Toronto Taxi Drivers Protest Uber

[WskyDK]

They are only responsible for damages that their app causes. The drivers are independent third party contractors. Thus, the independent contractors are liable for damages they cause.

This is most drivers cultivate a list of riders, especially business people. $20 and I'll drive someone anywhere in the valley.

[Slaskra]

exact same job

Its not the individual jobs that require regulation per se, its the businesses, which are quite distinctly not the same.

[Deleted]

Yeah, the legislative and regulations are playing catch up to the new situation and are yet to even the play field. It's just important to remember that it's not just taxi drivers and their services that are to blame for this, government plays its role.

This isn't a new distinction, at least in the UK.

You have licensed taxis that can pick people up from the street on an ad hoc basis and minicabs who can't.

The minicab firms have to get bookings in advance, even if that just means you phoning in and asking for one.

Uber is a logical Internet extension of this, with the addition that Google route their vehicles so the drivers don't have to know the area so well, which is a massive part of being a London Taxi driver at least ("the Knowledge"). So there is an element of de-skilling as well.

Whether Google routing is more fallible than a knowledgeable Taxi driver is open to debate although you certainly won't get taken for a ride like you do from time to time with a Taxi...

[zEmini]

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/t...iver-1.3357316

Link is to a video of a taxi driver attempting to attack an Uber driver and getting dragged down the street. Taxi drivers in Toronto have been on strike and are protesting the Uber taxi service. Surveys have suggested that the Uber competition forces taxi companies to lower their prices, which many see as horribly inflated. Are the taxi drivers right to protest and demand the government ban Uber outright despite Canada being a free market country? If the taxi companies don't want to compete with alternate services and hold a monopoly that rips off consumers, they deserve to go under because of Uber.

Same shit happened in Portland. If you think that is bad, you should see the shit that went down in Paris. I will never ride a taxi ever again because they are just big assholes. As somoene who rode them a lot back in the day I have some stories to tell.

Fuck taxi's and fuck their unions.

[Masark]

The entire reason why Uber is 'competitive' is because it manages to escape all the licensing fees and regulations put on registered Taxi services. Said regulations and licenses exist for a reason - all it's going to take is 'I was raped by an uber driver' or some sort of civil lawsuit and Uber will be subject to the same regulations, and lose their advantage.

The problem is that the "fees" have turned the market into a racket with no real competition and attendant high prices.

A million-fucking-dollars for a taxi license is not reasonable.

[zEmini]

Yah fee's are just another way for the government to collect money and get into your pocket. That is what they are the master off. Then they spend it on pet projects or bonuses for their own people. So perhaps they should lighten up on the regs for taxi's as well.

For Uber, if something happens the driver should be liable. But I have never seen a mean uber driver...I have seen many bad and horrible taxi drivers before so maybe that is why they had to be regulated

[Calaba]

This isn't a new distinction, at least in the UK.

You have licensed taxis that can pick people up from the street on an ad hoc basis and minicabs who can't.

The minicab firms have to get bookings in advance, even if that just means you phoning in and asking for one.

Uber is a logical Internet extension of this, with the addition that Google route their vehicles so the drivers don't have to know the area so well, which is a massive part of being a London Taxi driver at least ("the Knowledge"). So there is an element of de-skilling as well.

Whether Google routing is more fallible than a knowledgeable Taxi driver is open to debate although you certainly won't get taken for a ride like you do from time to time with a Taxi...

Yup. It's not really just apps, though - the trick is that the legislation / regulations were all written in an age long before mobile phones in general. Back in those days, you had to make a booking for minicabs either in their office, or from ye olde phone box / landline phone. Black cabs meanwhile could pick up anyone, even without a booking being made, and so were much more strongly regulated.

Nowadays, you can make a phone call wherever you are, and so instead of making a booking 15 minutes "in advance", you're making the booking more like 15 seconds "in advance". This clearly means increased competition for the black cabs for their street pickups.

As more and more people have mobile phones, the laws separating minicab firms and black cabs make less and less sense, and the black cabs get shafted.
And therein lies the problem, and the cause of all these protests. Governments have had several years to sort this out, but so far show no signs of getting much done about it.

Uber's big trick is that they don't have anyone taking bookings over the phone. It saves a suprising amount of cash to have the passenger typing the booking into their computer system instead of hiring a person to do that. (that's why every taxi company seems to have its own app now)

Of course, the next logical step will be to replace the drivers with computers.... now THAT will save some money and cause some protests...