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.

Read the whole story

 

[MyGaffer]

There may be a debate to be had about whether regulations for taxi services are all reasonable, but one of the goals is to make sure that people get safely to their destination and charged the correct amount. The insurance requirement is also there to protect the passenger. This has a fun, easy-going feel, but I'm not sure that should really trump safety and fraud prevention.

Government simply has no compelling justification to use force (the threat of fines and/or imprisonment) to prevent an adult from contracting with another adult to do something which would otherwise be legal were money not involved. There are always well-intentioned excuses for such government intrusion on basic rights, such as fraud prevention--but fraud is already illegal, such laws already serve as a reasonable enough deterrent to prevent most of it, and the voluntary rating and reputation systems which "ride-sharing" communities use are excellent and less-intrusive ways to be proactive with the same issues professional licensing has traditionally tackled.

There can even be professional organizations which offer voluntary licensing, inspections, etc., to which companies or individuals could choose to submit for the purpose of gaining a recognized accreditation. Government need not mandate it; the market would provide for such a thing because some customers would find it an added value.

Not to mention preventing various forms of discrimination (whether not picking up certain people, or not providing services to certain areas e.g. black neighborhoods).

The idea that no one would ever serve minority communities if not for government mandates requiring it is a strangely common fixation, and a very mistaken one. Many of the reasons why this is the case are tackled in this nice little article:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Discrimination.html

and there's some great discussion about it here:

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/201 ... an_11.html

Even in then worst of times, when minority communities were pervasively discriminated against and systematically underserved, free markets allowed them to develop ways to serve themselves--e.g., Motown records, and the many Jewish institutions which developed and were at the cutting edge of economics, politics, and technology for centuries because of discrimination against them. When government decides to get involved, however, it's more often to do harm rather than good--for example "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws which worsened and codified what had been informal discrimination into formal law.

The counterargument is that regulation also serves to maintain rates at a certain level, and that may not be good for consumers. But I don't think this is the best solution, especially given that part of why they are undercutting the competition is by cutting corners on licensing, vehicle maintenance, and employee pay and benefits (since basically they are getting a large number of part-timers to do the work).

It's not a legitimate role of government to create artificial scarcities and barriers to entry, even if the goal is artificially increasing wages and benefits--because government can only do so by violating one party's basic rights in order to enrich another party. That's bad enough, but then government licensing mandates for things as basic as sharing transportation or the like always lag behind the times when disruptive technologies develop and prop up old, inefficient industries at a great cost to their forced-to-keep-using-them customers.

Last point, undercut taxi services this way, who is going to provide taxi services in the middle of the night? Is Lyft going to get volunteers for those shifts too?

There will always be a need for actual taxi and/or similar professional services for just this reason. We'd just need fewer of them overall, and they'd specialize in these high-demand times. The market adjusts to serve whatever conditions in which it finds itself--that's one of the advantages of having a free market: it's flexible to changing circumstances.

Except that many people in our society are willing to trade some freedoms for a safer life. This is not always a bad thing as you make it out to be.

Do you think the FDA should be abolished? I mean any adult should be able to pay any other adult for any old food and any old drug he cares to sell right? Regardless of whether the food if tainted or the drugs are safe. We give up a little bit of freedom for safer food and medicine. There are reasons for the current regulation of taxis.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

While regulation does have its place, and there are absolutely gray areas this quote does not cover, the OP does make valid points. Comparing tainted food or medicine with a ride sharing service is excessive, since taxi service is not necessary for preserving life. If you're not comfortable with the service, feel free to walk, but don't ruin this for everyone else.

Who is ruining what? The people on this forum are debating how much regulation of industry we should have in this country and others. None of us are going to be shutting down these services ourselves.

 

[Nom]

No one reasonable wants a completely unregulated world. It's desirable however to have a rational framework to determine when regulations are called for, rather than allowing random and unjustified regulations to spring into existence anywhere and everywhere.

But that's exactly the situation we already have in the western world
It's not rational to argue that most regulation is "random" !

