No, you absolutely cannot.

I think you can apply the same logic to gay legalization and feminism, yes. The logic is stretched too far if you try to apply it to Gandhi or the Civil Rights Movement. Those are completely different situations. A company didn't choose which laws to disobey to enable those movements.

Which is why I'm in favour of penalties being set by a judge and being significantly burdensome enough most of the time, that they will think twice before trying. Company A has 10 million in the bank, fine is 5 million, company B has 100 billion in the bank, the fine is 75 billion.

Which is why allowing them to undertake acts of civil disobedience is just letting in the Visigoths.

If money and power is allowed to buy a company greater ability to ignore the law than an individual human citizen... We all may as well call it a day, write the entire system off and start thinking about how the next one should work. Unless I see a counter example of say Google or Apple ignoring a stupid encryption must have back doors type law then we have zero examples of corporations ignoring the law for good... Vs hundreds of examples of them ignoring the law for evil, and a handful of examples where the good vs evil question is uncertain but should still be considered bad because they are breaking the law.

Because I've ridden in non-regulated gypsy cabs before. The driver was terrible, the cab was in worse shape, and there was absolutely no systemic set of metering, just a negotiation of what the both of us felt was fair after the fact. The whole reason the medallion system was created was because prior to the medallions, taxis were a real risk to the general public.

The government shouldn't protect everyone from everything. They should, however, protect people when market failures do happen, like what happened in the taxi industry in the 20s and 30s. Uber's stonewalling here, when they were the ones who helped craft the law, shows how unconcerned that they aren't concerned with working out how to make taxis safer, just that they want to make money on an industry that needs rethinking, consequences be damned.

If that's how you feel, vote.

Until enough people agree with you and get the law changed, it's the law. You don't get to blatantly disregard it just because you disagree with it.

At the very least don't act surprised when disregarding the law results in punishment. It's kind of like, "Duh, what did you expect?"

"Why do you believe there is a need for this? Vetting of drivers, saftey etc can all be done under private insurance and/or review systems"

Not really, considering none of them have worked very well so far.

"This idea that the government should protect everyone from everything is very dangerous."

This idea that companies should be able to do whatever they want because profit is even more dangerous.

"Further I have never really felt safe in government approved taxi's so the idea that the government today is providing proper safety inspections and vetting of driver is laughably naive, Taxi regulations is a money scheme for government and has 0 to do with safety"

Because your anecdote trumps reality?

Do you know how the highway construction is vetted, how your cell phone batteries are vetted, how the gasoline additives are vetted, how the driver's licensing scheme in California is vetted, how vehicle import regulations are vetted, how traffic signals are vetted, etc?

Any of these could cause non-negligible personal risk, none of it your fault. For extra fun, imagine changing jurisdictions frequently and doing all that research over again.

Uber's economic model is maybe not my business, but my safety using them sure as hell is.

I don't want to second-guess whether drinking water is safe, food, etc. Nor do I want to have to Google whether it's safe merely to hail a cab-like service.

It's absurd to expect everyone to take 100% responsibility for all external factors beyond their control. At least some common, important factors need to be regulated simply to spare redundant burden on the populace.

As dragonwriter said:

"You realize the law at issue is a law Uber supported which legalized ridesharing services in California?"

> I'm an adult. I can choose my own 'risk vs cost' profile.

How does that work if you are drunk, otherwise incapacitated or raped ?

Pretty sure you are going to begging at that point for more regulation. You can't just throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Some regulations generally make the situation safer for everyone.

In 1980, I'd be able to tell how Yellow Cab vetted their drivers by the fact that their ad in the phone book had a PUC license number. I could then call the PUC and ask what requirements there are for a taxi cab. With the driver, I'd see a card prominently placed in the vehicle, which gave the driver's taxi license number, a photograph, and when the license expires. These are the bits of vetting that uber doesn't do, and turns a blind eye when people discuss how they work around uber's requirements for vetting [1]. The problem with uber is they've made it entirely too easy to game the system, because they'd much rather have drivers than safety.

[1] http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-aro...

"These regulations pre-dated the internet. "

That means absolutely nothing. People were capable of making decisions before the internet, you know.

"They existed in a time before information was easily shared and available. If I wanted to know how "Yellow Taxi Co" vetted its drivers in 1980, I would have needed to write letters and wait weeks for a response. That's not practical when I desperately need to get somewhere stat."

And even with the internet, verifying all of that, and making sure that it's accurate, up to date, and not just astroturfing isn't practical either.

> I'm an adult. I can choose my own 'risk vs cost' profile.

Most adults are terrible at assessing risk. Why are you different? What do you do to protect yourself from the cognitive biases that everyone has?

> These regulations pre-dated the internet. They existed in a time before information was easily shared and available.

That's cool, any tips on how I can easily pull driver's arrest record and history of traffic violations?

I would also like some data on his last inspections to ensure that he's doing proper maintenance to his vehicle, and I'm not going to ride a beater who needs some break fluid and whose tires skid just a little in rainy weather.

Well get back to me when you have figured this utopian vision out.

In the meantime I will trust my local members and health/safety experts in the public sector over one US company trying to make billions as quickly as possible.