Uber, Lyft and Sharing Economy Regulations

[Lord MJ]

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco ... aviar.html

The lawyer suing Uber and Lyft, seeking to force the on-demand app companies to classify their drivers as full-time employees, has filed similar complaints against Shyp, Washio and Postmates this week in San Francisco.
Cover story:Uber and Lyft's labor model is under threat
Video:Meet the woman who keeps Uber's lawyers up at night
More:Instacart converts some independent contractors to employees
Poll:Should Uber drivers be independent contractors or employees?

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Boston lawyer with suits pending against Uber and Lyft in the Northern District Court of California, had also filed an earlier complaint against food-delivery startup Caviar.
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San Francisco is ground zero for these labor cases against on-demand companies because many are headquartered in the city and there have been favorable rulings against companies classifying some of their workforce as independent contractors. The California Labor Commissioner has ruled that an ex-Uber driver in San Francisco, Barbara Ann Berwick, was an employee of the ride-hailing app company and not an independent contractor as Uber claims. Uber will appeal the decision in district court.
Last month, Fedex said it will pay $227 million to settle litigation after a federal appeals court in Oakland ruled last year that the delivery company short-changed 2,300 drivers in California on pay and benefits by improperly classifying them as independent contractors.
The court ruled the workers weren't independent contractors because Fedex controlled the manner in which the drivers did their jobs, including scheduling, appearance and equipment requirements. At Uber, drivers must pay for their fuel and the maintenance of their own vehicles, and the company handles monetary transactions. Uber also doesn't pay employment taxes and healthcare benefits for the drivers.

Liss-Riordan's clients that have worked at Shyp, Washio, Postmates and Caviar claim that these companies exercise the same control over their workers, particularly those involved in delivery, as in the Fedex and Uber cases.
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"I continue to be amazed to see how many new companies recently have gotten the idea that it’s OK to classify their workforce as independent contractors when they are treating them as employees. For many of these companies, it’s not even a close question that the workers are employees under the law," Liss-Riordan said from her office in Boston. "The companies are setting rules and guidelines, and threatening termination when the workers don’t follow those rules.
"Of course, they have to do that – in order to provide the branded-quality service they are trying to sell to the public. It’s an inherent tension: they want to control their workers so they can provide a level of service that will grow their business, but they want to avoid labor costs, and shift the expenses of running a business to their workers," she said. "They can’t do both."
Two separate cases against Uber and its rival Lyft, brought by Liss-Riordan, will be heard by jury trials in August in San Francisco.

Liss-Riordan sought a class-action demand with the American Arbitration Association on June 29 on behalf of San Francisco couriers Yuchih Tang and Austin Wood, who have worked for Shyp since December.
The Shyp filing can be viewed here.
Shyp co-founder and CEO Kevin Gibbon said in a company blog today that the delivery company's couriers, who were independent contractors, will become employees. He said the shift wasn't made in response to the lawsuits against on-demand app companies. The couriers will now be covered by workers' compensation, their vehicle expenses will be paid for, and they will be covered by unemployment insurance, Social Security and Medicare. They will receive healthcare benefits depending on hours worked, Gibbon said.
This follows a move by grocery deliverer Instacart to convert some of its shoppers to part-time employees. Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta said the decision wasn't motivated by looming regulatory challenges. He said treating workers as part-time employees would allow Instacart to offer better customer service.
"’I'm pleased to see that some companies are taking a step back and reversing this trend, and deciding to classify their workers properly as employees," Liss-Riordan said. "I hope more companies come to this conclusion and make these kinds of lawsuits unnecessary."
In the Washio complaint, Liss-Riordan is suing on behalf of former San Francisco driver Barry Taranto, and is seeking class-action status for all Washio drivers.
The Washio complaint, filed in Superior Court, can be viewed here.
Executives for the on-demand laundry service weren't immediately available to comment. Washio is based in Los Angeles
Postmates is being sued in the U.S. District Court of California and Liss-Riordan is seeking arbitration for customer service representatives in Salem, Oregon, and New Market, Virginia.
The Postmates complaint can be viewed here. The arbitration request is here.
Postmates wasn't immediately available to comment.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/browa ... story.html

The popular ride-hailing service Uber announced Monday that it will withdraw completely from Broward County at month's end.

The disruptive California startup that has raised government hackles across the globe previously retreated from picking up passengers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades in Broward, hoping the gesture would persuade county commissioners to back off.

That didn't work.

Uber, whose smartphone app allows passengers to tap for a ride and pay via phone, still will operate in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, where new regulations are in the works. And passengers can be dropped off in Broward County, the company advised customers in an email.

Would you miss Uber?
Would you miss Uber?
But Broward's new law is too "onerous,'' the company said Monday.

The rules Uber says are oppressive require each driver to obtain a county chauffeur registration, a car permit and county-run background check, plus carry state-required commercial insurance. The company has met with similar requirements all over the country.

In a written statement to the media, Uber said, "Broward County officials implemented one of the most onerous regulatory frameworks for ridesharing in the nation. We have no choice but to suspend operations on July 31. We hope the Board of County Commissioners will revisit the issue when they return from break and work with us to bring Uber back to Broward."

The company has been valued at up to $50 billion.

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Broward Mayor Tim Ryan said he thought the county and Uber were working toward compromise, and he found the news "surprising and disappointing.''

"To me it's clear that Uber provides a very good service that people want,'' said Ryan, who is asked about Uber everywhere he goes. "The regulations Broward County imposed are very reasonable. The county only asked that Uber have safe drivers, safe vehicles and insurance.''

Uber's scheduled retreat from Broward caps nearly a year of fighting between its off-the-grid drivers and their highly regulated counterparts in traditional taxis.

Dan Lindblade, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce, said the county went too far in requiring individual licensure for drivers of Uber or other "transportation network companies.''

Uber: 'We cannot operate' under new Broward law
Uber: 'We cannot operate' under new Broward law
"[This is] bad for the citizens, bad for our tourism industry, bad for our economy,'' he said. "It's just over-regulation. They could have done something else than just hammer it all the way to the wall. They went too far.''

Uber's popularity hinged, in part, on disdain for traditional cabs.

At public hearings and in emails that poured into county commissioners' in-boxes over the past year, customers said they favored Uber's lower fares, cleaner cars and friendlier drivers.

Retiree Steve Machoian, an occasional visitor to Fort Lauderdale who said he is planning a move to South Florida from Maryland, said he would never get in a traditional cab here.

"Not only are they rude, [the] A/C rarely works, they take you for long rides, most claim not to speak English, the cars are filthy, and most cases old and broken down,'' he said when he learned of Uber's decision. "If I can't get an Uber ride, I'm going to take my second choice and move to Delray Beach.''

cComments
@JohnnyC Uber provides over a million rides a day, and has only been implicated in two deaths? That's an order of magnitude safer than driving your own car. Sounds pretty good to me. As to the rest of these incidents, you never want to see things like this happen, but for the huge number...
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But Uber declined to follow county laws, first saying the laws needed to be modernized to specifically address app-based services, and then saying the resulting new regulations were too burdensome.

Before heading for summer break, county commissioners last month authorized their attorney to use all legal means necessary to enforce the driver-for-hire laws Uber has flouted.

County commissioners also made potential fines steeper, up to $1,000 for a driver caught breaking the law a fourth time.

The county's new "transportation network company'' law, passed in April, legalized Uber's business model. Unlike cabs, which are limited in number by the county, Uber may have infinite numbers of vehicles. Unlike cabs, whose fares are set by the county, Uber can charge as little or as much as the company desires.

