Uber France Leaders Arrested For Running Illegal Taxi Company 334
An anonymous reader writes: Two Uber executives were arrested by French authorities for running an illegal taxi company and concealing illegal documents. This is not the first time Uber has run into trouble in France. Recently, taxi drivers started a nation-wide protest, blocking access to Roissy airport and the nation's interior minister issued a ban on UberPop. A statement from an Uber spokesperson to TechCrunch reads: "Our CEO for France and General Manager for Western Europe were invited to a police hearing this afternoon; following this interview, they were taken into custody. We are always available to answer all the questions on our service, and available to the authorities to solve any problem that could come up. Talks are in progress. In the meantime, we keep working in order to make sure that both our customers and drivers are safe following last week’s turmoils."
Does Uber need executives in France? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like they need to have a physical presence for their app to work there.
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And while France may have a legal basis to take those actions, I hate that they give the union protestors, who damaged and disrupted so much, what they wanted. It sends a message for others to follow suit. France is in a pickle.
Re:Does Uber need executives in France? (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. Norway or Italy have heavily unionized workforces, whereas France has the least-unionized workforce [oecd.org] (7.7%) in Europe save for Estonia (6.8%).
However, France has some of the richest, most politically influential unions, by a huge margin. [lepoint.fr] To put it simply, unions in France are like parallel political parties, with their own occult sources of funding, high-ranking members inflitrated in every institution, and legal priviledges that protect their position.
But french taxis V.S. Uber is an entirely different, though related, issue.
To make light of the sorry state of Uber in France, you only need to know a few things:
- just a few months ago, Agnès Saal was mediatically ousted from her position as head of the INA for allegedly squandering taxpayers' money on... taxi rides (40 000 euros' worth)
- then a couple weeks ago, we learned that the amount squandered was actually an order of magnitude larger than previously stated - there was simply noway to spend that much on taxis
- also notice that Jean-Jacques Augier, the previous CEO of G7 taxis, the biggest taxi company in France, was the financing director of François Hollande's presidential campaign in 2012
- G7 taxis' current CEO is a close friend of Hollande's Parti Socialiste, and was involved in François Mitterrand's own campaigns too
The intimidation campaign that is raging on against Uber in France is simply how the politicians currently in power are defending some of their illegal sources of funding. The seemingly "out of proportion" violence of this campaign is simply a reminder that, in France, you just don't ask about political parties' [wikipedia.org] or unions' [wikipedia.org] money unless you're ready to die (just like Robert Boulin, Pierre Bérégovoy and judge Pierre Michel died).
I know you're trolling (Score:4, Interesting)
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In this story, which group of people were pulling drivers out of cars and beating them, damaging those cars, holding passengers hostage in the terminals, and lighting tire fires trying to block the entrances to the airport? The parent has a point. They do disrupt commerce and trade. The unions have now taken on the role of mercenary instead of the companies. I don't blame customers for not wanting to get into those vehicles, and prefer something like Uber instead. Do you want to get into a car with you
Re:Does Uber need executives in France? (Score:5, Informative)
Unions will be needed as long as greedy executives try to exploit labor. Any more concern trolling?
Re:Does Uber need executives in France? (Score:4, Informative)
they are protecting for the laws that exist that protect them, to be enforced. It's their rights. To be a taxi driver you need a pay a massive license fee, that's how it is. You can't just tell people you're a taxi driver and start making money, there's the insurances and all that, needed. Uber has NONE of it. If anything happens in a "uber taxi", you, your family and friends, essentially eat sh*t. Because not only was your using their illegal, they also don't any have sort of insurance that can protect you.
In the USA? Not quite.
Uber is not a taxi, it's a limo service. Limos are regulated in some (all?) states, but differently than taxis. You can't hail a limo on the street (or airport lane), you have to call them (phone or app) to specifically come to you. Limos don't have "medallions" and are not a limited quantity. The requirements for special driver's license, insurance, and so on, are different than taxis.
Uber provides significant insurance to it's drivers, and it's not "illegal" (at least not in the USA). And they do pay out on claims. Other tort arguments seem unlikely. HOWEVER: When you drive for Uber, your own PERSONAL insurance policy is probably void (most carriers). In fact, if you have EVER used your vehicle for Uber, your insurance is voided -- even if your claim had nothing to do with any Uber trip. If you get hit on the way to the grocery store or injure someone on your way to your day job, your nasty surprise is that you had no valid insurance at that time. Because you once on another occasion used your vehicle for a purpose that totally voids your insurance.
