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Comment by josephagoss | Hacker News Reader

Uber is such a good experience in comparison to Taxis.

Here in Perth Uber provides a clean, calm experience where you don't have to worry about being scammed. Almost every time I've taken a taxi they have pulled the "No change for your fifty" trick, driven the long way which devolves into you having to tell the driver the directions which save you $15 off of the fare or even the times that my Taxi driver has pulled over mid-trip to purchase themselves some energy drinks (without asking me if that's ok).

I can't wait until the taxis and their Government issued monopoly are over. All that matters is that their business model built upon bad experiences, arrogance and scamming is finally being challenged and they deserve to lose these artificially inflated "assets".

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The irony or Russian tycoon, owner of "Vodka taxi", talking about mafia, is almost palpable. (I am Russian, so I am allowed to make this kind of non-pc joke /s)

On a serious side, the experience is similar in other cities as well. My friend had to do an early AM ride from Harlem to EWR. No taxis on the street, companies she called flat out refused (and she hates to make calls). Compare it to Uber who showed up on time, was very polite, she did not have to pull out cash or credit card, did NOT charge her the full cash fare tunnel toll charge, and cost 30% less overall.

Even in Toronto where taxi drivers are generally a nicer bunch, I am regularly told that "my card machine is broken/not charged".

If taxis want to compete with Uber, at the bare minimum they should "embrace and extend" what Uber is already doing: smartphone apps, rating system, card-less and cash-less billing.

http://www.genefreidman.com/ He calls himself a disruptor of the Taxi industry. His whole site is quite ridiculous.

Have you tried the trick where you ask the driver before entering the cab if they take cards? A friend of mine says the prospect of losing the fare somehow fixes most card machines. ('tis Toronto)

I've had good and bad Uber drivers and good and bad taxi drivers. I'm not 100% sold on Uber being better. I love being able to call a car via a mobile app and have the app handle payments but I've had really bad drivers as well. Drivers that smell bad, drivers with dirty cars, etc.. I had one driver who had only lived in the city she was driving in for a month or two (and subsequently got caught in a special-event caused traffic jam, which my friends who had a more experienced driver didn't get caught in).

The problem with saying "Uber is such a good experience in comparison to Taxis." is, well, which Uber, and which taxi?

In New York, for example, Uber drivers are... OK. They're usually polite enough but they're utterly dependent on their GPS - half the time they don't even seem to know street intersections. Most of the time that's fine, but if the GPS has something wrong or fails they're hopeless. Now, NYC cab drivers can actually be even worse. They're often rude, and sometimes have no idea where they're going - they can't use GPSes, so they know more often than Uber drivers, but still.

So, in NYC, Uber is the better choice. But then go to London, where cabbies are polite (to be point of being too chatty) and know exactly where they're going because of studying for "the knowledge". I'd trust a London cabbie over an Uber driver to get me to my destination every time. So in London, cabbies win out.

TL;DR: I don't think there's any universal measure of taxis vs Uber that can be applied to, say, all users of HN.

Don't worry. Uber will get there soon enough. I had not used them in a while, but once I was back in SF for a week it was complete shit. The driver had no idea where to go, was blasting music, drove sporadically, etc.

That's the complete opposite of my previous experiences with Uber (and this wasn't just one time. I took multiple Uber trips and they all resembled each other).

Isn't that what the review/star system is supposed to solve? In my experience the drivers have all been desperate to keep their 5 star rating.

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