Uber ride service driver, passenger OK after rollover crash near airport
Uber ride service driver, passenger OK after rollover crash near airport
But like cab drivers, Uber drivers must obtain a chauffeur registration from Broward County, which requires undergoing a fingerprint-based, FBI criminal background check.

The county's threshold for tolerating a criminal past is stricter than Uber's, as well, including charges in which adjudication was withheld.

The county also required each vehicle to be inspected by a county-approved mechanic, and to be permitted individually under a county license Uber would obtain.

Uber officials here said the company does its own car inspections and driver background checks and objected to subjecting their drivers to the county's bureaucracy.

The county also said Uber's insurance coverage for its drivers was deficient under state legal standards and left gaps that exposed customers.


Bucking government regulations has been the six-year-old company's strategy worldwide. But as time has worn on, the legal process caught up to it in some locales, as was happening in Broward.

On June 29, France arrested two Uber executives, accusing them of running an illegal taxi business. In Holland, the company is under investigation on similar allegations.

Uber has been banned in Nevada, Thailand, parts of India and Japan, as well as in Eugene, Ore.; Braintree, Mass.; and in Key West.

Uber's competitor, Lyft, also operates in Broward, and also has not sought the required transportation network company license, according to Leonard Vialpando, director of Broward's Environmental Licensing and Building Permitting Division.

A Lyft spokeswoman said by email: "We are still reviewing our options, but continue to urge the Commission to revisit the regulations and work toward a solution that preserves Lyft's safe, affordable rides and flexible economic opportunity for residents."

Regulations regarding Uber are in the spotlight again. Also there are the protests in France about Uber also.

I have to say I am leaning toward the libertarian side regarding these cases, even though I support reasonable regulation of businesses in general.

The sharing economy is creating a new way of doing business and performing labor, that government should stay out of. Drivers and Uber, groups of consenting adults should be free to classify their relationship however they like. For someone to come after the fact and claim that a relationship is classified as one thing, when all parties agreed prior that the relationship is classified as another seems like a blatant attempt by the plaintiffs to simply get money.

And regarding taxi licenses and registration, I would say that the sharing economy has innovated beyond the need for these things, so the government trying to step in and start telling people who have innovated beyond them what to do doesn't sit well with me.

The one area that I can side with the government on is the insurance requirements for drivers. The passenger shouldn't be on the hook because a driver has inadequate insurance.

[Guardsman Bass]

They should definitely be required to have commercial drivers' insurance, although the other stuff is more of a mixed bag. The registration requirements are probably pointless because they can keep a record of every transaction, and people can identify the driver who picked them up (whereas with taxis you'd better hope you get the cab number before the driver drives off).

France definitely needs some taxi reform, even if they don't allow Uber. The Paris Taxi system, for example, is trapped in a cycle of rent-seeking: new drivers take out ever-larger amounts of debt to buy taxi licenses from older drivers, and thus need to keep taxicab numbers restricted at all cost because otherwise they won't be able to sell them to the next generation of taxi drivers at a higher price. The result is that the total number of taxis has gone up a mere 15% since 1937 in France.

[Jub]

They should definitely be required to have commercial drivers' insurance,

If you're getting a ride from a friend and you've agreed to pay them for gas plus convenience should they also need a higher standard of insurance? Aside from aiding in facilitating a ride and providing a larger network of 'friends' how is Uber any different than calling up a friend and pitching him gas money? Unless the government is going to step in and apply the same rules to spamming facebook/your social network of choice looking to trade some cash for a ride I don't see how any ruling against Uber would be valid.

[Dominus Atheos]

The sharing economy is creating a new way of doing business and performing labor, that government should stay out of. Drivers and Uber, groups of consenting adults should be free to classify their relationship however they like. For someone to come after the fact and claim that a relationship is classified as one thing, when all parties agreed prior that the relationship is classified as another seems like a blatant attempt by the plaintiffs to simply get money.

What a coincidence, I was literally just reading about Lochner v. New York, the most famous case of your philosophy being applied, but it was so depressing that I decided to switch to my SDN tab to take a break. I'll repost the part I was reading:

The troubled history of the 14th Amendment

The Right To Be Exploited

Nine years after Plessy, the Supreme Court handed down its 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York, a decision that is now held up as emblematic of a decades-long era where the justices gave themselves the power to censor economic regulations and frequently advanced the interests of America’s most fortunate citizens. Not all of the decisions that fit this pattern were decided under the Fourteenth Amendment — the Court fabricated a different doctrine to strike down federal child labor laws and to rescue a sugar monopoly from antitrust law. Nevertheless, the Fourteenth Amendment became one of the most potent tools management could use to free itself from laws obligating it to treat its workers with dignity.

Lochner was a case about bakery workers forced to work grueling hours in conditions no less disgusting than pre-Reconstruction New Orleans. In many bakeries, “sewage pipes leaked raw contents on bakery workers, while roaches lined bakery walls.” Frequently located in basements, the bakeries “were hot dungeons heated by lit ovens, and many lacked any flooring to speak of. Those that did often had rotten floors riddled with rat holes.” The average baker worked between 13 and 14 hours a day in these conditions. Often they were required to sleep on the very same tables where they kneaded the dough.

Though New York enacted a law limiting baker’s hours to ten a day and sixty per week, a 5-4 Court struck this provision down in Lochner, resting the decision on a so-called “right to contract” that it read into the Fourteenth Amendment. The “right to contract” was, essentially, a right to be bound by nearly any contract a worker agreed to, no matter how desperate the circumstances or how uneven the bargaining power that forced them to agree to such a deal. Thus, if New York bakers agreed to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, the state had no authority to take that “right” away from them.

Other decisions relying on this “right to contract” used the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down minimum wage laws and laws preventing union busting.

Thus, a half-century after its ratification, the Supreme Court transformed an amendment enacted to eradicate the vestiges of America’s most abhorrent labor policy into a device for employers who wished to use unregulated capitalism to exploit their workers. In the face of this transformation, Justice Louis Brandeis — a justice often celebrated by liberals — even called for the Fourteenth Amendment to be repealed, a call that conservatives sympathetic to Lochner have used to attack his legacy. Yet, in the wake of cases like Plessy and Lochner, it was not at all clear that the Fourteenth Amendment was worth saving. Thanks to the Supreme Court, actual decisions applying this amendment bore little resemblance to its noble purposes.

The power balance between an employer and the employed is so ridiculously tilted that I'd argue that society (aka, the government) has a moral duty to step in whenever that imbalance results in such unfair conditions as workers being classified as "contractors" and so being denied the benefits mandated by law for "employees".

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

They should definitely be required to have commercial drivers' insurance,

If you're getting a ride from a friend and you've agreed to pay them for gas plus convenience should they also need a higher standard of insurance? Aside from aiding in facilitating a ride and providing a larger network of 'friends' how is Uber any different than calling up a friend and pitching him gas money? Unless the government is going to step in and apply the same rules to spamming facebook/your social network of choice looking to trade some cash for a ride I don't see how any ruling against Uber would be valid.

So what if someone uses Uber to go rob/kidnap/rape people? Mind you, it has happened in places elsewhere, like India.

There are many reasons why taxi companies are regulated in many places. Some more than others in very old archaic ways that look more like guild systems than anything else, but taxis have been known to be a mode of crime and that is why they are regulated.