When you call up an insurance company these days to report an accident, the very first words out of their mouth are: "Have you ever used your vehicle for Uber, Lyft, or anything like that?" Because if they find out (and, being insurance investigators, they WILL find out) that the answer is "Yes", then they will inform you that at that time, you voided all your insurance. You Are Fucked.
Re:Does Uber need executives in France? (Score:4, Informative)
Uber left my state although it's one of the most loosely regulated because they didn't feel they should be required to have more than minimum private liability insurance as apposed to the same commercial insurance that taxis are required to have. Medallions are not required and a commercial license for a taxi driver is about $15 more than a regular driver's license every four years.
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So, the insurance don't want to work with Uber drivers? That would be a terrible, terrible mistake, seeing the ambition of Uber's executives, in a company valued $50 billions, they could just start a business in the car insurance and get more profit.
Fifty billion dollar? So why do we always hear sob stories about little Uber fighting the evil monopoly of taxi drivers?
How many of that fifty billion dollar goes towards convincing politicians? And as with other big companies, if a fifty billion company breaks the law, then any fines must be big enough so that a fifty billion dollar company notices them and changes its way.
Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
If taxi drivers have to buy licenses and following certain regulations, shouldn't Uber do the same or are they already?
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternatively; if Uber drivers don't need to buy licenses and follow certain regulations, why should taxi drivers? It seems like Uber is working well enough under a de-regulated environment.
Then the very environment that Uber thrives on would be gone. They'd have to adapt as well.
Re: Not surprised (Score:2)
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Stupid. Read up on something called "history". We already tried what Uber is doing, only without the "over the internet" part. It didn't work out so well.
It is precisely why the taxi industry is like it is now.
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber drivers are subsidized by everybody else. Taxi drivers have to pay high insurance rates because the act of driving a long distance every day for a ton of strangers is a job that inherently leads to a much higher statistical rate of payouts. If they're driving as a taxi on regular car insurance, it's you that's paying the bill for their swindle of the insurance system.
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So that when you crash, and you have to pay damages to both the person you hit and your passenger, you can't just shrug and declare bankruptcy.
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Why should someone suddenly be *forced* to have insurance to do something?
Because you're doing something where there's a reasonable liklihood you're going to do far more damage than you can afford to compensate someone for. Unfortunately, too many people's attitude would be "ha ha I wrecked you stuff fuck you!" which is why insurance is mandatory.
Actually in the UK, insurance isn't mandatory. But you have to prove you can pay out in the event that you cause damage. And that proof comes in the form of leavin
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Is an official Taxi more expensive than Uber? Certainly. But a Taxi driver is a job that can sustain a family. Uber on the other hand strives to turn all of that segment into cheap dayjob/sidejob territory, while reaping the main benefits for itself.
That's starting to become a staple of our "new society" - everything cheaper, faster, less regulated... except it also destroys regular jobs and makes the lives of the professionals involved less secure and less predictable.
Not all regulations are bad regulation
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You know nothing.
France established the taxi licenses at the demand of taxi drivers, to help them self-organize. Then the taxi drivers pressured for quotas of licenses to stop new-comers from entering the business and establish a corporate monopoly.
The licenses were issued free of charge by the state, and were not to be transferred to someone else by the isuee. The taxi drivers are trading and reselling these licenses illegally, for large sums of money (on par with house prices). The taxi drivers are doing
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it would only be just. Taxi drivers that "choose" to forgo licensing would also be arrested. Its the law of the land, change the law if you so wish but until then...
Re:Not surprised (Score:4, Funny)
Protectionist laws like requiring a chauffeurs license? Having appropriate carrier insurance? Following the same rules that actual taxi companies have to? Holy fuck! It's like people want them to operate like a legal business or something!
Re:Not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
No... protectionlist laws, like requiring a permit and then limiting the number of outstanding permits to a small fraction of those who want to be in the business, for the sole purpose of restricting supply to be less than what the public needs.
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If you think that's the reason you really need to do some research. Until then it's pretty safe to assume you don't understand this topic in any great depth.
