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Riptor posted:Jackson Taus brought up the issue that, at least here in Boston, is the crux of the issue to me. Regulations that protect the safety of consumers and other people on the road (drivers need to be licensed, cars need to be inspected, etc etc) are 100% fine with me. The medallion system is a complete joke that drives up the prices of cabs in the area I've heard people argue that the medallion system is in place to keep the roads from becoming clogged with taxis.
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Jul 22, 2014 21:32
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Riptor posted:That's fine, cap the number of medallions at whatever number you want. But just issue them by lottery, and don't allow people to sell them That doesn't make a ton of sense, it makes having a company of taxi drivers impossible (unless companies get a higher chance to win). If you want to encourage more independent cabbies and small cab companies, a better idea might be to create two classes of medals, one for small business and independent cabbies, and one for large cab companies.
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Jul 22, 2014 21:42
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Riptor posted:Either way, the point is to remove the value of the medallion itself from the equation I wouldn't go that far, but I do think that medal costs need to be brought lower for fledgling companies and such. Uber wouldn't count as such a thing though, they have a lot more money than most large cab services.
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Jul 22, 2014 21:49
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Adar posted:Isn't the Uber model explicitly lowering the amount of time a cab cruises around aimlessly? I would imagine so, but I don't think the problem with Uber is medallions (I think those are only required for cabs that look around for customers). The problem with uber is that they claim UberX is a ride sharing system where they just allow like minded people to carpool for a small percentage of the fare. They claim the UberX drivers do not actually work for UberX, and therefore UberX is not a cab company or driver service, and should not be regulated like one (or at all). Until recently, they had a very generous insurance policy that only kicked in if the UberX driver's insurance didn't kick in first, and only if the driver had a fare in his cab. Going to pick up a fare was a huge hole in their insurance. It was also almost assuredly malicious and poorly thought out, which is why regulations exist in the first place. Their driver's insurance first, corporate second policy creates a class of cab drivers who think they are paid well, but are actually absorbing all the risk and wear and tear to their vehicles. If you get in a wreck and your insurance doesn't cover it (and most personal auto insurance wont), then you have a choice between lying about driving for uber and getting fined for driving without insurance, or losing your job. This is still a problem even with the hole "closed" with the 50k limit insurance. The aforementioned hole was doubly evil because it was there so that uber could run a cab service without paying for a good half of the eventual property damage associate with one.
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Jul 22, 2014 22:16
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Kalman posted:Yes. So let's ban taxis and only allow dispatched car services, best possible solution! except for peeps without cells
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Jul 22, 2014 22:22
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Xandu posted:The use of independent contractors is questionable (though I think it has more to do with salary and liability than anything else), but I don't think you're right about uberx. Certainly uber uses the language of sharing to describe everything it does, but uberx is just uber with smaller non-black cars. No, uber is a legit car service, and I think it follows the regulations associated with such an industry, but UberX is just random peeps off the street that sign up with the service, go through a recently added minimal background check, and use their own vehicles as taxis.
