My car has a hot pink mustache—and it just might disrupt the taxi business

Smartphone apps + "ride-sharing" = travel revolution? Two startups say yes.

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[RyanS]

All the regulation exists on the taxi industry simply because of all the issues these sort of gimmick setups are going to run into.

They rely on the actual regulated taxi companies to take the bulk of the people and coverage, while they mess about on the fringes, and people praise them because they are cheaper.

Then a passenger dies because the car they were driving in was unsafe, because it hasn't been safety inspected regularly like the regulated taxis are, and the lawsuits start. That and another million reasons is why this sort of thing is a bad idea.

 

[RyanS]

Only if one thinks the government is mommy and daddy, there to protect its citizen-children from the big bad world because they're too foolish to be able to make their own choices and take their own risks--a premise many find condescending and dangerous. People must be allowed to make their own choices, whether good or bad, whether safe or risky--or we really will have a society of adult-children incapable of making basic decisions and weighing potential choices for themselves (if we don't already). Is government-as-parental-authority directing our lives really the best path for our society, or should we prefer a government-as-referee model where it only steps in to mediate when absolutely necessary?

Yeah, you'd really keep this laughable attitude when your friend or family member dies to some jerkoff trying to earn some extra cash by running around picking up people in his brakeless, bald tyred un-inspected shitbox.

You sound like a teenager raging against The Man.

 

[RyanS]

Regulations on things which are inherently dangerous to other people are understandable; regulations on things which are only dangerous when misused (isn't everything?), and/or are only dangerous to ourselves, are unjustifiable. The legitimate purpose of government is to protect individual rights, not to strip them away.

Yes, and carrying people around in a few tons of metal at instant-death speeds is inherently dangerous and something that needs to be regulated, both for the passengers and the people outside the car.

bunch of zomg government baaaaaaaaad freedom for alllll bs

Put your money where your mouth is and move somewhere with all this "freedom", there are plenty of less developed countries out there where you can do what you want. But you won't, you'll remain a keyboard warrior in the safety of your regulated society, raging against The Man until something happens to you and yours and suddenly reality will kick in, rather than freshman level anti-government rhetoric.

Anyhow, back to the real world, good post Lestat.

 

[RyanS]

Everyone willingly lets friends drive them around. People don't inspect their friends' cars for safety or expect their friends to be certified as exceptionally safe drivers. This seems like a non-issue.

Private cars don't do anywhere near the amount of kilometres a taxi would, even a temporary one like these.

Except that market forces would ensure that service is proportionate to demand. It means increased service when there's increased demand, which isn't the case and is a problem even in NYC. It also means prices and CO2 emissions would go down because cabs wouldn't spend so much time cruising around looking for passengers at off hours.

Wrong. Everyone would do things like take all the holidays off, or avoid late shifts and nobody would ever get a taxi. It's bad enough in regulated taxi markets on the big nights like NYE and so forth. And everyone would skip all the routes that lose you money, like one way trips to longer distances, or simply not answer any calls. I don't know how it is everywhere, but in Australia the license to run a taxi costs a lot of money, and you need to actually RUN a taxi, you can't decide not to have your car on the road. There needs to be enough vehicles out there to support the population, and you can't pick and choose the cushy jobs and ignore the low profit ones.

On the contrary - taxis would be cheaper, more readily available, and more flexible (as numerous individuals and startups would offer different types of service tailored for different needs, such as carpooling to work between cities for pay).

Nope, this is a fallacy. These half-assed services only can exist by relying on the regulated services to cover the rest of the market.

 

[RyanS]

That's because there are fewer taxi drivers. But in aggregate, you probably spend more time in a car with a friend at the wheel than in a taxi.

What are you even talking about? I'm telling you that commercial cars like taxis do a lot more work than private cars, thus are at far greater risk of mechanical failure, that's why they get inspected.