What's more, the Western world and its high quality of life would never have developed had today's restrictive thickets of regulation existed so pervasively in previous centuries. It's when industries are new, disruptive, and less regulated that they have the power to advance rapidly...

But as we've pointed out, there are heaps of countries you can visit right now that don't have "thickets of regulation".
Far from being the awesome hotbeds of innovation that you imagine, they're mostly third-world shitholes. You wouldn't want to live in them, and you wouldn't want to regularly travel by taxi in them - especially if you were female...

 

[Monsieur Contraire]

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.

RyanS the fact of the matter is that these "few tons of metal" are already regulated by state and federal agencies even if they're not acting as taxis. Still with said regulations accidents happen for the reason that regulations can't prevent all the dangers we face, nor should they.

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.

Speaking about reality; the reality is that anyone of our friends/family members riding in a registered, and regulated, taxi may die because of "some jerkoff running around in his brakeless, bald tyred un-inspected shitbox" causing an accident with said taxi resulting in their death. Should we in the end outlaw all driving for it being too prone to cause grevious harm, or is that a suggestion that's too absurd even for you? If so where do we draw the line between personal liberty and the desire to regulate that liberty? Regardless of what you feel about these startups, and whether or not they should be regulated further, in the end you, me, your friends, my family are all going to have accidents, get hurt, and die, while no amount of legislation will halt that. These injections of hyperbolic concerns, which would only be rare, edge cases at best, appear to me the failed logic of an overly reactionary mind.

 

[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.

 

[ProfessorGuy]

You need a ride in my area? Just stick out your thumb. I've picked up EVERY hitchhiker I've seen since I got my license 30 years ago.

Not only will the ride be free, I'll go right to your door (even if it's out of my way).

And if the day comes that I get mugged, it won't stop me. That's just the way I roll.

 

[Deleted member 1]

You need a ride in my area? Just stick out your thumb. I've picked up EVERY hitchhiker I've seen since I got my license 30 years ago.

Not only will the ride be free, I'll go right to your door (even if it's out of my way).

And if the day comes that I get mugged, it won't stop me. That's just the way I roll.

In some places, this works. On the small island where I grew up, I hitchhiked from time to time, and picked up hitchhikers from time to time. Only once did I feel threatened, and it was just a guy who gave me the creeps.

However, I am NOT going to get into some random person's car in San Francisco. I like to think that I'm stronger than the average 110 lb girl, but that's not saying much. In general, I try to avoid putting myself into private one-on-one situations with strange men.

I predict that the majority of girls will see it as I do, which will result in this carshare being predominantly men, which will result in a deterrent for girls, which will result in this carshare being predominantly men...

 

[michaelbrazell]

It's a great idea, but just wait until localities get wind of it and how it's used. Taxi services have a legal monopoly on city driving services in most major cities, by locking out competition, requiring non-licensed-taxi services to charge double and triple the fairs, by law. It's justified because taxis provide free services in their contracts (ie, escorting the handicapped or operating 24/7). But this is waiting to get legislated on city-levels.

 

[Pinko!]

Who wants a hot pink mustache ride?

 

[Serapas]

Are you required to use the ridiculous "Carstache"? Right there I would be out the door....

 

[JeroenB]

I would suggest that it is the responsibility of the State to ensure the provision of full-coverage (time & place) public transport for a reasonable price. This may be provided by a public body, such as many national rail networks were until recently, or procured directly by a public body, such as bus and tram companies often are, or provided through regulation, such as in the case of taxi companies, where through the mandated licensing there is some mechanism to ensure coverage to out-of-the-way locations at unusual hours.

If one's child becomes ill in the middle of the night (but not so seriously that they dispatch an ambulance), I feel it is certainly the responsibility of the State to have ensured some means whereby one can travel to hospital, for instance (via laws which delegate to local authorities who create regulation under which they license private companies) in a guaranteed available, reasonably-affordable taxi ride rather than relying on 'the market' to lead to possibly maybe someone being prepared to take you for some extortionate price.


