible happens or goes wrong. It's exactly the same as airBnB. There's a reason these things are properly regulated.

In every way. Have you ever used Uber? The whole experience is so nice compared to the low-quality/bad-service experience typical of a government-approved taxi.

I'm not introspective enough to enumerate every single reason I love Uber, but here are a few:

It's cheaper.

It's faster in less densely populated areas.

The service is better and the drivers are friendlier.

The cars are nicer.

Because stuff like technical checks and insurance can't be postponed until the accidents happen, generally speaking. In the EU (at least all countries I know) third party car insurance is generally mandatory and it's details depend on how you use the car, be it commercial or private. You can of course always claim that it's a subject to "market forces" and people might opt out from insurance, but this is really not how we roll in Europe.

Yeah, let's health department inspections and DOT/MOT/TÜV inspections while we're at it. Because a "democratic" private rating system is inherently unquestioningly reliable and sufficient no matter the education of the participants or their means of inspection.

It's not about feedback, it's about prerequisites.

The very minimum standards that players need to obey.

Customer feedback can come later, on top. But that's qualitatively very different.

I think the general answer to this question is deceptively simple, and has two parts: 1) many of the most important regulations are preventative and relate to issues that are invisible to the average passenger (driver qualifications and training, insurance, vehicle maintenance, etc.). 2) The harm that many taxi regulations seek to prevent is disproportionate to the disciplining effect on operators of a single poor review. A serious accident, for example, will typically only affect a single rider (or group of riders) who can, at most give a zero-star review. I cannot see how the possibility of a single zero-star review out of hundreds would give a driver any incentive to do anything that costs a significant amount of money -- after all, many Uber drivers probably are used to getting the occasional bad review for no reason at all.

Edit: Bonus reason #3 -- Situations may arise where the government wants to prevent driver behavior that many riders will approve of, for example, to protect other drivers and pedestrians. For example, the government might want to use licensing to impose an extra stiff penalty on taxi drivers who violate traffic laws (i.e., license revocation or suspension). Passengers may approve of this sort of behavior if it was intended to get them to their destination faster.

I'm talking, exactly, about the "other reasons", of which their shading recruiting practices are only one aspect. Just off the top of my head comes to mind that Uber was caught calling Lyft cars and then ditching or cancelling them or something like that. Another aspect is how they are manipulating the public to fight their self-interested battles with government for private-profit.

Like I said, I have nothing against competition, which is really one of the concerns people should have, because Uber knows that they are currently in a land-grab type of scenario to corner the market, especially right before autonomous vehicles come on line. Due to the nature efficiency characteristics of the future transpiration system and gargantuan barriers to entry, Uber is attempting to shut out the competition in order to put a stranglehold on transpiration. They'd eventually get broken up, but in the mean time, they can execute regulatory capture, corrupt our government in the good ol' fashioned way through lobbyists, and make billions if not trillions in the mean time.

Sure, the taxi system is corrupt down to the bone in many, if not all cities. But what Uber is doing, is riding proclaiming they are the handsome night in shining armor on a brilliantly white horse, when in fact, under the shiny armor is a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.

>No, that's not a fair assessment at all - the evidence doesn't bear that out. Just because the government isn't doing the regulating doesn't mean there is no regulation. Uber at the very least does background/license checks, and the aforementioned ongoing quality rating. It's not a free-for-all.

I have no idea what lengths Uber goes to, but it's irrelevant. You're espousing self regulation. What happens when the next Uber competitor decides upon a different, perhaps less stringent, standard? This is why these regulations exist on the first place. The whole thing is coming full circle.

1. Unregulated service arises

2. People use said service, gains critical mass.

3. Service excludes/endangers part of the population.

4. Service is regulated by the government

5. Eventually, regulations become burdensome and are either lifted or circumvented.

6. Goto 2

Isn't that called Marxism?

Sure, except (at least in Germany) they get the short end of the stick.

They generally have to enter into non-competes, prohibiting them from working for other agencies or companies. They are only paid when the temp agency actually has work for them. They generally get zero benefits compared to regular employees. They also tend to be paid pennies and don't benefit from labour agreements (because unlike their regular employee co-workers they're not allowed to unionize). Basically, they're like independent contractors, except they're not independent.

Temp agencies in this form weren't even legal in Germany until a few years ago (well, about a decade now).

What mental change? To accept boring non-innovations as something fundamental?

Not really. The impact of mechanisation was very bad to start with. Life expectancy fell to just 25 years during the first decade of the industrial revolution. When factory owners realised their workers were literally dropping dead on the factory floor they hurried to do something about it and conditions improved pretty quickly, but it's certainly the case that the industrialisation necessitated changes that hadn't been considered necessary before.

Life obviously wasn't brilliant prior to the spinning jenny, but it was definitely better than the 20 years that followed its proliferation. If Uber is really a parallel then the workers who drive for them are in for a couple of decades of having a pretty rubbish time.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic...

And the mechanism of putting items in a shopping cart is patented.

This is not an argument against allowing the freedom of choice of how to spend my money and time. If I want more risk, I should absolutely have it. What you're saying is like saying "if you surf and get bitten by a shark, you would start reconsidering your attitude towards surfing, thinking maybe you shouldn't have gotten into the water in the first place". Should we ban surfing on the grounds that some people may actually regret it?

The point is to allow people to make their own choices. What you're advocating is depriving people of the choice of how to spend their money and manage their risk/reward options.

Am I not a part of the society? If I am, why is it that some part of the society, however big, is telling me how to spend my own money if it doesn't actually affect them at all?

It is my choice whether to insure myself or not. It is the choice of the driver whether to insure himself or not. It is the responsibility of the road owner to demand all cars have insurance. Unfortunately, we mostly have only one road owner these days: government. If you had plenty, then some would allow uninsured cars and some wouldn't. Then it would be up to both drivers and pedestrians to use those roads (this is one possible solution).

You're trying once again to draw an image of a libertarian as a ruthless individual who doesn't care about the misfortunes of other people. I do care very much about that and I would be happy to help out. What I am against is FORCE with which government demands people operate in the market very often against their will.

Some people are riskier. Some people are careful. As long as it doesn't affect another person, everyone should be free to do whatever the hell they want.

Finally, your elitist standpoint "we in Europe" is simply disgusting to me. I apologize for this emotional outbreak, but I have zero respect for collectivism. "You in Europe" are all different and by saying it they way you did, you simply disrespect people who have opposing views, not considering them a part of your society.

Banks, although regulated up to their necks, still manage to lose millions of dollars of customer's money in hacking attacks.

I'm sorry, you're not addressing my point. If passengers in Germany didn't think Uber was useful to them, they simply wouldn't use it and Uber wouldn't have any market. But it does have a market because there's a demand. What you're suggesting is to ignore the demand and ban Uber nevertheless, hurting your own citizen's interests and emptying their pockets with prices you yourself think are reasonable for everyone.

Why would they suffer? If you are concerned with your safety and trust the government vetting process, you are free to use government-licenced taxi services exclusively.