Why should taxi drivers be forced to work holidays? Should they not be able to see their families? And certainly if most people take holidays off, the ones who do work holidays would be able to charge more (which is entirely fair), so people without families or desire to celibrate would have an incentive to work.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Nobody is held at gunpoint to drive a taxi, and if you drive a taxi it's expected you'll have to work times like holidays and night time when other people don't want to take their car. Do you think emergency services like police, or airline pilots, support staff for utilities like power, water, communications should be able to take holidays off too? Ah too bad your power is out, we've all gone home for the Christmas period, we'll catch you after the new year! Bye!

jdale already pointed out how much fun it will be when you try to get home on NYE and there are no taxis on the road, and if you managed to get one, he'll charge you $500 to get home, laughing at the knowledge you have no choice.

As should be anyone's right.

What's with people and this ridiculous parroting of rights? If you want to earn money servicing an area as any business like transport, you need to transport anyone in the area, not just pick and choose. That's why regulation came into place.

That's silly. Sure there should be enough taxis, but the decision shouldn't be up to a bunch of bureaucrats. Just like there shouldn't be a Food Mart Board deciding how many food marts there should be per square mile.

In your massively uninformed view of the world, nobody outside a major city CBD would have power, water, phone lines, or stores, you do realise this?

If there's a market, there would be a service. Now, some routes and times might get cheaper and others might get more expensive to account for the true cost of providing the service, and some routes and times may get heavier service and others lighter service to account for the true demand. That's exactly what should happen.

Ah, the invisible hand of the market that fairly apportions required services and profits. You do know that doesn't work at all, right?

Let me ask people arguing for regulated taxis (not that I'm opposed to some regulation of taxis; just the kind here) a question. In my earlier post I related an anecdote about a carpooling service to camp. Should that have been illegal, so that for safety's sake, I wouldn't have been able to socialize and make friends, learn to swim, do sports (which as a skinny kid I really needed), do arts and crafts, etc.? If so, how is that your, and not my parents', call to make? Should the service in the article be illegal and if so, why should people knowingly opting out of regulated taxis not be allowed to do so? Who are you to make these decisions on their behalf? On the other hand, if the services in the article should be legal, why should it be legal to get around regulations via loopholes/legal subtleties and not directly?

Nobody gives a shit if people give each other rides to places. They give a shit when they try to come into a regulated industry that is regulated because of safety and fair prices, then try to make a profit without having to follow the existing regulations that everyone else has to work under. How would you like it if a competitor to your business could operate without having to pay attention to laws like fair work practises, safety, tax and corporate laws and so forth, then undercut the shit out of you?

I think people here trust regulations far too much. Many taxi regulations are not to help people. They're to benefit existing taxi companies. They fix prices to legally entrench collusion. They fix number of medallions to prevent competition. They legislate business model to prevent companies like the one in the article from coming on the scene and providing a better service, thus taking away business. They're anticompetitive; people supporting them are rationalizing them after the fact.

Yes, all those bastard rich taxi owners, making money hand over fist with their government assisted cartels! They stop driving their taxis and then go home in their limos to their mansions!

Jesus, you've clearly showed you know nothing about this, yet you are 100% sure that the regulations are there only to protect profits. Why would the government give a shit about making some taxi owners rich? You think the current taxi owners like all these regulations? It costs them a shit ton of money to comply with them.

 

[RyanS]

Maybe full-time taxis, but not the ones mentioned in this article and not casual carpooling cars, which exemplifies the problem with such regulation: it assumes something about a particular business, and thus enshrines or enforces a business model. What would be vastly preferable would be distance-based inspections for all vehicles on public roads, which would account for full-time taxis.

Try get your private car insurance to pay medical costs when they find out you crippled a paying passenger. They won't pay out for un-inspected commercial vehicles either.

Why? Should the same apply to convenience stores?

Yes? If you don't want to work nights or holidays, don't apply for a job in a business that does that?

Give me a frigging break. For one thing, police, emergency services, utilities, etc. are either public or private monopolies, and thus must provide continual service.

I didn't know there was only 1 airline, 1 communications company, 1 power company with a monopoly. Oh wait, you are full of shit, there isn't. They are forced to provide a level of service because otherwise they wouldn't provide it to anyone who wasn't maximising their profits.

Secondly, they rotate employees: some get Christmas off; some work holidays.

Hmm. So do taxi drivers.