That is of course a separate question from whether it is fair or desireable for entities operating a more limited version of essentially the same service but outside the licensing model to be allowed to compete with or even undercut those choosing to operate within the licensing model. And even if the answer to both is 'no', whether that is sufficiently serious to warrant regulation preventing them from operating such a service.

I would say that if left unchecked, there would gradually be no reason for even 'official' taxi companies to remain within the licensed model; eventually this would lead to public authorities having to contract service for undesireable places and times in order to maintain full coverage, at no doubt significantly higher cost to the taxpayer. (Of course if one disagrees with my full coverage opinion, this is a non-issue.)


Concerning the services in question, as others have pointed out, if someone pays me to drive from a random place where I am not to another random place where I am not otherwise interested in going, I fail to see how that is not a taxi service. Ride-sharing implies that I am taking someone more or less from where I am now to more or less where I want to go anyway, and if they pay me at all it is not significantly more than recompense for their portion of costs incurred (fuel, tolls). It should not include recompense for my time. I assume the travelling-to-camp example raised falls in the latter category, in which case it seems to me perfectly allowable -- as long as the driver's insurance and driver's license covers the transport of the number of people in question. (In the Netherlands, a normal license permits the tansport of eight people in addition to the driver.)

 

[onkeljonas]

So still no explanation why anyone would want to drive for these companies?

 

[Superman Pants]

Quick register "pinkmustache.com" and start a car service!

 

[jdale]

So still no explanation why anyone would want to drive for these companies?

They get paid - at least potentially, since nominally it is a "donation". And there is no long-term commitment. Essentially it's a job you can take on the side or while you are waiting for something better to show up.

Of course, once you reduce it to that, it follows that it is a taxi service...

 

[onkeljonas]

So still no explanation why anyone would want to drive for these companies?

They get paid - at least potentially, since nominally it is a "donation". And there is no long-term commitment. Essentially it's a job you can take on the side or while you are waiting for something better to show up.

Of course, once you reduce it to that, it follows that it is a taxi service...

So an hourly rate of 13-18$ - minus driving expenses (gas + wear and tear) and taxes of course, is worth considering for someone with a nice and new-ish car?
Serious question since Danish rates, taxes and costs of living aren't comparable.

 

[yupyup]

So still no explanation why anyone would want to drive for these companies?

They get paid - at least potentially, since nominally it is a "donation". And there is no long-term commitment. Essentially it's a job you can take on the side or while you are waiting for something better to show up.

Of course, once you reduce it to that, it follows that it is a taxi service...

So an hourly rate of 13-18$ - minus driving expenses (gas + wear and tear) and taxes of course, is worth considering for someone with a nice and new-ish car?
Serious question since Danish rates, taxes and costs of living aren't comparable.

I have been asking myself that same question. Considering how long these services have been around I find it a little surprising that I cannot find many reviews from actual drivers.

What I would like to know is if you slapped that pink mustache on your car and went full-time as a driver for Lyft how much would spend out of your pocket a day to cover expenses. Gas, tolls, parking, etc.

 

[DanNeely]

Why was this article resurrected to the front page without any updates?

 

[Eric]

DanNeely:

We're running some older content while we're in meetings.

Also, there's an update at the top of the feature that you might have missed:

We reported in July on the rise of two San Francisco ridesharing startups, Lyft and SideCar. Both companies have since expanded their reach in the Bay Area, and have yet to run into any thorny legal issues so far. These ride-sharing companies claim that they are not taxi companies, even though they act very similar to taxi companies. The pair is serving a much smaller area than Uber, a smartphone-powered black-car service focusing on the upper tier of the market. Uber, which also operates in San Francisco, has been facing increasing legal scrutiny in cities around the country. Last week, Washington, DC, again proposed new anti-Uber regulations, this time banning car firms with less than 20 cars in their fleet. Recently, though, the company beat back a state-issued cease-and-desist order in Massachusetts to successfully launch in Boston. Uber—which still operates in San Francisco—remains under investigation by the California Public Utilities Commission, the state agency that regulates limousines. As Lyft and SideCar expand in the City by the Bay, they may end up facing similar legal challenges.