So having way fewer cabs on the street than needed, and never being able to hail an empty cab are just pleasant side benefits?
Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Informative)
In Quebec, it costs upwards of 200,000$ CDN to have a taxi license.
Drivers spent their entire life's saving enough to buy their own license while they lease another one's. It's their only retirement plan: lease a license they earned to buy.
No wonder they're pissed.
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Interesting)
It's their own fucking faults. They lobby to make sure this is the system that's in place to prevent competition from companies like Uber. They got the laws they paid for, it's the people who bought the first wave of licenses/medallions whatever that made bank, now everyone else has to deal with it.
An upstart breaking that system is exactly what real business needs.
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:4, Insightful)
It's their own fucking faults. They lobby to make sure this is the system that's in place to prevent competition from companies like Uber. They got the laws they paid for, it's the people who bought the first wave of licenses/medallions whatever that made bank, now everyone else has to deal with it.
An upstart breaking that system is exactly what real business needs.
Medallion owners bought the medallions with the understanding that they were buying into a limited monopoly.
I'm not opposed to changing this agreement, in fact I encourage it, but if you're going to do so you need to compensate who bought the medallions.
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
>Medallion owners bought the medallions with the understanding that they were buying into a limited monopoly.
Shit happens!
>need to compensate who bought the medallions
Nope! My shares went down in the last crash, noone compensated me!
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
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Sadly there is something worse than the protection rackets that already exist. Too bad most of these people will just yell "tinfoil hat!".
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According to TPP pushed by Obama and supported by GOP
BTW, Obama is a Democrat.
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Good, what goes around comes around and here in Canada we've been being sued by American investors for banning poisons and such.
I think the proliferation of bad laws is not something to be celebrated, but always fought against.
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Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Informative)
WTF have your shares got to do with your desire to deliberately trash the life savings of millions of taxi drivers in the western world?. They entered into a contract with the government...
Typically, taxi medallions aren't sold by the government anymore. They're typically sold by their previous holders and the high prices reflect their scarcity and perceived value. The market decides this value (even when they're auctioned off by the state), so there isn't any guarantee that they'll maintain that value. Any contracts that exist say nothing about limiting the supply or compensating medallion-holders for any speculative prices they paid. Buying a medallion for $800k is just as speculative as buying an $800k house or $800k worth of stock. There are no government guarantees that they will maintain value.
tl;dr... The economics of the taxi medallion situation are extremely similar to shares in a company. The "contracts" that you're referring to don't exist (at least in the form that you image).
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Medallion owners bought the medallions with the understanding that they were buying into a limited monopoly.
It seems that you are the victim of a common misconception: That the State is the one selling the medallions that cost so much. Wrong, ignorant fuck.
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Why?
Compensate them because their government backed monopoly in which they prevented hundreds if not thousands of others from profiting because they worked the system in such a way that guaranteed the laws of supply and demand didn't affect their business? They're lucky there isn't a lynch mob coming after them for the affront to the natural market, losing a protected monopoly is no reason to reward them.
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You mean, because these people actually work for a living? If they were ant-competitive vulture capitalists, then it would not just be okay, but the desired result.
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it should be clarified here that when you see someone claim that it's not the government charging $200,000 for a taxi medallion, that's just the going price on the secondary market. You know, good old capitalism, where people are bidding up the price of a necessarily limited commodity.
The taxi authority looks at population, traffic flow and transportation needs and comes up with a number of taxis that they think should be on the street. Every year, they add new medallions into the system, usually with a lottery. The idea is not so much to protect the cab drivers (cities don't care about cab drivers. If they did, they wouldn't make the minor traffic fines, like your cab being 10 inches over the line of a designated taxi waiting zone, as much as $500 (which practically wipes out the cab driver's week), but to keep the number of taxis from getting so crazy that you have cabs clogging up city centers, fighting for fares.
Another think medallions are used for is to ensure that someone in an underserved part of the city can get a cab. In my city, certain medallions are required for certain times to initiate or terminate a certain percentage of fares in certain parts of the city.
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Maybe it should be clarified here that when you see someone claim that it's not the government charging $200,000 for a taxi medallion, that's just the going price on the secondary market. You know, good old capitalism, where people are bidding up the price of a __un__necessarily limited commodity.
