Uber recommends Prius?

Depends on what you mean by 'shake up'.

Uber operate in the city near me but they have to comply with the same regulations, insurance and compliance requirements as a traditional taxi due to the tight local laws. As such an Uber car is just another taxi firm that can be called by the app. London has different requirements and Uber cars can operate between the regulations and the same appears to be the case in Paris.

I can see why the taxi drivers are up in arms. If I didn't have to pay £thousands on insurance, regulation, 6 monthly safety tests, Police Checks etc, then I could offer the same prices as Uber. I wonder if people would welcome it if Uber went into the medical profession and you had unregulated Doctors or Lawyers? Or allow China to sell their death trap cars in the US - you know, the ones that don't comply to safety or emission regulations. They're much cheaper than Western cars so why not?

So yeah, bring on a shake up and pay the price OR have a level playing field and all compete. Or maybe, just maybe the regulations in place are there for a reason

 

the regulations are needed for public safety, and uber is being forced into line in many places. but i believe the real issue for cabbies is their cost, and the flood of cheap competition. around here, we had an antiquated 'medallion' system to limit the number of cabbies. we also have that in the medical profession. unfortunately, we're drowning in a sea of lawyers.

 

You've never tried to open up a lemon-aid stand, have you?
My beloved government is yoking 6-year-olds for selling Kool-Aid in tree-lined neighborhoods.
Selling meat and dairy products in an unlicensed, uninspected, stand that doesn't meet OSHA standards and is lacking the 2,543 paper certification and registration forms----including the MSDS forms for weiners is something that even Donald Trump can't make money at.

 

We had a very similar thing to Uber over here about 40+ years ago. Then you had taxi's - they waited at ranks or you hailed one if one was passing. Then someone had the idea to offer a similar service to taxis, but on a private hire basis. You could only order the car via telephone or by physically walking into their office. You couldn't hail one and they couldn't wait on a rank. Initially the regs didn't apply to them and there was all sorts of issues with unsafe cars etc etc etc. They were looked on as a poorer cousin.

Then regulations caught up and they had to comply with the same rules and regs as taxis (other than in London strangely). Uber is just a modern version of the private hire in the UK, and they have to comply with existing private hire regs. There isn't a problem with Uber in the UK other than in London where their regulations are just way behind the times.

Uber isn't the problem as such, it's that the local rules and regulations need to catch up with the 20th century, let alone the 21st. Oh and then they need to Police the regs.

Taxicabs of the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Private Hire cars look like a taxi, have very similar livery but can't have a taxi roof sign - or any roof sign in many areas.

 

good point. we have a lot of private hire (or 'livery') service as well. one thing that needs to be addressed, is, who's paying for the policing. it should be the service's, passed onto the riders, not general tax funds.

 

My annual fees (and all my colleagues) covered the wages/running costs of the local council taxi department. Unfortunately that can also give them an incentive to increase fees - more wages for them and not a lot you can do.

But they would so spot checks to make sure we were all behaving, and insurances were regularly checked etc.

 

exactly. and what fees do the private hires pay? or uber or lift?

 

I feel this is the main issue. Over and over I hear misinformed people mention Uber not having insurance, or not having proper insurance. The truth is they do have insurance and have and have for as long as I can remember. The whole point of regulating taxis is to ensure the people using them are safe and not taken advantage of. When taxis were invented didn't have the technology we have today. We no longer need the old way of regulating them. Instead of taking away a medallion, you can simply deactivate a driver with the press of a button. Because passengers request through the app, you don't have many fake cars. Times change, and just like telegraphs are now emails, taxis are on the way out.

Blaming it on Uber isn't right. Taxi drivers did it to themselves, at least in some places. Not picking people up, not taking credit cards or charging outrageous fees for doing so, demanding a higher fare for rides, talking (or screaming) on the phone during rides, being rude to passengers, taking longer routes, and more.

Look at Paris. Who in their right mind would ever take a taxi again after not being able to find one at the airport and/or seeing the barbaric acts the taxi drivers are performing on the streets of Paris. And those taxi drivers burning and rolling over cars in the street are the kind of people that should be driving the public around?

 

It's not that taxi drivers brought it on themselves. They're stuck by the regulatory bodies and then vested interests. I do still have concerns about opening the market and getting rid of the medallion (US)/ plate (UK) system. In areas in the UK where they completely deregulated the number of taxis available in town there were all sorts of problems with drivers cutting costs because they couldn't make it pay. That's one of the main reasons I got out of the industry. Too many new comers cutting costs beyond where money can be made - a race to the bottom. Councils restrict what we could charge so that element of control is gone. You just had more and more and more taxis/private hire vehicle queuing up waiting to pounce on a fare. It resulted in insurance violations, bald tyres, badly maintained cars as you may only get a handful of jobs a day and make a loss.

It's all very well being able to have your pick of a taxi on a rainy Saturday evening, but having seen the issues of unlimited numbers of taxis in a town, I think you'll regret it. And it isn't the same as having unrestricted numbers of fast food outlets or lawyers etc, as they have control over what they charge. You want deregulation, then you give the fare calculation over to the drivers in full. If incase I'm not being clear, it's like regulators insisting McDonalds can charge no more than 25c a burger, but they're welcome to charge less. If they were the ONLY burger joint in town they'd make money, but otherwise there's no way they could. That's the problem of unrestricted taxi numbers.

You want to drive around in a brand new Prius, you pay more. You want to drive around in a clapped out Ford, you pay less. At the moment both cars cost you the same.

 

You'd be better off Delivering Pizzas....at least you wouldn't starve.

 

I've built up plenty of reserves already - that's another problem with taxi work

 

Uber sucks, they take too much commission from every ride the driver makes. Uber takes $1 and another 25% of total fare for every ride. And they dont pay for anything like gas, maintenance, wear and tear. They're just the app.

And they're really cheap now, they cost .75 cents per mile. So how would you make profit with that?


-former Uber driver

 

That's the taxi game for you. I've mentioned previously that my daily costs were £50/$78 a day before fuel. This included the payments to receive fares from a company.

It's very hard to make money out of taxi work as everyone has their cut. I know that happens in all businesses but such is life.

 

it raises a good question. the only thought i have is, that's why most cabbies are immigrants, and most uber drivers do it as a sideline, not primary income.

 

Uber's rating sytem. Here in Los Angeles, Uber passengers often voice their hatred towards taxi drivers. If you take a taxi driver, put them on Uber with this bad attitude, rude habits and heavy accent, they won't last long.

 

true, it's drawn in newcomers. and there doesn't seem to be a shortage of drivers so far.

 

Yeah, they really suck! Look at this BS ride from Saturday. Keep in mind the cost of fuel, insurance and depreciation of the 2001 Prius with 371XXX miles on it that that ride was given in.

 

what the heck is a surge? (not sure i want to know)

 

When demand is high, Uber jacks up the price. They call it surge pricing.

 

my kids (thirty somethings) will grab a taxi to go a few blocks, but any planned trips are usually uber or a driver. it's just part of the culture, anything that can be done on the smart device, is.