 

[Tundro Walker]

There may be a debate to be had about whether regulations for taxi services are all reasonable, but one of the goals is to make sure that people get safely to their destination and charged the correct amount.

I'd have to agree with this, and jdale's post in general. Taxis are expensive, sure, and part of that expense is due to regulation. That doesn't mean regulation is a bad thing.

I rather suspect this will be like Prosper. Giddy feel-good beginning, but it'll grow more and more akin to established business models (in this case, taxi services) over time, until it essentially is a taxi service for consumers.

Some cities have cost-prohibitive regulation in place preventing individuals from entering the market.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/ ... 6220070530

I thought the idea of ride-share was that while you were out and about, you'd periodically check the app. If someone came up that was along the way or where you were and going to your destination (plus offering a fee to your liking), you'd offer to give them a lift.

The way the article went on, it sounded like a normal taxi service just trying to skirt around taxi regulations.

 

[xoa]

DanNeely:

We're running some older content while we're in meetings.

That's not a bad idea at all, and it is fun to see some blasts from the past. That said, it's also not clear at all right now. It'd be nice if you could sticky a notice at the top along the lines of what you just said ("We're in meetings and resurrecting some stuff") and even better if you could tag old stories as "From the Archives" or similar. It was confusing to see multiple old runs all of a sudden, some of which of course are so old that no one can even comment on them.

 

[DOOManiac]

Thanks for rerunning this one Ars, I missed it the first time.

Oddly enough, the first time I missed it was because I was visiting a 3rd world country w/ lots of unlicensed taxis.

It was very concerning to just get in someone's car who has a bad attitude w/o knowing anything about them, especially after you just saw them yell at an airport employee for not letting them cut in line. And they drive crazy, and a few even smell badly. But then we left New York and went to the third world country!

 

[cfarivar]

DanNeely:

We're running some older content while we're in meetings.

That's not a bad idea at all, and it is fun to see some blasts from the past. That said, it's also not clear at all right now. It'd be nice if you could sticky a notice at the top along the lines of what you just said ("We're in meetings and resurrecting some stuff") and even better if you could tag old stories as "From the Archives" or similar. It was confusing to see multiple old runs all of a sudden, some of which of course are so old that no one can even comment on them.

More details here.

http://meincmagazine.com/staff/2012/09/we ... ight-back/

Thanks for reading!

 

[Eraserhead]

They did do it for money, albeit probably not much.

Expenses != Pay.

Regardless, why does that matter - why should an action become illegal as soon as it's done for pay?

Because offering people lifts is different from a taxi service.

 

[Zak]

As if taxi drivers weren't bad enough already we now have amateur taxi drivers... great.

Does anyone really believe that journalist trying the service to write about just HAPPENS to get the head guy's of both companies on their fist pickup for each company? Seriously? That does not pass the smell test.

LOL, yeah, that too!

 

[cfarivar]

As if taxi drivers weren't bad enough already we now have amateur taxi drivers... great.

Does anyone really believe that journalist trying the service to write about just HAPPENS to get the head guy's of both companies on their fist pickup for each company? Seriously? That does not pass the smell test.

LOL, yeah, that too!

I swear it was coincidence!

 

[Francisco.G]

2 months ago in San Francisco, when I first saw the pink "carstache" around, I actually thought it was a gay pride thing.

 

[valkyriebiker]

There may be a debate to be had about whether regulations for taxi services are all reasonable, but one of the goals is to make sure that people get safely to their destination and charged the correct amount.

There's definitely room for debate. I submit the real reason this level of regulation still exists is due to the enormous sums of money in taxi medallions. Existing operators with medallions valued in the six figures are screaming bloody murder that funky start-ups like Lyft and SideCar are skimming the cream.

There's much history of corruption and momentum in the existing approved livery of most large cities that true sweeping change is unlikely.

There are new and interesting ways to run car services but these ideas are swatted to the ground like so many June bugs, all in the name of "protecting the public" when it's really about protecting turf. It's certainly one area where market forces aren't allowed to work.

