'Radio' calls and calls they've privately arranged with customers as well.
>Taxis have regulations set by an organisation.
That would be local by-law in most cases.
>Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route.
You can't intentionally ripoff customers but the fastest route and the cheapest are often different. You can take whatever route you want as long as the customer is cool with it.
>In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination.
You absolutely can refuse a customer as long as it's not descriminatory, like most other businesses.
>Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee?
Some drivers are employees, some are best compared to franchisees and others are totally independent.
You absolutely can refuse a customer as long as it's not descriminatory, like most other businesses.
Depends on your jurisdiction.
For example, taxi drivers in Chicago were notorious for refusing to take people on trips that were too short, or too far out of the CBD. Sometimes they'd even refuse to take people from downtown to the airport because if traffic is bad, or there was a long wait in the staging area at the airport, it would cut into their profits.
Chicago made that behavior illegal. It still happens occasionally. But if you know the law, you can do what I do and sit in the cab and refuse to get out while offering to call the police to have an officer explain the rules to the driver.
That's a fair point, they forbid you refusing short trips most places I'm familiar with. I wasn't really thinking about that in this case, mostly people asking you to take them sketchy places or belligerent customers which are the only reasons I consider it. An important distinction is it's local law that forbids that, not a company policy like with Uber.
Just a few days ago I had some drunk customers screaming at me in my cab and shaking my seat under the impression I was legally required to drive them. They earned a very long walk home to think about it.
Just a few days ago I had some drunk customers screaming at me in my cab and shaking my seat under the impression I was legally required to drive them. They earned a very long walk home to think about it.
I had a nearly identical situation when I Ubered. In spite of multiple warnings, their behavior didn't improve. When I dropped them off in the middle of nowhere they insisted that I was required by law to carry them. Nope. I'm not a public bus.
The pax make a lot of threats about reporting me to Uber and the police and whatnot, but as far as I know, nothing became of it. I never heard anything, and I never got anything deducted from my earnings, as far as I noticed.
In my experience, the first thing that happens when anyone calls Uber with a complaint is they get their fare refunded. That's usually enough to cool most people off.
> You absolutely can refuse a customer as long as it's not descriminatory, like most other businesses.
Are you sure this is the law in France?
And remember that Uber operates in several countries. When discussions about this happens we have to remember that each country have it's own rules and laws, and we cannot expect that the law in your country is the only law exists.
>we cannot expect that the law in your country is the only law exists.
I doubt federal law covers taxi regulations in any country, it's generally local by-law or equivalent. The regulations are going to be different in Paris than they are in Lyon.
In Brazil the federal law L12468 [1] regulates the taxi driver profession.
The federal law L8078 [2], known as the Consumer Protection Code, protects (as the name says) the consumer in any transaction, be it products or services.
The section 39 subsection 9 states that:
"Art. 39. É vedado ao fornecedor de produtos ou serviços, dentre outras práticas abusivas:
[...]
IX - recusar a venda de bens ou a prestação de serviços, diretamente a quem se disponha a adquiri-los mediante pronto pagamento, ressalvados os casos de intermediação regulados em leis especiais"
In a free translation:
"Art. 39. The supplier of products or services is prohibited, among other abusive practices:
[...]
IX - to refuse the sale of goods or the provision of services, directly to anyone who is willing to acquire them upon prompt payment, except in cases of intermediation regulated in special laws"
This is just an example of how the law structure can be so different between countries. Brazil as France are based on the civil law, instead of common law as in the United States.
I really don't know how is in France and I am not saying it is like Brazil. I'm just saying that with so many countries in the world doesn't make sense to expect the rest of the world to be like your home.
I find it amusing that in the course of chiding me for allegedly assuming laws are the same in all countries you assumed I'm American (I'm not).
I'm a taxi driver speaking generally about the differences in our job vs. Uber drivers. I will now step back and let the software developers argue about things they know nothing about.
I know very little about it but it seems a pretty idiotic sector with strange rules in every village. In NL they will deliver 12 euro worth of food for free 25 km away. A 500 meter taxi ride will cost at least 10 euro. 100 euro for 50 km. I read stories about other places where prices are so low they cant realistically pay for the car.
It's pretty common everywhere. Imagine waiting (potentially hours) queued in a taxi stand for a fare, only to get somebody with a $5 trip who's rude and smells like they haven't showered in a decade.
None of the people who make the taxi regulations (or the passengers who invent their own in the back seat) would accept that person if it was their own car, but taxi drivers are seen as contemptible and unworthy of basic human decency by a staggering portion of the population. I am a white driver so I get treated much better than most, but it's still mind blowing to see. I understand why taxi drivers start to give 0 f's after a while.
