Can Ride-Sharing Startup Lyft Survive the SoCal Heat?

First time accepted submitter Kyle Jacoby writes "The app-powered on-demand ride-sharing startup, Lyft, has brought its trademark pink mustaches to San Diego. After a successful venture in San Francisco about a year ago, Lyft has since expanded to offer their services to other congested cities, like Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Chicago. Despite the utility of the service, Lyft (and related services Sidecar and Uber) has recently come under fire from the city of Los Angeles, whose department of transportation issued cease-and-desist letters to the startup. It seems that the service has the taxi community in an uproar, who believe that Lyft ride-share drivers should be required to obtain the permits similar to those required of taxi drivers." Nothing like some regulatory capture for Independence Day. Amid the ongoing strike of BART workers in the Bay Area, I bet some people are using on-line organization tools for ride-sharing with a similar upshot.

Re:Wait, what?

[demonlapin]

The number of taxis in NYC is fixed, and the price of a "medallion" to operate one hangs around $1M (source [nyc.gov]). That's not an open-but-regulated business. That's a closed, protected one.

Re:Wait, what?

[Rockoon]

Yet the city that we are talking about, San Francisco, also has a rigid number of Medallions issued out and thats it. If you want to own a cab in San Francisco, you have to buy a Medallion from an existing Medallion owner. There isnt an application process where you can apply to get a license and if you look like a great person to operate a cab you will get a Medallion.. its not like that at all, nor does anyone at all pretend that thats the way it is. The City doesn't. The Medallion owners don't.

If you examine all the large cities, you will find that fixed-number-of-medallion setup is overwhelmingly the norm.

..and its not just taxi services that have this protected-from-competition arrangement, and often the laws are written quite plainly to state that the licensing board for the industry must consider the impact a new license would have on existing license holders.

For example, Connecticut just recently rescinded a law which protected moving companies [reason.com] after a long battle with an out-of-state moving company that wanted to do business inside the state but could not get a license to do so on the grounds that the additional competition would hurt the existing license holders. Note that the article I just linked to states "Unfortunately, the old standard will still apply to taxi, livery, and motorbus carriers."

So while you sit there claiming that not all cities are like NYC, well my friend entire States are exactly like New York City. What I really think is that you dont have a real grasp of the amount of government regulation there is in the country, nor do I think that you have even a casual understanding of the intent of nearly every regulation. I think that you are likely to be someone that has regularly defended greater regulation of things that are already so regulated that the current players dont have to worry about any competition, a situation that devolved into an event that got you to call for greater regulation to begin with (housing bubble? yeah, I predict that you blame the housing bubble on a lack of regulation.)

Re:Its stil bonkers.

[similar_name]

Personally, I never thought eBay would go anywhere, since it's not actually an auction; the mathematical reduction is "second lowest bid ceiling plus bid increment", given that you can give a bid ceiling, and it will automatically "bid" for you.

I work at a real auction with real auctioneers. We have proxy bids if that's what you're referring to. It works no different than if you sent a rep to bid for you. The seller sets a floor of say $1000. If you place a proxy bid of $1500 and the increment is $100 you essentially start the bidding at $1100. If someone in person at the auction bids $1200 you automatically bid back $1300. The person at the auction can bid back. In theory the person at the auction should be following a similar formula. They should already know what they're willing to spend.

I do see people in person bid others up just because they are new or because they don't like them for some reason. You may have no interest in buying something but can still make the other person pay more than they otherwise would have. After all if you can make someone else spend more money they won't have it when it's time to bid on what you want.

Re:Wait, what?

[blackest_k]

Well lets see what is wrong with that.
first there is insurance. Ordinary car insurance is for social domestic and pleasure and driving to and from work.
Carrying passengers for hire or reward is specifically excluded. Taxi insurance is around 10x more expensive.

For a car to be a taxi it has to meet a more exacting standard in addition to the usual road tax and Mot there is also a Taxi inspection which is like the Mot test but to a higher standard. Taxi's also have to carry a certified fire extinguisher to meet the regulations as well for example.

Medical this is more recent but just having a driving license isn't enough, you also now need a medical report and again that is to a higher standard. One reason why I don't drive a taxi any more.

Then there is also the criminal record and background checks which covers everything even 'spent' convictions
and anything the police have recorded about you ever.

And yes you do need a license to look after children, as a taxi/ private hire driver to work on council contracts I had to be badged for that to gain approval to carry children & vulnerable adults. That includes personal interviews and a European Criminal Record check. Thats the same vetting procedure as a nurse or childcare worker or school teacher has to go through.

That second badge can get suspended very easily if there is any complaint made. On some jobs there has to be an escort with the child. Once one child accused the escort of hitting him as he got into my taxi. Completely false charge as I would have seen it happen and kind of creepy too as you don't know why someone was suspended until the police interview you. you tend to think the worst, that the escort may have molested the child, and how would you know when your driving exactly what is going on behind you. Even though the escort was innocent they were suspended for 6 weeks with no pay since they are paid by the job.

Of course once that kind of incident happens you get to realise how vulnerable you are if you are carrying kids without an escort. Then there are passengers normally drunk who can attack you and thats no fun believe me.

So yes there is a bunch of regulation and licensing that has to be gone through. It's not there just to keep taxi drivers in jobs and there are times when you will spend a lot of time waiting for a job and you don't get paid if your empty.

However perhaps the most important aspect of the regulation is insurance because if you are in a car wreck in an unlicensed taxi, there may not be any insurance at all and while you may lose your career a limb without the insurance you might find there is no compensation no help with medical bills and your life is ruined.

Does this help answer your question?

   

Re:Its stil bonkers.

[Weezul]

There are sellers on ebay who create sock puppets to bid up the second highest bid. If they hit your bid ceiling they retract their previous bid, so you still win the auction, but near the highest price you considered. Always abandon the auction by retracting all your own bids if you observe suspicious bidding or retractions.