[Jub]

So what if someone uses Uber to go rob/kidnap/rape people? Mind you, it has happened in places elsewhere, like India.

Then they're no different than any other creep who abuses something for their own twisted desires. How would this be any different than somebody joining a facebook group for some event, offering a ride to said event, and doing the same thing?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So what if someone uses Uber to go rob/kidnap/rape people? Mind you, it has happened in places elsewhere, like India.

Then they're no different than any other creep who abuses something for their own twisted desires. How would this be any different than somebody joining a facebook group for some event, offering a ride to said event, and doing the same thing?

Because the difference is that you theoretically know the said person well enough to trust him to give you a ride. You obviously will not take a ride with some random person you can't trust right?

[Jub]

Because the difference is that you theoretically know the said person well enough to trust him to give you a ride. You obviously will not take a ride with some random person you can't trust right?

Except that things like rape and murder are more likely to be done by somebody you feel close too, so this is really a stupid way to deal with some members of society being crazy. Also, if you join a group for a large enough event your chances of having meet or conversed with even a small percentage of that group is rather slim and a quick fb chat is not going to help you sus out a pyscho from any other person going to the event.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Except that things like rape and murder are more likely to be done by somebody you feel close too, so this is really a stupid way to deal with some members of society being crazy. Also, if you join a group for a large enough event your chances of having meet or conversed with even a small percentage of that group is rather slim and a quick fb chat is not going to help you sus out a pyscho from any other person going to the event.

Obviously not. Which is why taxi companies have their drivers submit to a rigorous background check.

I have no fucking idea why people object to Uber being regulated, because I sure as hell am not going to board any random taxi run by a company that cuts corners on safety. Maybe getting robbed in a taxi once might change your mind. Conflating a commercial service with a "sharing" service in disingenuous at best.

[Simon_Jester]

They should definitely be required to have commercial drivers' insurance,

If you're getting a ride from a friend and you've agreed to pay them for gas plus convenience should they also need a higher standard of insurance? Aside from aiding in facilitating a ride and providing a larger network of 'friends' how is Uber any different than calling up a friend and pitching him gas money? Unless the government is going to step in and apply the same rules to spamming facebook/your social network of choice looking to trade some cash for a ride I don't see how any ruling against Uber would be valid.

If your friend agrees to help you move a sofa in their pickup truck, they don't need insurance or certification. That's a favor between friends, it is assumed that the person moving your sofa is known to you, and that you have the means to hold them accountable if they cheat you or carelessly destroy the sofa. If money changes hands, likewise- it's a transaction between friends.

If your friend goes into business for themselves moving furniture for complete strangers, driving a larger vehicle around and routinely handling large amounts of valuable cargo for people who don't know them, and is doing this for a living... We have a name for people who do that. They're called "movers" and "moving companies." And they need special certification to operate their big trucks, and they sign special contracts to make sure there's some reasonable guarantee of standards and professionalism.

Likewise, if your friend gives you a lift to the pharmacy, that's a favor exchanged between people who are known to each other. If money changes hands, likewise.

If your friend is ferrying complete strangers around a city, and is doing so for several hours a day, making their living that way... there's a name for that. Your friend is now a "taxi driver." There are regulations that apply to taxi drivers, to make sure the drivers are adequately rested, reliable, and not violating traffic laws. There are also regulations that apply to the taxi companies, to make sure they don't cheat and exploit the drivers who work for them.
_______________________

Uber provides the same service as a taxi company. Literally the same service- that's why you have all these people saying "I'm going to use Uber instead of calling a cab." But despite that, Uber is trying to claim that their employees aren't really taxi drivers, and they don't really provide taxi service. And apparently, the reason it "isn't a taxi service" is because you're calling the taxi with a smartphone app.

Yeah. Right. Sure.

[Jub]

Obviously not. Which is why taxi companies have their drivers submit to a rigorous background check.

Please cite your source that you're more likely to be killed/raped/kidnapped by some random person versus a person you know and trust?

I have no fucking idea why people object to Uber being regulated,

Maybe because cabs charge an arm and a leg to get you anywhere. In most cities, depending on distance and parking fees, it's cheaper to call a tow truck to take you and your car home after a night out than it is to take a cab back home, hell if you get even a moderately large group together even a limo makes a better choice than a cab. So long as cabs keep charging a premium people are going to look for a cheaper way to get to where they need to go.

Maybe getting robbed in a taxi once might change your mind. Conflating a commercial service with a "sharing" service in disingenuous at best.

Please cite the difference in numbers of crimes committed by Uber drivers versus taxi drivers.

If your friend agrees to help you move a sofa in their pickup truck, they don't need insurance or certification. That's a favor between friends, it is assumed that the person moving your sofa is known to you, and that you have the means to hold them accountable if they cheat you or carelessly destroy the sofa. If money changes hands, likewise- it's a transaction between friends.

So if I join a local trade and swap group on facebook, pick a random person that I don't know and ask if he'll help me move, how is this different than using a service like Uber to accomplish the same thing?

If your friend goes into business for themselves moving furniture for complete strangers, driving a larger vehicle around and routinely handling large amounts of valuable cargo for people who don't know them, and is doing this for a living... We have a name for people who do that. They're called "movers" and "moving companies." And they need special certification to operate their big trucks, and they sign special contracts to make sure there's some reasonable guarantee of standards and professionalism.

Except that I could buy an old cube van, no special license or permit needed, make a group on facebook, get my fb friends to spread the word, and accomplish the same thing. No contracts needed and cash only at a lower rate than a "moving company". Why shouldn't people have the option to take a risk and save money with my hypothetical service?

If your friend is ferrying complete strangers around a city, and is doing so for several hours a day, making their living that way... there's a name for that. Your friend is now a "taxi driver." There are regulations that apply to taxi drivers, to make sure the drivers are adequately rested, reliable, and not violating traffic laws. There are also regulations that apply to the taxi companies, to make sure they don't cheat and exploit the drivers who work for them.

Over half the people on my FB 'friends' list might as well be complete strangers for how often I interact with the in real life, but according to you if they're willing to give me a ride due to this thin connection known as social networking that is different than getting this ride through a service like Uber. I'm not seeing it.

Uber provides the same service as a taxi company. Literally the same service- that's why you have all these people saying "I'm going to use Uber instead of calling a cab."

If cab companies are so worried they'd best start cutting their rates to remain competitive. Uber is crushing them on price and wait times and cab companies aren't responding by offering a better service but instead by trying to kill their competition.

[Broomstick]

I have to say I am leaning toward the libertarian side regarding these cases, even though I support reasonable regulation of businesses in general.

The sharing economy is creating a new way of doing business and performing labor, that government should stay out of. Drivers and Uber, groups of consenting adults should be free to classify their relationship however they like.

So... you're OK with slavery as long as the slave "consents" to the relationship?

How about someone agreeing to let another person kill and eat them? Are you OK with a man who murders and eats people because his victim consented to the deal? (Ironically, he has since become a vegetarian)

That's where unrestrained "libertarianism" leads - slavery, exploitation, the weak and defenseless being victimized. People seem to have forgotten that one of the roles of law and government is to protect us from other people when we can't protect ourselves.

For someone to come after the fact and claim that a relationship is classified as one thing, when all parties agreed prior that the relationship is classified as another seems like a blatant attempt by the plaintiffs to simply get money.

Or maybe it's to protect people from their own ignorance.