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Jul 22, 2014 22:55
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quote:Ok, totally misunderstood what you meant. Yeah the drivers are pretty lovely. I'm less concerned about the background check (plenty of sketchy cab drivers too), but at least in DC, I find the UberX drivers to be completely incompetent at not driving in the wrong direction. Well, it's not just sketchy drivers, the background check is minimal enough that UberX drivers are frequently caught without proof of insurance. Even the background check I had to pass to deliver pizzas for dominos and pizzahut was more stringent than that. And even that flimsy nothing of a background check was only offered up after a woman got creeped on by an UberX driver who recorded her in the park and then started calling her house. Condiv fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 23:02
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Radbot posted:Then you request a fare review from within the app, and your card is credited if they took a suboptimal route. Doesn't help with your lost time, but it's miles better than riding with a scamming cabbie. I thought UberX fares were preset based on distance and the uber app route. An uber cabbie shouldn't be able to adjust the rate since he's not even paid directly by the fare.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:10
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Kalman posted:Exactly how many people out there don't have a cellphone at this point? People fresh off an airport from another country is one example.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:18
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Why is the thread even talking about medallions? The only thing I can find about UberX and medallions is this, where even the medallion owning companies that are against uber say that UberX should be regulated as a car service, not like a yellow cab. Car services (AFAIK) do not require medallions at all.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:31
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Riptor posted:Price of cab rides vs price of uber rides as I mentioned in my original post Unless I'm reading this article incorrectly, fares are controlled and regulated by the Taxi and Limousine Commission in new york, so I'm not really sure where the price of medallions factors into taxi price. Condiv fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 23:47
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Thundercracker posted:I'd be more than happy to keep the medallion system if there was also a brutal culling system where the bottom 20% rating of cabs lose their medallion every year. Also a bad idea. Such a culling system would add an extremely perverse incentive to sabotage other companies/drivers so you don't end up in that bottom 20%
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Jul 23, 2014 00:01
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Riptor posted:Might come as a shock, I know, but there are cities other than New York Do any of those cities also have a medallion system without regulating fares, while also having Uber and UberX service? Cause skimming through this says no so far. quote:In New York, the per mile charge is a flat $2. In Montreal, the per-mile charge is only $1.60. In DC, it’s a mere $1.50. Of course the local cab industry would blame medallions, do you trust internet providers when they say net neutrality would make internet service more costly? Condiv fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 00:15
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asdf32 posted:Because a ridiculously high medallion price means ridiculously high profits which means the prices are too high. How does this follow when the taxi companies in medallion areas have their rates set by government regulation?
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Jul 23, 2014 09:37
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Then prices are high because taxi companies are colluding with local government, not because medallions. Yes, medallions sell for a poo poo ton of cash in a lot of cities, but they are also investments that can be resold and transferred, and they seem to stay in the buyer's hands indefinitely till the buyer decides to sell.
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Jul 23, 2014 10:54
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Which, again is just bullshit policy based on rent seeking behavior by taxi companies. The logic behind the medallions makes sense in congested cities, but they need to be reauctioned on a regular basis so the local government can capture that surplus instead of some private company because they staked out a claim first. I don't disagree with that, and I even think there should be a second class of medallions for smaller cab groups and independent cabbies.
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Jul 23, 2014 11:43
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Kalman posted:Poor black people don't have smartphones or credit cards, guys. They also don't have fridges! C'mon dude, someone already posted evidence of structural racism at work with uber. All an uber driver has to do is not take any fares that have black sounding names. Plus, if they're really racist they can drive by the pickup location, and if they see a black person, cancel the pickup.
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Jul 23, 2014 19:36
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axeil posted:Would you be able to give some more details on how Uber is lovely to it's drivers? All the drivers I've met in cars have said they like the service, but considering they're on the clock I'm not surprised they're non-critical. What could they change to be better to their drivers? It's in a way most drivers wont notice. Basically, UberX's liability insurance policies only kick in if the driver's liability insurance fails to cover an accident (which it almost assuredly will if they find out you're driving as an unofficial cab). This leads drivers with a few options in the case of a wreck, report the wreck to their insurance and lie about driving for uber at the moment (only really possible if you don't have a fare just yet), let uber's insurance kick in and pay out and lose your job and your license, or run for it. Also, god save you if you injure yourself working for uber. There's no chance in hell you'll see workman's comp.
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Jul 23, 2014 19:41
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Riptor posted:This should not be the case. A business should be an investment, not the licensing for said business Umm no, there's plenty of licensing and certification that's an investment. For example, your bachelors degree is definitely an investment. So is a drivers license (you invest time and effort to learn to drive, and the reward is greater opportunities all around).
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Jul 23, 2014 19:45
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Riptor posted:how is this any worse than cabs Did I say it was? People have been popping up here pretending uber is a magic fix for racist cabbies/car services, and it's not.
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Jul 23, 2014 19:45
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asdf32 posted:Three anonymous internet posts? The three anonymous internet posts show that racist uber drivers use the same techniques as racist car services/cabbies. Would you like to post some evidence that the population of cabbies are more virulently racist than the general population, or some way that uber makes the problem of the racist driver less of a problem?
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Jul 23, 2014 19:52
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Thundercracker posted:Except all my black friends say Uber is way better than actually trying to hail a cab. I feel like like there's a "Don't trust your lying eyes" effect here where all the white posters are trying to force an equivalence, and discounting actual black people's experience. My black friends and I take the metro/buses. Never really discuss taxis. Of course, I live in paris so...