The taxi authority looks at population, traffic flow and transportation needs and comes up with a number of taxis that they think should be on the street. Every year, they add new medallions into the system, usually with a lottery. The idea is not so much to protect the cab drivers (cities don't care about cab drivers. If they did, they wouldn't make the minor traffic fines, like your cab being 10 inches over the line of a designated taxi waiting zone, as much as $500 (which practically wipes out the cab driver's week), but to keep the number of taxis from getting so crazy that you have cabs clogging up city centers, fighting for fares.
There you go, I fixed that for you.
If the regulators approach to the problem described was the correct one then why can't I get a fucking cab when I want one? There are many more solutions to the problem of oversupply that you identify, indeed one can quite happily argue that Uber actually have one.
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Depends on where you're at, and that's the whole point. If you're on Michigan Avenue at 11:30am, you could toss a pebble in the air and it will probably come down on a cab. If your grandmother on the Northwest Side wants to take a cab to the doctor, she might have to wait an hour.
The idea is how to get the right number of cabs, and because of uneven distribution of demand (and supply) it's not something that the "free
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I'm not opposed to changing this agreement, in fact I encourage it, but if you're going to do so you need to compensate who bought the medallions.
I bought shares in a company should I be compensated when the company folds? Every investment carries risk. Leaving my money in the bank in a savings account carries risk too, just a lower risk with a lower reward.
Why are people always entitled to compensation? Why are companies entitled to go bust and get bailed out? What happened to just letting things run its course?
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I bought shares in a company should I be compensated when the company folds?
Hey, sure.... your share of any value that is left over after all the higher-priority claimants were paid.
But Taxi medallions are not like shares in a company. The government doesn't have any duty to maintain or attempt to increase their value.
If the local authority sees fit to do so, they can likely issue out 50000 medallions for auction over an X month period, or whatever number they want, to generate more cash for the city,
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:4, Informative)
This assumes that all the laws regarding licensed taxis were instigated by taxi owners. That is patently not true. Many of the regulations were created in response to problems caused by unlicensed taxis. Here are some of the regulations that cost licensed taxis money.
- Minimum number of cars on the road/company.
- ratio of handicap accessible taxis.
- standards of cleanliness.
- language standards
- anti-discrimination
- driving record checks
- criminal record checks
- frequent vehicle inspections
- professional driver's licenses
While it is not perfect there is a mechanism to pull bad taxis off the read. Without being able to pull a license that mechanism is gone.
The reason there is a limit on competition is to create an environment where owners can make a living and still follow the regulations imposed on them.
An upstart breaking that system means going back to the bad days when taxis were unregulated.
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The "bad days" of unregulation were long before the digital age - we have better ways of checking these people now, including star ratings within the Uber app - if the driver doesn't have 5 stars, just reject them.
The goal shouldn't be so that taxi drivers can make a living, but rather that people can get from A to B how they want.
The fight here is about cronyism, protectionism and the scam of making taxi drivers pay $200,000
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Uber has to do these checks anyway before they are allowed to take the drivers.
Not all and they could drop them at any time.
The goal shouldn't be so that taxi drivers can make a living, but rather that people can get from A to B how they want.
Right now Uber is a new thing and many people are interested in it. Wait a few years when licensed taxis are out of business and there are no taxis on the road when you need them. Wait till there are few if any handicap accessible vehicles and few will pick up certain minorities. The problem with star ratings is that they can be misused. Give every "insert minority here" a negative rating and see what happens.
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Wait a few years when licensed taxis are out of business and there are no taxis on the road when you need them.
This isn't an inexorable death spiral brought on by price warfare. It's eminently fixable by just joining the 21st century. Cab companies, who already have the advantages of incumbemcy, capital, licensed labor force, tailored infrastructure, and favorable regulations, could pretty much close the gap just by creating a decent app and guaranteeing credit card acceptance. It's not about skirting regs to sustain cut rate pricing, it's about convenience.
Wait till there are few if any handicap accessible vehicles and few will pick up certain minorities.
Lol wut?
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So the state cleaning it up is the solution instead of establishing a brand with a good reputation?
If I have to call a taxi I'm going to call the one I'm less likely to get out of with a case of fleas.
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That is only one small aspect of the reasons for regulations. What happens when all the brands have a bad reputation?
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If they all have a bad reputation I start the good one, advertise myself as the less-fleas brand and cash in on that market.