There are long-standing legal definitions for things like "employee" and "independent contractor". I have worked in both categories and both are vulnerable to different forms of exploitation as well as having different perks. Most people are familiar with the "employee" category, they are not familiar with "independent contractor" and can be tripped up by the differences in such things as tax laws, as just one example category. The two categories have different liabilities while at work. And so on.

And regarding taxi licenses and registration, I would say that the sharing economy has innovated beyond the need for these things, so the government trying to step in and start telling people who have innovated beyond them what to do doesn't sit well with me.

I think if you're going to transport people (outside of family and close friends) in your vehicle for profit you should have a commercial driver's license of some sort (chauffeur's license, for example).

You should be willing to subject your vehicle to regular inspection as an insurance to the complete strangers you transport that there is some reasonable level of minimum mechanical safety.

You should have business-level insurance on your vehicle, since you're using it for profit, rather than the lower level required of private drivers.

Perhaps we should no longer limit taxi licenses, but we should register people transporting others as a business, just as any other business has registration requirements with the government. This helps distinguish between legitimate businesses and scams, even if it's not 100% perfect.

[Zaune]

Anyone calling Uber "innovative" is stretching the truth at best. Their business model has existed since the Sixties, when someone realised the rules and regulations on "hackney carriages" (livery cabs in the US) only applied to drivers who were picking up people who hail a cab; advance booking jobs were covered under similar rules to limo drivers etc, and they eventually got to be known as minicabs.

The Sixties being a time before you could get done over for felony interference in a business model, the government of the day established a set of fairly sensible rules for minicab companies to operate within; the drivers have to go through a slightly less thorough background check process, but they have to have proper public liability insurance, vehicle roadworthiness checks and their rates are set by the county. Enforcement of which is what you might charitably call "spotty", I might add.

When Raw Shark started grumbling about Uber, I was genuinely surprised to learn that this wasn't a thing in the US as well.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, that's a good one. "The Sixties being a time before you could get done over for felony interference in a business model, the government of the day established a set of fairly sensible rules ..."



I like that.

Obviously not. Which is why taxi companies have their drivers submit to a rigorous background check.

Please cite your source that you're more likely to be killed/raped/kidnapped by some random person versus a person you know and trust?

He didn't claim that. He claimed that the risk of being robbed, raped, or killed by a stranger is LESS if that stranger is subject to background checks. This is basic common sense.

I mean, what kind of arrogant stupidity does it take to say "my child is more likely to be molested by a relative than by a stranger, so I see no reason why my child's daycare provider should be subject to background checks! I'm sure THEY aren't a child molestor!"

The entire point here is that if you're concerned about being victimized by a friend or relative, you should be the one investigating. But you cannot investigate a complete stranger, you cannot make an informed judgment about their reliability. Therefore, it is in the public interest for the state to do that investigation for you, so that you know you are dealing with a trustworthy business and not with a rapist or a thief.

I have no fucking idea why people object to Uber being regulated,

Maybe because cabs charge an arm and a leg to get you anywhere. In most cities, depending on distance and parking fees, it's cheaper to call a tow truck to take you and your car home after a night out than it is to take a cab back home, hell if you get even a moderately large group together even a limo makes a better choice than a cab. So long as cabs keep charging a premium people are going to look for a cheaper way to get to where they need to go.

I have never found the services of a tow truck cheaper than those of a taxicab.

Also, I can certainly understand why people want a service to be cheaper. The problem is that "cheaper" also generally means "you get what you pay for." In this case, Uber provides a cheaper service in large part because it's exploiting its employees (by not paying benefits for people who do full-time work on their behalf), and because it doesn't have insurance to cover what happens to its customers.

I mean, your shirts would be cheaper if they were made using child labor. Does that mean child labor laws are bad and that a shirt manufacturer who ignores them should be rewarded for doing so?

Maybe getting robbed in a taxi once might change your mind. Conflating a commercial service with a "sharing" service in disingenuous at best.

Please cite the difference in numbers of crimes committed by Uber drivers versus taxi drivers.

Since the Uber service is only a few years old and since criminal cases can take a year or more to process, these data may be hard to find. Moreover, many of the cases you can find will be in Third World countries... precisely because developed nations regulate their taxi services.

If your friend agrees to help you move a sofa in their pickup truck, they don't need insurance or certification. That's a favor between friends, it is assumed that the person moving your sofa is known to you, and that you have the means to hold them accountable if they cheat you or carelessly destroy the sofa. If money changes hands, likewise- it's a transaction between friends.

So if I join a local trade and swap group on facebook, pick a random person that I don't know and ask if he'll help me move, how is this different than using a service like Uber to accomplish the same thing?

It's not necessarily different. But if the 'trade and swap' group expands until it's a large for-profit corporation with stock valued in the billions of dollars, and which is providing billions of dollars worth of services to millions of people every year... Then at some point, the group is large enough that it needs some degree of inspection and certification by the state, because the ability of a group that size to cheat the public is potentially very large.

Uber isn't just a casual network of friends and acquaintances who carpool. It's a business. It does exactly what a taxi company does, and the only difference is that it has a special piece of computer software that it uses to alert its taxi drivers to the availability of fare-paying customers.

If your friend goes into business for themselves moving furniture for complete strangers, driving a larger vehicle around and routinely handling large amounts of valuable cargo for people who don't know them, and is doing this for a living... We have a name for people who do that. They're called "movers" and "moving companies." And they need special certification to operate their big trucks, and they sign special contracts to make sure there's some reasonable guarantee of standards and professionalism.

Except that I could buy an old cube van, no special license or permit needed, make a group on facebook, get my fb friends to spread the word, and accomplish the same thing. No contracts needed and cash only at a lower rate than a "moving company". Why shouldn't people have the option to take a risk and save money with my hypothetical service?

Because in a case like that the customer has no practical means of assessing the risk.

Come on, this is Econ 101 stuff. Markets break down when information is not equally available to both parties, or when one party has no accurate tool for assessing the risks of a transaction. While YOU may be sincerely intending to undercut existing moving companies by providing the same service for less money, there is nothing stopping a bunch of unscrupulous thieves from doing the same thing. Or a bunch of drug addicts and lunatics who can't be trusted to handle other people's property without breaking it.

So if you remove the regulations on a business that relies on the customer trusting complete strangers with their lives or safety... the long term result is unlikely to be good.

Moreover, there is a totally separate ethics issue you haven't even touched. Uber isn't about one guy giving strangers a ride for money. It's about a for profit corporation which is making hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars a year off its business model. If they're making that kind of money off the public, the public has a right to know that:

1) Uber is prepared to vouch for the quality and reliability of its drivers, and
2) Those drivers are receiving the appropriate level of care and benefits that we would normally expect from employees who work comparable hours for any other for-profit corporation.

If Uber turns out NOT to be able to provide these services, while charging less than normal taxi companies, and still make a profit... well then, it turns out Uber never was this brilliant new way to get around town.

If Uber can't provide benefits for its drivers and insurance for its customers, Uber's just another affirmation of the old truism that you can make a lot of money fast if you're willing to break the law... until you get caught.

Over half the people on my FB 'friends' list might as well be complete strangers for how often I interact with the in real life, but according to you if they're willing to give me a ride due to this thin connection known as social networking that is different than getting this ride through a service like Uber. I'm not seeing it.

Your Facebook friends are, perhaps, casual acquaintances- but the point remains that you encountered and interacted with them at some point. You have the freedom to decide, based on how much prior knowledge you have, whether or not to trust them.

With Uber drivers, you don't really have such freedom, unless of course you don't use the service at all.