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Jul 23, 2014 19:54
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Thundercracker posted:My random theory is that its probably not so much there's less overall racist, but that the service itself makes it possible to match up non-racist drivers with minority client far more easily. Yes that's a good point. Uber's hiring policies mean there's a lot more people available than a normal car service, and the dispatcher is a non-discriminatory algorithm, so that means that while each driver is as likely to be racist to you between uber and regular car services, uber has a larger pool of drivers, and therefore you have more chances to get a non-racist driver That's in theory though, and there are recently published stories about minorities getting treated badly by uber drivers like the stuff Trabisnikof posted. quote:Then why are you arguing a point in an issue you have no experience with? I don't go into the French thread and argue that you should embrace our healthcare system do I? 1. I'm not french, I'm an expat 2. I don't need to have ridden UberX to argue that them ignoring regulations is a really bad thing. 3. Uber has a branch here. Condiv fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 20:25
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Thundercracker posted:I've made my stance fairly clear. I believe that having a taxi service that actually services minorities and has a degree of accountability that makes the experience not a poo poo show, due to cab's monopolies is more important than any fairness in regulatory capturing. Uber doesn't have to ignore regulations to treat minorities fairly. Uber would not disappear because of regulation, it'd just have to do normal carservice company stuff like actually cover risk.
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Jul 23, 2014 20:34
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asdf32 posted:Stop being dumb by making weak appeals to "the law" and stick to talking about the things über is doing that you don't think they should be doing. like breaking the law?
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Jul 23, 2014 20:52
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Uber issues drivers phones with the uber app on it. They're required for Uber drivers to work, and now uber is charging the drivers $40 a month for these phones. Basically, if you are an uber driver but you don't work enough each month, you might end up paying for the privilege of working for uber.
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Jul 24, 2014 09:54
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Oh, and UberX now has their drivers covered primarily by Uber's insurance, not the driver's personal insurance. Some drivers are concerned about the insurance certificates they've been given though: http://www.scribd.com/doc/234793785/Certificate-of-Liability-Insurance-7-22-14 Mainly that said certificate doesn't have the driver's name, or any identifying info about the driver at all.
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Jul 24, 2014 10:00
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Radbot posted:You asserted that background checks weren't performed on Uber drivers, and that they don't even check that they have driver licenses. Here's a primary source for you: me! They checked me for both, in fact, I can pull my LexisNexis profile and see that they did check it. I think his issue is that the check is extremely easy to avoid with UberX. Since you drove for uber, could you C/D this quote? quote:[Uber's] background check is done through a third party called Hirease. It consists of filling out your name, address, DL & SSN online. That's it. Every taxi company I worked for required drug screening and livescan fingerprinting at the local police department before being issued a taxi driver permit. http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-around-background-checks-1596982249
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Jul 24, 2014 17:49
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Citizen Tayne posted:Next time you go to pump gas, have a look at the certification deal on the pump that was placed there by the authority in charge of verifying weights and measures. Ask yourself why that's there, and why a Taximeter also has one. GPS is the most accurate measuring tool in existence, and Uber would never dare manipulate the quoted distance. They're a very trustworthy company.
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Jul 24, 2014 17:55
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Adar posted:If my phone could teleport gas into my tank at an agreed upon price ahead of time you'd better believe the common gas attendant would also be in trouble. I was under the impression uber didn't actually finalize the fare till you arrived, that it could only give a fare estimate in advance. And I guess you're fine with the code for measuring distance traveled isn't verified as accurate or anything. It's not like uber could do anything sneaky like increase quoted distance by 1.01 across all rides, or increase it by 1.1 on 10% of rides.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:08
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esquilax posted:I imagine that Uber has an algorithm that takes adjusts for GPS inaccuracies, because they send a map with every receipt and mine have always been 100% accurate. Have you considered that the map can be accurate and the distance traveled could be.... wrong?