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Pecos's comments make sense when you realize he doesn't live here on Earth with the rest of us. Pecos apparently lives in near a Jr. High physics class, where ropes and pulleys are massless and frictionless, so for him the entry and exit to capital and labor markets is costless.
I'm sorry if you find it so hard to start a business that you don't find it to be worth it, but fortunately not everyone thinks that way.
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And when market consolidation means the regulation-free monopoly DGAF about it's reputation, passengers, pedestrians, or you?
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- Minimum number of cars on the road/company.
A problem that solves itself if you permit anyone to perform as a taxi.
- ratio of handicap accessible taxis.
That actually seems useful. Could better be served by handicapped-specific public mobility services, however.
- standards of cleanliness.
That must be nice. No taxi I've ever been in has been clean. Some have been not too nasty.
- anti-discrimination
False everywhere in the world.
- driving record checks
- criminal record checks
Basically worthless
- frequent vehicle inspections
Everyone should have these based on mileage
- professional driver's licenses
A scam to produce revenues
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A problem that solves itself if you permit anyone to perform as a taxi.
Sometimes the free market fails. For example at 3AM on a Monday morning will be almost impossible to find a taxi.
That must be nice. No taxi I've ever been in has been clean.
Did you lodge a complaint?
False everywhere in the world.
Most countries have something similar to the Bill or Rights. If there is no licensing there is no way to pull a license for discrimination.
Basically worthless
So you think criminals should be able to drive people around? Sorry many don't agree.
Everyone should have these based on mileage
Most taxi inspections are based on months between inspections. It is very easy to see a sticker and ensure that the taxi has been properly inspected.
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An upstart breaking that system means going back to the bad days when taxis were unregulated.
Then that alone should already be enough incentive for people to use regulated taxis rather than Uber. If I end up with taxis refusing a fare for being too short or telling me they're going to take 30-45mins for pickup then of course I'm going to use Uber instead. The problem is taxis have a protected monopoly so there is no competition to worry about, you can say the regulations mean they can't discriminate on fares and that this will mean there are always enough taxis but the fact is that shit does happen
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On the surface these regulations sound useful, but I've still had a lot of bad experiences in taxis. Not every time I get into a cab, but it's happened a not-insignificant number of times. I've had multiple taxi drivers pretend that the meter is broken, and then try to charge me a ridiculously overpriced fare (which I refused to pay). I've been verbally abused because a driver didn't feel I was travelling far enough to be worth his while. Many drivers smell bad, and have dirty cabs. Female friends have been
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Uber has not been around very long. Wait till the drivers have become fed up with the idiots that get in their car and quit. Sure reviews help but for every isiot down reviewed there will be another idiot starting to use Uber. Wait till enough drivers get bad reviews and Uber does not have enough drivers. They will "normalize" the reviews to make everyone look better. Wait till there are no cabs around when you want one because there is little money to be made. Right now Uber is taking the gravy trips from
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I drove taxi and we had cleanliness standards. If the owner of the car got a complaint he was down my neck to clean. There have been several taxis pulled by the city for being dirty. We are a tourist town and the local business association is very sensitive to bad comments. Just because your city has low standards does not mean it happens everywhere.
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When I was in grad school, I drove a taxi. This is a pretty long time ago, but let me tell you, y'all passengers don't always smell so great, either. I remember an August day when a guy got in my cab at O'Hare just drenched in Calvin Klein cologne (which was a fad at the time and smelled like a skunk in a whorehouse). I had to drive him all the way downtown,
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That is pretty darn funny :)
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Here in Germany every single taxi I've used has been spotless. Most were relatively-new Mercedes, with some being extremely new Mercedes. No complaints yet. I've taken plenty of taxis in the US and the vast majority were terrible. One even had me read the map for him because he was lost (after I just got off a 10 hour flight). I have no idea what happens with taxis in the US, but god damn you guys are doing something wrong.
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Its the same here in Melbourne with taxi licenses and newsagent licenses. To sell newspapers you needed to front up with 200 kAUD for the license. Unfortunately the newsagent licenses are worth next to nothing now and a lot of people got burned.
Re:Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber have shown up and decided that they do not have to have vetted drivers, log books etc. 'cos they are Uber!
The Police are investigating.