Uber provides the same service as a taxi company. Literally the same service- that's why you have all these people saying "I'm going to use Uber instead of calling a cab."

If cab companies are so worried they'd best start cutting their rates to remain competitive. Uber is crushing them on price and wait times and cab companies aren't responding by offering a better service but instead by trying to kill their competition.

[/quote]I don't care that the cab companies are worried. Let them adopt better software (like Uber's software) and other improved techniques, if they're worried.

But if Uber is providing "better service" by cheating its employees and operating without insurance, that is not acceptable. There are good reasons the taxi industry was regulated in the first place. Uber is in fact a taxi company. If Uber can't make a profit while still complying with the normal regulations for the taxi industry, then it never deserved to succeed in the first place.

[Jub]

He didn't claim that. He claimed that the risk of being robbed, raped, or killed by a stranger is LESS if that stranger is subject to background checks. This is basic common sense. I mean, what kind of arrogant stupidity does it take to say "my child is more likely to be molested by a relative than by a stranger, so I see no reason why my child's daycare provider should be subject to background checks! I'm sure THEY aren't a child molestor!"

So all those vetted priests, teachers, day care workers police officers etc. that manage to make it past the checks and still murder/rape/molest just don't exist now? It seems like these checks are nothing more than legal boilerplate and about as useful as the TSA. Prove that these screenings actually do reduce the risk in an appreciable way.

But you cannot investigate a complete stranger, you cannot make an informed judgment about their reliability. Therefore, it is in the public interest for the state to do that investigation for you, so that you know you are dealing with a trustworthy business and not with a rapist or a thief.

Is it though? People are clearly speaking with their wallets when they choose Uber over a Cab so why should the government ignore the will of consenting adults in this matter?

I have never found the services of a tow truck cheaper than those of a taxicab.

Then you've never had to travel a significant distance by cab or been in a city where you have to pay/risk being ticketed for overnight parking.

Also, I can certainly understand why people want a service to be cheaper. The problem is that "cheaper" also generally means "you get what you pay for." In this case, Uber provides a cheaper service in large part because it's exploiting its employees (by not paying benefits for people who do full-time work on their behalf), and because it doesn't have insurance to cover what happens to its customers.

These drivers are willing to take the work knowing what they'll be paid and people are willing to use the service because it saves money. It seems like a good fit for both people involved because if it wasn't one or both of the parties wouldn't be there. If you regulate services like Uber until they're basically taxi services with all the red tape that goes with that you'll be filtering out a lot of potential workers and customers from this economy.

I mean, your shirts would be cheaper if they were made using child labor. Does that mean child labor laws are bad and that a shirt manufacturer who ignores them should be rewarded for doing so?

There is a difference between forcing children to work and a consenting adult choosing to do a job at a set rate. Plus, as bad as child labor is, it was and is a major part of getting industry, off the ground in severely underdeveloped nations. Things like the industrial revolution relied upon cheap factory labor and without it things don't develop nearly so quickly. Looking back I think it's clear that the hardships these people endured were worth it to push things forward.

Since the Uber service is only a few years old and since criminal cases can take a year or more to process, these data may be hard to find. Moreover, many of the cases you can find will be in Third World countries... precisely because developed nations regulate their taxi services.

Except that even if they did regulate them people would be too poor to use the safer but more expensive service and the underground service would be even worse for having lost the upstanding drivers and companies to the more regulated and expensive market. Thus in this case the very people that are already being preyed upon will only be preyed upon more so and more easily.

It's not necessarily different. But if the 'trade and swap' group expands until it's a large for-profit corporation with stock valued in the billions of dollars, and which is providing billions of dollars worth of services to millions of people every year... Then at some point, the group is large enough that it needs some degree of inspection and certification by the state, because the ability of a group that size to cheat the public is potentially very large.

So it's fine until it isn't but you won't clearly define how large is too large or outline what Uber is doing to cheat people...

Uber isn't just a casual network of friends and acquaintances who carpool. It's a business. It does exactly what a taxi company does, and the only difference is that it has a special piece of computer software that it uses to alert its taxi drivers to the availability of fare-paying customers.

This is a problem why...?

Because in a case like that the customer has no practical means of assessing the risk.

They've already assessed the risk when they decided to look for a cheaper alternative to a traditional moving company.

Come on, this is Econ 101 stuff. Markets break down when information is not equally available to both parties, or when one party has no accurate tool for assessing the risks of a transaction. While YOU may be sincerely intending to undercut existing moving companies by providing the same service for less money, there is nothing stopping a bunch of unscrupulous thieves from doing the same thing. Or a bunch of drug addicts and lunatics who can't be trusted to handle other people's property without breaking it.

Then they post online about said group of junkies/thieves/poor quality movers and people don't use that group in the future. Plus there's nothing stopping other companies from offering Uber insurance, Uber themselves could even sign a deal with insurance firms and offer it as an extra service that you can pay for that covers you for the duration of that trip. Now we've opened up yet another market and means for people to make money off this service while still offering a choice between Uber and a traditional cab.

Moreover, there is a totally separate ethics issue you haven't even touched. Uber isn't about one guy giving strangers a ride for money. It's about a for profit corporation which is making hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars a year off its business model. If they're making that kind of money off the public, the public has a right to know that:

1) Uber is prepared to vouch for the quality and reliability of its drivers, and
2) Those drivers are receiving the appropriate level of care and benefits that we would normally expect from employees who work comparable hours for any other for-profit corporation.

If Uber turns out NOT to be able to provide these services, while charging less than normal taxi companies, and still make a profit... well then, it turns out Uber never was this brilliant new way to get around town.

That Uber doesn't do this is precisely the reason they can keep costs down. People are clearly willing to roll the dice on these issues to both drive for and ride with this company. Thus far the service seems to be paying it's drivers the agreed upon rate and getting passengers to the places they need to go. So long as they keep doing these things, I'll continue to support them.

If Uber can't provide benefits for its drivers and insurance for its customers, Uber's just another affirmation of the old truism that you can make a lot of money fast if you're willing to break the law... until you get caught.

If these drivers had better options for work they'd be taking them. All shutting down or regulating Uber will do is hurt their existing drivers and customers, the guys at the top have already made their millions and won't exactly be put in the poor house either way.

Your Facebook friends are, perhaps, casual acquaintances- but the point remains that you encountered and interacted with them at some point. You have the freedom to decide, based on how much prior knowledge you have, whether or not to trust them.

With Uber drivers, you don't really have such freedom, unless of course you don't use the service at all.

People are clearly cool with the idea of riding with strangers, hell people were and are doing this without a service and calling it hitchhiking. This is clearly a thing people value, so why regulate this niche out of existance?

I don't care that the cab companies are worried. Let them adopt better software (like Uber's software) and other improved techniques, if they're worried.

But if Uber is providing "better service" by cheating its employees and operating without insurance, that is not acceptable. There are good reasons the taxi industry was regulated in the first place. Uber is in fact a taxi company. If Uber can't make a profit while still complying with the normal regulations for the taxi industry, then it never deserved to succeed in the first place.

Uber has a niche that niche being cheaper rides with less protections for both driver and passenger. Thus far they aren't going around robbing people, or causing accidents and they don't seem to have trouble attracting drivers. So clearly they're filling a need within the current market that can't be or isn't being filled by cab companies.