Typically people who work holidays get extra pay.

Hmm. So do taxi drivers. Holidays are the best times to earn money.

Thirdly, they provide fundamental and essential services for society to function.

Hmm. So do taxi drivers. If they didn't, the exact company under discussion in this article wouldn't exist to try operate in the grey area of the market. Nobody would give a shit and would simply not take a taxi.

No cab driver satisfies any of these three conditions, which means it's like forcing a convenience store to operate 24/7. Don't like it? Too bad - you didn't have to run a convenience store.

0 for 3. You don't know anything about this, but you keep talking like you do.

Yeah, and we should mandate multiple convenience stores per town center because if there were just one, it could overcharge you.

A convenience store already charges more based on its opening hours. Another convenience store can't open up across the road and break regulations and undercut them.

What's with you parroting your views as fundamental axioms?

You seem confused. I'm stating what actually exists in the world. You are parroting unrealistic and completely clueless "solutions".

Why should anyone be forced to drive certain places at certain times? Why should one not be able to specialize for certain routes, times, etc.? Why should someone not be able to run an airport taxi, or a rush hour taxi, or a long-distance service, etc.?

Err, they do? And they are also regulated? Limos? Car services? Airport shuttles? Hotel shuttles?

WTF? Where the hell did that come from? I never argued anything that implies that.

Yes you did, when you made some random bureaucrat jab that the market should solve everything. That's what happens when the market is let free to run itself. Regulating industries certainly has its own problems, but it beats the alternative.

Yeah, people starve in the street because there are no grocery stores.

Sigh, stores operate under regulations as well. And uh, newflash, governments actually do operate grocery stores in areas that can't support a privately owned store, because people would literally starve in the streets otherwise.

There are no cabs either because they aren't mandated. Why exactly would cabbies not move in to fill profitable and underserved markets? There would be a clear and obvious incentive for them to do so - why would they forego that easy money?

They would, they'd go for the easy money, and leave everyone else shit out of luck. This is the part you don't understand about the world.

You weaseled out of answering the question. Should those two for-pay driving services be allowed or not?

They already exist, and are regulated.

If those laws were bullshit, I would work to get them repealed on principle so I wouldn't have to follow them either.

And if the laws weren't bullshit? You'd shrug your shoulders and let the other business sink you, right? No, you'd expect them to follow the same rules as you operate under.

The taxi drivers aren't the ones reaping the profits - it's the owners of the companies.

What companies?

Okay...

Yeah, 100% sure...

Why would the government give a shit about making some taxi owners rich?

Why would the government ever get in bed with business? You know who sounds naive?[/quote]

You? Where is this happening with taxis? Where are all these "rich companies" or whatever? Does anyone think running a taxi is actually an easy path to riches?

You think companies don't increase prices to cover that? That they don't laugh all the way to the bank due to reduced competition? You're the one with no clue.

Of course they increase prices to cover complying with the laws they operate under, every company does. And who is laughing to the bank with some evil government assisted monopoly? You are acting like there is some evil cabal of vague "taxi companies" earning millions of dollars while all the drivers earn nothing, in bed with the government and busily enacting laws and regulations to keep the gravy train going.

When actually all these regulations cost anyone who has anything to do with taxis large amounts of money.

 

[RyanS]

]No, I argued against certain regulations, not all regulations.

We've gone way off track, to get back to the heart of the matter, I agree with you, but I don't agree with this specific company trying to get away with what it's doing. It's both fraught with issues that existing regulation tries to prevent, and they are operating at the cost of the existing businesses by not complying with regulations, which is unfair or even illegal business practise.

I'd be amazed if this company survived, or at least even survived in its current form without being forced to comply with existing regulations. It's one major event from being sued into oblivion. One crash, one crippled or dead driver or passenger, one assault from either driver or passenger, and things like insurance, duty of care kick in.

 

[RyanS]

If you actually read the thread, I'd already covered that, namely that commercial vehicles do far more distance and spend far more time on the road than private, that's why they are inspected, and why their drivers are held to more stringent qualifications.

As for the rest of your post, talk about jumping off the deep end.