The barriers for entering the NZ market are quite low but even then Uber do not think they should apply to them.
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Well, in NZ the drivers have to have both a passenger license, and a private hire license, which is more than a taxi driver needs. The main issue is that you can either be paid by the hour, agreed before-hand, or you charge using a licensed meter. Uber does neither.
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No. A mutually agreed upon price is fine too. It just has to be agreed upon before the trip. Don't be so knee-jerky.
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I would have the slightest shred of sympathy if taxi unions hadn't used their protectionist racket to provide the nastiest most unpleasant rider experience. If taxi companies were really good at providing good service and uber came in with some sort of unlicensed fly by night business, then it would be clear. But even if uber were the same price as cabs, I would choose uber every_single_time. Maybe cabbies should think on why that is, and try to make an experience that is good for the customer so they win t
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If you are right, then why can't/won't Uber compete legally with medalioned taxi companies? Why do they have to pretend that the rules don't apply to them to undercut existing taxies? I completely agree that the taxi market was slow to adapt to apps, and that created a market open for a system like Uber, but the way they have "disrupted" the market by ignoring the existing laws rather than trying to work inside them is simply disgraceful.
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If you are right, then why can't/won't Uber compete legally with medalioned taxi companies?
So we have to argue circles with you? you have been told why
The medallions are of limited supply because those taxi companies, the ones with the monopoly on them, lobby government to keep them in limited supply.
You have proven to us that the Statists dont give a fuck about the facts, that we have to argue endlessly in circles with you. Go fuck yourselves.
Re: Taxi licenses are crazy expensive (Score:2)
Damn statists expecting laws to be obeyed! The nerve!
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Damn statists expecting laws to be obeyed! The nerve!
A law needs to be justified to be respected. "The law is the law" is not an argument for that respect.
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There are other problems too. Various laws prevent Uber from performing a background check going back more than 7 years. As a regulated business, Taxi companies are required to (and able to) run better background checks going back 99 years.
As for pricing, taxi fares in San Francisco are ridiculous, like a 50%
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What was the last time you took a taxi, and in what town? Maybe I notice because I drove a cab some decades ago, but I take cabs in almost every city I travel to - and I travel a lot - and I can't remember the last time I had a rude cab driver.
Maybe the reason your experiences (if they're real experiences and not just more bullshit) with cabs are bad i
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You're absolutely right. I apologize to Noah Haders for saying that the misattributed quote proved he was an asshole. He's an asshole for other reasons.
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The price of taxi licences comes about from not what you implied, "Drivers spent their entire life's saving enough to buy their own license", a wildly false claim but the from the reality of companies buying up all the licences, limiting availability and lobbying to prevent more licences being issued, so they can pay minimum wage to new immigrants to drive those taxis whilst charging a fortune to customers. Higher insurance comes about because the poor wage slave gives not one crap about the taxi.
So wan
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There has been an effort pushed by cabdrivers in Chicago to do exactly what you describe. It has been resisted by the city's Taxi Authority, which despite what people here might think, are definitely not in bed with the drivers. In fact, the city government HATES cab drivers. They make their lives miserable in ways you can't imagine. Minor parking violations can go $800-1500. The city treats cabbies like dirt.
Uber has demonstrated contempt for the law (Score:5, Interesting)
Regardless of whether the laws as written are correct (I would argue that the very existence of a "medallion" that costs more than the filing fee is evidence of collusion between the taxi authority and the taxi's) Uber has shown direct contempt for the rule of law. Their CEO's frequently ignore court orders, not only that but they frequently do the exact opposite of what a court has ordered. In Korea the authorities were forced to start fining drivers record amounts, in Germany the authorities had to threaten to seize cars and fines in excess of $25K. None of this should be necessary as Uber should have shut down their platform in the area when the courts ruled against the legality of their service. If they didn't like the ruling they should have complied while challenging the ruling.
I've said all along the only way to get Uber to comply with the law is stop arresting drivers and start arresting executives for facilitating breaking the law. I'm happy to see the French are finally going to follow through at least partly, I doubt targeting these executives will do the trick the Uber corporate executives will simply let them burn, though the seizure of communications may give them the evidence they need to really get the law breaking to stop, that is to issue InterPOL red notices (warrants) for the CEO and heads of Uber corporate. I firmly believe that Uber acts in total disregard of the law because of their CEO and that the only way to get it to stop is directly go after that CEO. Once he's looking at a jail term I suspect Uber will suddenly become a law abiding business.