[Sea Skimmer]

Uber is a race to the bottom of low wages and little or no regulation. I find it endlessly amusing how much hipsters around here love it. Cab companies need to adapt better payment methods, Uber certainly has them beat at it, but in the end people go Uber because its cheaper more then anything else in my experience. And Uber has kept cutting its rates lower and lower to keep itself growing, while phasing out its guaranteed driver wages. Drivers are using their own vehicles and insurance to make in the case of one undercover reporter who did it for a month in Phily, all of 10.50 an hour. Its the walmart of transport.

[Jub]

Uber is a race to the bottom of low wages and little or no regulation. I find it endlessly amusing how much hipsters around here love it. Cab companies need to adapt better payment methods, Uber certainly has them beat at it, but in the end people go Uber because its cheaper more then anything else in my experience. And Uber has kept cutting its rates lower and lower to keep itself growing, while phasing out its guaranteed driver wages. Drivers are using their own vehicles and insurance to make in the case of one undercover reporter who did it for a month in Phily, all of 10.50 an hour. Its the walmart of transport.

The issue isn't that a service like this exists, it's that there are people that need this 10.50/hour job and that average joes have little enough money that they have to make the choice between security and cost at all. For now this is a niche that needs to be filled, it's also a niche that has a short lifespan because self-driving cars are coming and will drive most taxi services out of bussiness.

[Terralthra]

Please provide some evidence that cabs are more expensive than having your car towed. I'd really like to see that.

[Jub]

Please provide some evidence that cabs are more expensive than having your car towed. I'd really like to see that.

Taking the city of Calgary as an example assuming you drive to the club and park around 10 pm and wouldn't pick your car up until 10 am, not a terrible assumption to make if you're going out clubbing and intend to drink at a moderate to heavy rate. Using the rates found here parking from 10 pm to 5 am could cost you as much as $35 and then 5 am until 10 am would cost an additional $19 on a weekday. So that's $54 in parking alone so the cab would need to save you at least that much plus the cost of getting back to your car in the morning to be competitive with a tow. Not to mention the obvious added value of having your car waiting for you at home.

The average cab fare between say the city center and the suburbs as suggested here is about $50 adding in the worst case parking cost and ignoring the cost of getting back to our car the tow truck needs to beat $104 to be worth your while.

There isn't a handy tool for calculating what a tow along the same route would cost, but speaking to a friend who used to drive a tow truck the cost works out to between $100 and $130. So that price is pretty competitive with taking the cab and cheaper if you assume you need a cab back to get your car the next day. Plus it saves you time as you need to make the drive once as opposed to 3 times. Feel free to call a cab company up and ask them their rate for a 20km tow of an accessible two-wheel drive car if you don't trust my rate.

[Broomstick]

Is it though? People are clearly speaking with their wallets when they choose Uber over a Cab so why should the government ignore the will of consenting adults in this matter?

Adults, consenting or otherwise, are frequently fucking idiots. They often don't know the depths of their own ignorance. They get drunk or high and make poor judgement decisions. One party may have more information about a situation than the other and use it to exploit a situation.

These drivers are willing to take the work knowing what they'll be paid and people are willing to use the service because it saves money. It seems like a good fit for both people involved because if it wasn't one or both of the parties wouldn't be there. If you regulate services like Uber until they're basically taxi services with all the red tape that goes with that you'll be filtering out a lot of potential workers and customers from this economy.

People all too often make decisions based on what's cheapest, not what's best. "More business" is not always a positive.

There is a difference between forcing children to work and a consenting adult choosing to do a job at a set rate. Plus, as bad as child labor is, it was and is a major part of getting industry, off the ground in severely underdeveloped nations. Things like the industrial revolution relied upon cheap factory labor and without it things don't develop nearly so quickly. Looking back I think it's clear that the hardships these people endured were worth it to push things forward.

I'm sure that notion is/was of comfort to the tens of thousands killed, maimed, sickened, or crippled by factory and industry. It's true, you know, one death is a tragedy and a million is a statisitc, and that's all the human suffering of the industrial revolution is to you, isn't it? A statistic. Not people who really bled and felt pain, whose lives were wrecked by overwork, lack of safety, and grinding poverty.

So it's fine until it isn't but you won't clearly define how large is too large or outline what Uber is doing to cheat people...

For starters, it would really suck if your Uber driver got into an accident and you found the driver had inadequate insurance and you're stuck with the bills. Or, for the driver, it would really suck to get into an accident, find out your insurance is either useless or cancelled (they can do that if you've got a private driver policy but you've been using your vehicle is a business) and suddenly you're on the hook not only for your own possible injuries, but also for any passengers and possible facing civil lawsuits for damages and you're not covered for that, either.

It's a question if Uber drivers know that their typical non-professional driver insurance policies don't cover commercial use and they need to either change their policies or purchase additional coverage.

Because in a case like that the customer has no practical means of assessing the risk.

They've already assessed the risk when they decided to look for a cheaper alternative to a traditional moving company.

Or are they just so focused on saving a buck they don't pay attention to anything else? Because that's a very common attitude in today's world - choose based solely on price and nothing else. It's what built the Wal-Mart empire.... an enterprise, by the way, where many workers are dependent on government aid to survive despite having full time jobs. That's neither of benefit to those employees nor of benefit to society in general.

Come on, this is Econ 101 stuff. Markets break down when information is not equally available to both parties, or when one party has no accurate tool for assessing the risks of a transaction. While YOU may be sincerely intending to undercut existing moving companies by providing the same service for less money, there is nothing stopping a bunch of unscrupulous thieves from doing the same thing. Or a bunch of drug addicts and lunatics who can't be trusted to handle other people's property without breaking it.

Then they post online about said group of junkies/thieves/poor quality movers and people don't use that group in the future. Plus there's nothing stopping other companies from offering Uber insurance, Uber themselves could even sign a deal with insurance firms and offer it as an extra service that you can pay for that covers you for the duration of that trip. Now we've opened up yet another market and means for people to make money off this service while still offering a choice between Uber and a traditional cab.

First of all, it's not just the passenger at risk, it's the driver, and it's the driver that has the greatest need of proper insurance here.

Second, we tried the "regulate by reputation" thing before, back in the late 19th and early 20th century. We tried it with food processing, and low and behold unscrupulous producers sold adultered foodstuffs that sickened and poisoned people. We tried it with pharmaceuticals with the same result. We tried it with various professions and far too many frauds cheated customers and caused damage. That is why government regulations were developed in the first place.

The anti-government types come in two flavors: those wealthy enough to protect themselves (and it takes a surprising amount of wealth for that), who in a post-government world would essentially be the warlords or equivalent, and those ignorant of history and WHY we have regulations, laws, and legislation to protect rights and privileges. The latter have usually lived their entire lives in civilized places and have no clue of just how bad a totally un-regulated situation would be.

Here's an example: prior to environmental regulation companies in the US did whatever the hell they wanted with their waste. I remember when Lake Erie was devoid of life and rivers used to catch on fire. Is that the sort of world you want? Because that's what you get when you let the market "regulate" things - it's always cheaper to make your problem someone else's problem. Dump your shit in the river and let those downstream worry about it, and make sure you have enough funds to live far enough upstream so as not to be in danger when the river catches fire.

I am fucking tired of clueless kids who haven't a fucking clue why laws are necessary to the functioning of society.

People are clearly cool with the idea of riding with strangers, hell people were and are doing this without a service and calling it hitchhiking. This is clearly a thing people value, so why regulate this niche out of existance?

People are clearly cool with a lot of dumbshit ideas, like smoking tobacco or doing street drugs of unknown composition or having unprotected sex with people they just met who might have STD's or a lot of other really, really stupid things. Part of the reason for the government imposed rules is to keep the dumbshits alive for awhile so they might potentially learn something.