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Jul 24, 2014 18:18
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esquilax posted:Not really. The fare is calculated by Uber and the driver gets the money, so the incentives aren't aligned to cheat in the same way as a traditional taxi. Does uber not receive a percentage of the fare, which is why they were intentionally triggering surge pricing? edit: according to this article uber takes 20% of the fare, so they definitely have an incentive to cheat. Adar posted:Okay, so now we're against Uber and for taximeters because once Uber pushes out the current taxi monopoly that sets exorbitant rates per mile Uber could lie and push fares up to a slightly higher fraction of what the taxi company charges. This is indeed a horrifying specter when you consider that taximeters are infallible and impossible to beat by taking some tourists around in a circle, which is a thing that never happens because taxi drivers face stringent background checks that make it impossible for them to do that They don't have to push out the current taxis, they can do it right now and scam people out of varying amounts of money with little risk. Few people are going to be anal enough to do what you actually need to do to verify the distance traveled, and an extra .1 mile per passenger is a lot of profit to scam. Condiv fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 18:29
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Adar posted:Okay, once Uber is Taxi Google we can worry about that and maybe implement some actually useful regulations like software audits to make sure that doesn't happen. In the meantime can we please pretend that we are arguing about reality and not about the world where Uber is cartoonishly evil while the common taxi company has your best interests at heart? Doesn't require cartoonishly evil, it requires wanting to make a buck at the expense of others. Which uber has proven itself more than willing to do. By the way, I'm not going to pretend that taxi companies have your best interests at heart, but that's why they're regulated.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:38
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evilweasel posted:The thing about cheating systemically is that you are very likely to get caught. Few people are going to be anal enough to chart the exact length of their trip, but when you have tons of customers you're going to get some of those people. And the thing about cheating with computers is that you can make cheating much harder to detect than with humans. Like tell the app to never cheat if you have a new customer, or a customer that has made complaints in the past, etc. You can also make the computer cheat semi-randomly as well. You can do a lot to mix things up.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:45
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Adar posted:You certainly could. Of course this would be insta-caught by a halfway competent software audit at any of a dozen steps along the way so maybe that's a good idea for a city or state government to propose regulations around. Another thing you could do is regulate taxi medallions in a way that makes them not go for a million dollars apiece, but that seems to have eluded us so far. Of course a software audit would catch it. That's why Uber's iPhones need to be inspected and audited. Should GPS-based taximeters like the Uber app be legal from a regulation point of view in the future, I'd imagine an inspector would make sure the gps is functioning properly and within an appropriate margin-of-error, and that the device is running audited and approved software. Right now you get none of that (as shown by the picture above).
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Jul 24, 2014 18:57
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evilweasel posted:I said a food truck, not a grocery store. At a food truck I am buying "a sausage" of an approximate length. And how do you tell innacurate from deliberately biased. Like, how do you prove with your smartphone that the 2.2 miles uber claims you traveled is inaccurate? The gps in all of these phones isn't terribly accurate, cause it was never meant for precision measurement.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:05
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Adar posted:Guys, Uber could easily cheat you into paying $14 for a $12 ride *hops into Las Vegas cab, which takes the tunnel instead of the freeway* "Guys, the butcher put his thumb on the scale and charged me for an extra fifth of a pound!!" - some loser that no one cared about. Oh wait, lots of people care about that poo poo that why gas pumps, butchers scales, and lots of other measuring devices used in commerce get loving inspected and verified for accuracy. Also, where I live UberX fares are slightly higher than a cab, sooo....
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Jul 24, 2014 19:17
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Dude who cares? You are a weird goon, so you do. Taxi companies care. Consumers DO NOT. Until a cab can get my friends and I to the bar faster and at a lower price than UberX, no one will give a poo poo about any of these discussions. Really don't get this either, the prices uber quotes me on its website are either above or in the same range as the local taxis for UberX. Not just for my current location but for new york too.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:28
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Slobjob Zizek posted:UberX is much cheaper in LA. So I assume you'd start caring in new york about uber tacking on extra mileage. Especially when you're coming home from a bar drunk and might not be in the best state of mind to catch things like that.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:44
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Paul MaudDib posted:I don't know why "surge pricing" is problematic, honestly. It's a pretty standard practice in lots of industries to charge extra for scarce resources at peak usage times. If you use electricity around 5:30 PM you'll pay more, if you charge your car overnight you'll pay less in lots of places. Because the conditions that trigger surge pricing are known to uber and uber alone? They were caught gouging customers by artificially triggering surge pricing.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:36
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