Posted on

The Great Trenton Cab War

Marco Rubio Speech On Innovation At Uber's DC Offices

Marco Rubio Speech On Innovation At Uber's DC Offices

Assembly Transportation Committee passes ride-share regulatory bill opposed by Uber

TRENTON – After all-day pushing and shoving between union taxi cab drivers and non-union drivers, the Assembly Transportation Committee this afternoon passed a thorny labor-backed bill aimed at protecting the safety of passengers who use Uber Technologies and similar ride-sharing services. (Pizarro/PolitickerNJ)

Assembly Transportation Committee passes ride-share regulatory bill opposed by Uber | New Jersey News, Politics, Opinion, and Analysis

 

The Great Trenton Cab War

TRENTON -Cabs cluttered West State Street again this morning in a cabbie war with an Assembly Transportation hearing on the legislative horizon.

Screaming “No justice, no peace, no justice, no peace,” Communications Workers of America (CWA) members tramped around the statuary outside the Statehouse Annex in advance of a hearing for a bill that would impose restrictions on the smartphone-based ridesharing service company Uber.   (Pizarro/PolitickerNJ)

The Great Trenton Cab War | New Jersey News, Politics, Opinion, and Analysis

 

Posted on

To Delete or Not to Delete: That’s the Uber Question

new-uber-logo

To Delete or Not to Delete: That’s the Uber Question

Call it Uber Angst.

This is a new quandary faced by customers reliant on Uber’s on-demand taxi app but unsettled about supporting a company whose attitudes toward privacy and women have been making headlines.

Margit Detweiler, founder of the website TueNight.com, is among those wondering what to do.

Last week, she was late for a conference and needed a ride, quickly. “I was faced with a moral dilemma,” she said.

The desire for punctuality won out, and she ordered a car from her Uber app. When she arrived at the conference, a friend sheepishly confessed to her that she, too, had used Uber to get there on time. “We thought we should tweet, ‘We have ‘Uber Shame,’ ” Ms. Detweiler said.

Her conflicted feelings reflect an intensifying refrain coming recently from devotees. They are re-examining their relationship with the company after reading about last week’s comments made by Emil Michael, Uber’s senior vice president for business at Uber, who suggested that the company hire researchers to spy on journalists critical of Uber’s policies and executives.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/fashion/uber-delete-emil-michael-scandal.html?_r=0

Posted on

Regulators wreck Uber innovation

Uber-How-To-Use

“Great opinion piece in USA TODAY about how unnecessary regulation and government overreach destroys jobs, raises unemployment and hurts your ability to get better goods and services for a decent price. The author, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, uses taxis as an example, but you can apply this scenario to virtually every U.S. industry.”  Rep Scott Garrett

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/06/09/uber-lyft-taxi-transportation-regulators-column/10198131/

 

Regulators wreck Uber innovation

Glenn Harlan Reynolds1:53 p.m. EDT June 10, 2014

Ride-share services benefit consumers, but the taxi commission doesn’t want to give us a good deal.

The regulatory knives are out for Uber and Lyft, two ride-sharing services that make life easier for consumers and provide employment opportunities in a stagnant economy. Why are regulatorsunhappy? Basically, because these new services offer insufficient opportunity for graft.

Services like Uber and Lyft disrupt the current regulatory environment. I have the Uber app on my phone. If I need a car in areas where Uber operates, it looks up where I am using GPS, matches me with participating drivers nearby, and in my experience gets me a Town Car in just a few minutes. It’s the comfort of a limo service, with the convenience of a taxicab. I get a better service, the driver gets a job, but now there’s competition for those entrenched companies.

In most cities, traditional taxi services are regulated by some sort of taxi commission. Similarly, limo services — the ones that provide the black Town Cars favored by big shots (and used by many Uber drivers) — are regulated by some sort of livery office. The rules strictly forbid the two sectors of the market from competing with one another. And, generally, entry is limited so that neither faces too much competition in general. In holding down competition, these regulators act on behalf of the entities they supposedly regulate for the benefit of consumers.

They do this because consumers typically pay very little attention to taxi and limo regulations while the regulated industries, unsurprisingly, pay very close attention. They express their gratitude in a variety of ways, some legal, and the regulators in turn look after the interests of the regulated. Consumer well-being is a far less significant concern.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/06/09/uber-lyft-taxi-transportation-regulators-column/10198131/