See, if people were really as smart as they think they are (and I assure you, they are not) we wouldn't need things like posted speed limits or elaborate warnings and gates at train crossings. Among other things.

[Jub]

Adults, consenting or otherwise, are frequently fucking idiots. They often don't know the depths of their own ignorance. They get drunk or high and make poor judgement decisions. One party may have more information about a situation than the other and use it to exploit a situation.

And we still let them vote... If we're going to let them run the nation we might as well let them choose how to get home after a night out.

People all too often make decisions based on what's cheapest, not what's best. "More business" is not always a positive.

Please cite a list of negative events to either customer and driver cause by Uber and show that they're not the sort of thing that happens under licensed cab companies. People keep saying Uber = bad without backing this statement up.

I'm sure that notion is/was of comfort to the tens of thousands killed, maimed, sickened, or crippled by factory and industry. It's true, you know, one death is a tragedy and a million is a statisitc, and that's all the human suffering of the industrial revolution is to you, isn't it? A statistic. Not people who really bled and felt pain, whose lives were wrecked by overwork, lack of safety, and grinding poverty.

Did or didn't that pain and suffering eventually lead to something better? Sometimes suffering is the route to something better, just look at all the revolutions throughout history for proof of that. It sucks, but we can't avoid suffering for the sake of progress sometimes.

For starters, it would really suck if your Uber driver got into an accident and you found the driver had inadequate insurance and you're stuck with the bills.

No worse than making a choice like traveling in another country without insurance and we're not rushing to make insurance for anybody leaving the country for more than a few days mandatory.

It's a question if Uber drivers know that their typical non-professional driver insurance policies don't cover commercial use and they need to either change their policies or purchase additional coverage.

That sounds like something these drivers should be looking at. Their adults, they're expected to be informed and responsible for their actions.

Or are they just so focused on saving a buck they don't pay attention to anything else? Because that's a very common attitude in today's world - choose based solely on price and nothing else. It's what built the Wal-Mart empire.... an enterprise, by the way, where many workers are dependent on government aid to survive despite having full time jobs. That's neither of benefit to those employees nor of benefit to society in general.

Get used to it, as automation increases wages for unskilled workers will fall and there are only so many jobs for the skilled and educated. Just wait until internet shopping and same-day drone delivery turn stores into warehouses and self-driving vehicles put most professional drivers out of work. The issue isn't with wages and companies cutting costs, it's with a society that doesn't want to change to match our technology.

First of all, it's not just the passenger at risk, it's the driver, and it's the driver that has the greatest need of proper insurance here.

We've been over this. The driver is an adult and should be aware of the risks. If they don't want to take the risk they can buy the right insurance or find a new job.

We tried it with various professions and far too many frauds cheated customers and caused damage. That is why government regulations were developed in the first place.

You've yet to show how Uber is cheating anybody...

The anti-government types come in two flavors: those wealthy enough to protect themselves (and it takes a surprising amount of wealth for that), who in a post-government world would essentially be the warlords or equivalent, and those ignorant of history and WHY we have regulations, laws, and legislation to protect rights and privileges. The latter have usually lived their entire lives in civilized places and have no clue of just how bad a totally un-regulated situation would be.

Here's an example: prior to environmental regulation companies in the US did whatever the hell they wanted with their waste. I remember when Lake Erie was devoid of life and rivers used to catch on fire. Is that the sort of world you want? Because that's what you get when you let the market "regulate" things - it's always cheaper to make your problem someone else's problem. Dump your shit in the river and let those downstream worry about it, and make sure you have enough funds to live far enough upstream so as not to be in danger when the river catches fire.

I am fucking tired of clueless kids who haven't a fucking clue why laws are necessary to the functioning of society.

Because people paying less to get around town is exactly the same as dumping waste into a major source of drinking water... I'm not saying we shouldn't regulate anything, some things need much more regulation, I'm just saying that not everything needs regulation.

People are clearly cool with a lot of dumbshit ideas, like smoking tobacco or doing street drugs of unknown composition or having unprotected sex with people they just met who might have STD's or a lot of other really, really stupid things. Part of the reason for the government imposed rules is to keep the dumbshits alive for awhile so they might potentially learn something.

See, if people were really as smart as they think they are (and I assure you, they are not) we wouldn't need things like posted speed limits or elaborate warnings and gates at train crossings. Among other things.

People aren't always great, but this is the political system we chose. If they get to vote they should be able to choose who takes them home.

Posted speed limits are bullshit in most places. How much have cars changed since these limits were imposed. Limits lower than the average speed people would naturally drive at actually cause accidents because they tend to create groups of people going at different speeds. Getting rid of them, or raising them to the speed people actually drive at, and instead regulating based over deviance from average speed is a much better way to go.

[Terralthra]

Please provide some evidence that cabs are more expensive than having your car towed. I'd really like to see that.

Taking the city of Calgary as an example assuming you drive to the club and park around 10 pm and wouldn't pick your car up until 10 am, not a terrible assumption to make if you're going out clubbing and intend to drink at a moderate to heavy rate. Using the rates found here parking from 10 pm to 5 am could cost you as much as $35 and then 5 am until 10 am would cost an additional $19 on a weekday. So that's $54 in parking alone so the cab would need to save you at least that much plus the cost of getting back to your car in the morning to be competitive with a tow. Not to mention the obvious added value of having your car waiting for you at home.

The average cab fare between say the city center and the suburbs as suggested here is about $50 adding in the worst case parking cost and ignoring the cost of getting back to our car the tow truck needs to beat $104 to be worth your while.

There isn't a handy tool for calculating what a tow along the same route would cost, but speaking to a friend who used to drive a tow truck the cost works out to between $100 and $130. So that price is pretty competitive with taking the cab and cheaper if you assume you need a cab back to get your car the next day. Plus it saves you time as you need to make the drive once as opposed to 3 times. Feel free to call a cab company up and ask them their rate for a 20km tow of an accessible two-wheel drive car if you don't trust my rate.

You realize that street parking is free almost everywhere after 6, right? Your own fucking link says that. "On-street parking is free after 6 pm and before 9 am Mondays through Saturdays. It's also free all day on Sundays and holidays."

You're so fucking dishonest. "Getting your car towed costs less than a cab, if you also count the cost of parking overnight (which is actually free)"?

Also, if you're planning on drinking to the point where you can't drive home, why did you fucking drive there in the first place? Why no designated driver? Your whole argument is bullshit piled on top of bullshit.

[Broomstick]

People all too often make decisions based on what's cheapest, not what's best. "More business" is not always a positive.

Please cite a list of negative events to either customer and driver cause by Uber and show that they're not the sort of thing that happens under licensed cab companies. People keep saying Uber = bad without backing this statement up.

Uninsured accidents, where people are left maimed without any protection or means to pay medical bills. There's one for you.

I'm sure that notion is/was of comfort to the tens of thousands killed, maimed, sickened, or crippled by factory and industry. It's true, you know, one death is a tragedy and a million is a statisitc, and that's all the human suffering of the industrial revolution is to you, isn't it? A statistic. Not people who really bled and felt pain, whose lives were wrecked by overwork, lack of safety, and grinding poverty.

Did or didn't that pain and suffering eventually lead to something better? Sometimes suffering is the route to something better, just look at all the revolutions throughout history for proof of that. It sucks, but we can't avoid suffering for the sake of progress sometimes.