IMO Uber acts as a corrupt organization with contempt of the law and should be targeted under RICO statutes.
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So what? Have you seen who writes laws? A bunch of vote-leeching sociopaths that span the moral spectrum between used car salespeople and outright pedophiles... Let's just support the whims of every elected bunch of assholes. War, slavery, genocide, hey, gotta do it! It's the law!
Seriously, this is one of the lamest reasons for anything, ever.
Uber is illegal in France (Score:5, Informative)
Uber operates outside the bounds of the law in France. This is well documented. There are two sets of law that they do not obey. The first is one regulating car drivers that are not taxis. It is legal in France to operate a car service to drive people from A to B but you need to abide by some restrictions. The car cannot be hailed, only booked. The driver must have some qualification, etc. Uber does not abide by these laws. The second set of law protects the consumer. In particular, data must be viewable and deletable by the consumer, and they cannot be retained indefinitely. Again Uber does not follow the law.
Recently the french equivalent to state department pointed out to Uber that they needed to change some things, so what did they do? They opened service in 5 new cities with no change. This was seen as provocation, and so obviously the top executives were brought in for questioning. The french cannot state on the one hand that something is illegal and on the other let it happen. They had to act.
Now maybe the law needs to change, this is an important debate. In the meantime in a law-based country the law needs to be upheld.
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Why?
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I dont understand France or Greece
There, fixed that for you.
Greece is in it's predicament because of it's endemic corruption. Tax evasion isn't just a national past time in Greece, it's considered an inalienable right. France does not have this problem.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The problem with Greece is not over-regulation, the problem is endemic corruption. Have you ever been to Greece? It is even next to impossible to get a receipt in a restaurant.
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What part about "unregulated" did you fail to understand?
Pure capitalism can't work. If there weren't customer protection laws, corporations would get away with food that poisons you and it's your own fault for not reading the poison sign, devices that fall apart after a week so you need to buy a new one to increase profits, produced by workers in just bearable enough conditions so they don't die after a week, to maximize their workforce.
Pure capitalism is pure darwinism, something a civilized society shoul
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This has not always been the case, the industry was heavily regulated and protected until the mid 1980's, which made taxis expensive and inflexible (a taxi could not be hailed from the street for instance, passengers could only be picked up from taxi stands).
Then came deregulation, almost completely, and several times a smoking wreck would break down halfway to
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Except for the Uber drivers who assault, rape, or kidnap passengers.
http://www.people.com/article/... [people.com]
http://www.chicagotribune.com/... [chicagotribune.com]
http://abcnews.go.com/US/uber-... [go.com]
Re:Flagrantly anti-consumer (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Uber this! (Score:4, Insightful)
France can always be counted on to do things in the least logical way possible.
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Which is damn nice in todays worls where CEOs are usually intouchable. It's good to know in some countries they can still be held personally responsible if they do something illegal.
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France can always be counted on to do things in the least logical way possible.
In which alternate universe is arresting the people running an illegal business the "least logical way possible"?
Re:Uber this! (Score:5, Insightful)
France can always be counted on to do things in the least logical way possible.
In which alternate universe is arresting the people running an illegal business the "least logical way possible"?
The fact that it's illegal for a private person to accept payment for a car ride principally to protect politically-connected businesses practicing an outdated/obsolete business model is both corrupt and illogical. It's protectionist crony-capitalism. Rather than logically correcting such a corrupt system, they doubled down on it. Just because a government declares something "illegal" does not mean it is morally and/or ethically wrong, or a detriment to society and/or the economy.
Strat
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France can always be counted on to do things in the least logical way possible.
A bunch of taxi drivers start rioting in the streets, blocking traffic, and burning cars. France's response? Arrest the people they're protesting AGAINST.
Is it any wonder they keep getting invaded, or that the only decent tactician if the history of their country was from Corsica?
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It is a gesture. However there is a set of laws in France regulating cars with drivers that are not taxis. Uber does not seem to abide by this.
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They are not innocent. Vice versa, the Uber managers knew perfectly well from the start that their company is breaking the laws. It's not as if these laws and regulations are secret, you know...