>Imagine waiting (potentially hours) queued in a taxi stand for a fare, only to get somebody with a $5 trip who's rude and smells like they haven't showered in a decade.
I agree, we should pay taxi drivers a living wage so that this can't happen.
>we should pay taxi drivers a living wage so that this can't happen.
The drivers this affects most are the ones who are self-employed. You could increase fare prices but riders would just go to ride-sharing platforms where the drivers have less overhead due to less regulation.
What municipalities (or whatever jurisdiction is responsible) need to do is relax taxi regulations so taxi drivers can be more competitive with ride-sharing apps (or the opposite and hold Uber/Lyft to the same standards).
Taxi drivers can pick up anyone on their own terms (with some limitations from local laws). Uber drivers on the other hand can only legally pick up rides dispatched from Uber or another ride-sharing app. That's all they're insured for and that's all local laws will allow because they don't have status as licensed taxi drivers in a licensed vehicle.
A customer can hand me cash and nobody gets a piece except the government. An Uber driver cannot accept cash or payment outside the Uber app or they will be fired.
(French) VTC may actually pick up anyone on their own terms providing the ride was booked in advance by the customer (ie. they can't pick someone in the street). The customer may order through a ride-sharing app, or through any other means, eg. by phone, email, whatever.
What Uber forbids is building up such a clientele from customers it brought through the app.
What are you talking about? Maybe you are referencing how Uber works in the some American state? This is France and that's not how the regulation works there. US-centrisism at it's finest.
Uber drivers can't pick up hailed rides anywhere. That has nothing to do with the jurisdiction, it's simply not a function of the app. If they did, they would be taxi drivers.
I think you're coming from a completely wrong view point. There are no "Uber drivers" these are taxi drivers that choose to (at times) use the Uber app to get clients.
Depending on the local jursidiction, they might be absolutely free to do street pickups.
For example in Finland someone driving for Uber could pickup someone from the street.
They may be free to do it under local law, but they would not be doing it as an Uber driver, they would be doing so as a taxi driver.
There is no ability to use the Uber platform for hailed or other ad-hoc rides, they must be ordered through the platform and all payments must go through Uber.
Uber provides the commercial insurance to drivers they need when carrying passengers, for example (pretty sure they do this in all areas they operate, but I'll wait with bated breath to be told they don't in Bulgaria). If a taxi driver who also worked for Uber picked up a hailed ride it would not cover them.
Exactly, so we agree on the point - there are no 'uber drivers' per se, they are just contractors driving a car and intermittently using services to find clientele.
Uber provides some insurance in _most_ countries they operate in, but it's quite often the case that this is not enough and that other insurance (usually specific for their classification e.g. Taxi Driver insurance, or VTC insurance) is required. So your point on insurance is quite moot.
What's actually interesting is that some of Uber's competitors do have a street-hailing functionality, where the app essentially works as a virtual card terminal for hand-hailed rides. Cool!
Yes, your point? You need different insurance if you're going to be driving 10 hours per day instead of just to work, and from work. Who would have guessed?
My apologies, I think I started off on a bit of a negative tone because I might have mistakenly analyzed your comments as a bit pompous and disrespectful as well. If that was not your intention, my bad. I should always better assume best intentions, not to mention discuss is always more productive if we stay on a positive tone.
What I wanted to establish here is that
1) Conditions for driving for a ridehailing platform differ massively by city or by country.
2) I do not know of any countries which classify "uber drivers' as any form of legal classification. There might be a distinction between taxis, and other forms of "private for hire transport services", which is again an argument for treating these as independent contractors.
I drive a taxi in a rich community 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Trust me when I say any pompousness was beaten out of me some time ago. :)
You've made some reasonable points for sure. The universal difference between traditional taxi drivers and Uber drivers that I want to reiterate is that truly self-employed taxi drivers are paid directly by customers, whereas Uber drivers are always paid exclusively by Uber. That, I feel, is a very important distinction when comparing their employment status.
Here in Ontario rideshare drivers and taxi drivers both have different legal status. Most legislation is on the municipal level but there is provincial law as well that makes the distinction.
'Radio' calls and calls they've privately arranged with customers as well.
>Taxis have regulations set by an organisation.
That would be local by-law in most cases.
>Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route.
You can't intentionally ripoff customers but the fastest route and the cheapest are often different. You can take whatever route you want as long as the customer is cool with it.
>In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination.
You absolutely can refuse a customer as long as it's not descriminatory, like most other businesses.
>Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee?
Some drivers are employees, some are best compared to franchisees and others are totally independent.