So... you're willing to be the next sacrifice on the altar of progress with not a peep of complaint?

What you don't seen to understand is that most of those who suffered in the "industrial revolution" had no choice. Even if they did - well, society decided that the carnage was unacceptable.

For starters, it would really suck if your Uber driver got into an accident and you found the driver had inadequate insurance and you're stuck with the bills.

No worse than making a choice like traveling in another country without insurance and we're not rushing to make insurance for anybody leaving the country for more than a few days mandatory.

Here's the difference:

If YOU decide that YOU will travel to another country without insurance the only person to be harmed by your decision is YOU.

If you become an Uber driver and forgo insurance it could harm you and your passengers. As soon as you involved someone else it's no longer just about you. That's why we impose different requirements on chauffeur's and train drivers and pilots - it's not just them anymore.

It's a question if Uber drivers know that their typical non-professional driver insurance policies don't cover commercial use and they need to either change their policies or purchase additional coverage.

That sounds like something these drivers should be looking at. Their adults, they're expected to be informed and responsible for their actions.

Here's another difference: a professional taxi driver is going to be insured through his company. You don't have to guess. If you get in a Yellow Taxi that vehicle and driver are insured. Uber? Who the fuck knows? The company puts it on the drivers, who are not professionals in many cases. Who the fuck knows how diligent they are?

Yes, Uber drivers SHOULD know and SHOULD be insured... you know, people should brush their teeth and floss, too, but a lot of adults don't bother. That's why it's sometimes a good idea for a third party to be involved.

Or are they just so focused on saving a buck they don't pay attention to anything else? Because that's a very common attitude in today's world - choose based solely on price and nothing else. It's what built the Wal-Mart empire.... an enterprise, by the way, where many workers are dependent on government aid to survive despite having full time jobs. That's neither of benefit to those employees nor of benefit to society in general.

Get used to it, as automation increases wages for unskilled workers will fall and there are only so many jobs for the skilled and educated. Just wait until internet shopping and same-day drone delivery turn stores into warehouses and self-driving vehicles put most professional drivers out of work. The issue isn't with wages and companies cutting costs, it's with a society that doesn't want to change to match our technology.

Yes, society doesn't want to change - the result is more and more people falling into poverty and joblessness, and more and more cuts to safety nets. Why anyone thinks this will end in anything other than tears is beyond me. It will also put the economy into a death spiral because people without income don't buy shit, even if it comes via drone delivery from automated warehouses.

It also sounds like we'll all be prisoners in our own homes, which will totally suck.

I think you're also discounting the fact that there is a certain appeal to going to a store and actually being able to see/hear/smell/touch stuff before purchase.

First of all, it's not just the passenger at risk, it's the driver, and it's the driver that has the greatest need of proper insurance here.

We've been over this. The driver is an adult and should be aware of the risks. If they don't want to take the risk they can buy the right insurance or find a new job.

Or they can be a dumb-ass and put their passengers at risk because there's no oversight over this. Uber sure as hell isn't doing it. Other than intellegent self-interest there is nothing pushing Uber drivers to properly insure at this point.

I'm not saying we shouldn't regulate anything, some things need much more regulation, I'm just saying that not everything needs regulation.

Again, you act like history never happened. Taxi services were regulated in the past because of the problems that occurred when they were unregulated. I have no trouble discussing potential changes in those regulations, but the notion we can just throw them out entirely without consequences is ludicrous.

Posted speed limits are bullshit in most places. How much have cars changed since these limits were imposed.

Unfortunately, drivers have NOT changed in that time period. The biggest problem isn't the cars, it's the dumbass behind the wheel.

Limits lower than the average speed people would naturally drive at actually cause accidents because they tend to create groups of people going at different speeds. Getting rid of them, or raising them to the speed people actually drive at, and instead regulating based over deviance from average speed is a much better way to go.

Oh, right - god forbid we all drive at the same speed which is one of the POINTS of a speed limit. If you dispensed entirely with speed limits people would still drive at different speeds. In fact, there used to be extensive amounts of road in the US with absolutely no posted speeds at all - my spouse is old enough to remember them, as were my parents. Do you actually think people all drove the same speed on them? Look at the Autobahn in Germany - people drive different speeds on that as well. You premise is fatally flawed, this notion there is a "natural" speed people would drive at if left to their own devices.

Oh, and by the way - the vast majority of drivers have an overly inflated view of their driving skills. In other words, they're dumbasses. Their decision making is not nearly as good as they think it is. If someone gets on a road designed for 70 mph travel and decides their "natural speed" is 100 mph that's probably not going to end well.

[Jub]

You realize that street parking is free almost everywhere after 6, right? Your own fucking link says that. "On-street parking is free after 6 pm and before 9 am Mondays through Saturdays. It's also free all day on Sundays and holidays."

You're so fucking dishonest. "Getting your car towed costs less than a cab, if you also count the cost of parking overnight (which is actually free)"?

It's only free if you can find on street parking near where you want to go and trust the area enough to leave your car on the street. Obviously people do leave their cars in these sorts of places overnight or there wouldn't be a price for this service.

Also, if you're planning on drinking to the point where you can't drive home, why did you fucking drive there in the first place? Why no designated driver?

Who says you planned it? People do go out and have more drinks than they intend to and if that happens you probably won't have a DD ready either. You might also have left your car in a carpark and then wound up too drunk to move it. I showed a scenario where a tow could be cheaper than a cab just like you asked and it's a situation that can crop up.

I've also known people who work in towing and had regular customers that would get a tow home. So obviously this does happen.

[Lord MJ]

I do find the libertarian almost religious attitude that government is inherently bad to be somewhat unhinged.

Instead of regulations vs no regulations, it should be a factor of what regulations are appropriate and which ones are not.

That being said though, if Uber and other sharing apps are developing and experimenting with new ways of transacting business between company and worker, company and driver, etc, who are we (society and the government) to step in and break things up. Suppose instead of classifying drivers as independent contractors they (Uber) created a completely new category called "Blah, Blah, Blah." Uber Drivers would not be independent contractors, or employees, but "Blah, Blah, Blah's" and the what benefits, rights, and privileges constitute a "Blah, Blah, Blah" are defined by Uber in negotiation with the people that will drive for them. Given that if drivers are not happy with that, it would be relatively easy for someone else to create their own startup with an app and have terms that are more attractive to drivers. I don't see why the government should be involved.

The plaintiff in this case, saw Uber as a way to make some money and signed up to be a driver. As far as I know she can chose when and when not to drive, AND can drive for Lyft or competing services at the same time if she wants to. She agreed to that when she decided to be an Uber Driver, she did not have to be an Uber Driver. She and Uber had a mutually agreed upon understanding. An traditional employee is entitled to certain benefits, but she and Uber had an understanding that did not include those benefits, for her to then come back and complain just to me seems like she is only thinking one thing: "Cha-ching!"

On the licensing side, I'm on the side that if customers don't care if driver's have Taxi licenses, then drivers should have to have them due to government dictates.

On the insurance side, I'm more on the side of the regulators because while it's not something customers will think about, they will be in for a rude awakening if they get in an accident and their injuries aren't covered (though in an ideal world the person's health insurance would take care of that, or we would have universal health care.)

An alternative to the regulations though could be that it is made clear to both the driver and passenger that there is no insurance so if an accident happens, you're SOL. I would imagine that some passengers would steer clear of Uber because of that, just as some people they steer clear of Uber because they don't like the idea of driving in some stranger's car.