 

[Isolateral]

I hate articles that talk about services that are:

a) fucking cool
b) not available where I live

QQ

 

[santos-l-halper]

The ride share companies have an interesting idea but are doomed to failure. Relying upon strangers to be your taxi fleet just won't work except in specific areas and under limited circumstances. There are legal issues that will destroy these ideas. Your average person won't trust these services over Taxi Inc. company.



Uber is different but not much so than a traditional taxi. You just need customers that are willing to pay a decent amount more for an almost equivalent service as a regular taxi. Again, I don't see widespread adoption of this model.

 

[Deleted member 274645]

I like how rapidly this degenerated into a left vs right discussion. A lot of good points being made by each side, would just be nice if people stopped calling each other stupid because they disagree.

 

[trlkly]

Guys, stop responding to the libertarian. He practices a failed ideology that every nation in the world flees from as soon as they can afford it. There's no chance that logic will change his mind, and there's no chance that anyone will ever do what he says, so there's no point in arguing with him.

Once you get started talking about the government's place in dealing with people when the government is run by those same people who get to choose the governments places, you're just talking in circles. It's just "I don't like the way other people do things, and I want to force them to change." Not freedom, as freedom includes the freedom to give up some freedom.

 

[MaLookNoPants]

This transportation innovation could give me a lyft to my dalmatian plantation.

 

[erikengh]

Another legal area is liability insurance.

I considered creating a less formal (and free) car-sharing website years ago, just as a hobbyist project, but was advised that I would need to take out liability insurance to do so. If anyone using the site was involved in an accident causing injury, I could potentially be considered partially liable, and be forced to pay up.

No matter how many disclaimers I put up on the site, if there was a particularly nasty lawyer pursuing damages, there was the potential for huge costs in the case of an accident.

This advice was based on Australian law, but I doubt the situation would be any different in the US.

That advice basically put an end to the plan.

Liability insurance isn't cheap. These guys would have to be earning a pretty decent income from the service to just cover the insurance costs. If that is the case, it's hard to argue that they're not a transport company.

What if you created a peer to peer services so it was not really running on any particular server or owned by a particular individual.

 

[Daneel]

even though they act very similarly to taxi companies

TFTFY

 

[omniron]

This is the natural state of self driving cars. Why would you buy a car when you can make a request in an app, and have a self driving car pull up in minutes? Less Cars means less pollution, traffic, etc.

 

[agrczqsj]

The EFF? They're not a charity, they're a lobbying arm of the consumer electronics ass. and the folks at Google. They hate writers, artists, singers and any creators who don't give away their work for free. So if you don't have a trustfund, you can't be an artist.

If you're going to give money to a charity, at least find one that's not devoted to making a few billionaires richer.

 

[Zassounotsukushi]

Once you get started talking about the government's place in dealing with people when the government is run by those same people who get to choose the governments places, you're just talking in circles. It's just "I don't like the way other people do things, and I want to force them to change." Not freedom, as freedom includes the freedom to give up some freedom.

Any intelligent libertarian recognizes this. But the critical question is what level of consent is needed for someone to give up a freedom. I would love to be able to vote to decide whether or not I give away a freedom, but unfortunately, we are nowhere near that level of democratic.

There are extremes on both sides obviously. If you can't take away a freedom without the consent of every resident, then that translates into never being able to do anything. Someone could move in and demand that they're entitled to the freedom to do something you don't like and you wouldn't be able to enforce the rule, because the rule no longer has the mandate of the citizenry by a certain criteria.

In the other extreme, however, we have leaders who make decisions without consenting the population at all, operate devoid of public scrutiny, and answer to powerful industry groups. We're obviously much closer to this case with current Taxi regulations.

 

[lenomatic1]

Greetings, I drive a cab here in SF, & yes, the cab industry here ain't perfect, but these Lyft drivers are belittling my profession. I've gone to taxi school, & pay taxes to the City & County of San Francisco to drive. I don't sit in a flourescently lit cubicle, tweaked on redbull, writing code, & then drive for a donation. Want a FREE ride? make your "donation" $0.oo!!!! peace, Lenny try the other hailing apps like InstantCab & Flywheel.