Uber to Resume in Calgary December 6 2016

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Ducay

They do regulate zoning quite stringently.

They also set standards which must be maintained for businesses to be licensed to operate in the City. Health, Safety, insurance, must all be adequately maintained for any Pho shop.

Same thing is generally being regulated under the livery bylaws. Ensuring there are minimum standards of service, regulated rates, insurance, inspections, etc, are all done in the CONSUMER's name, not to protect some taxicab oligopoly.

Don't get me wrong, I like Uber and the current taxi system is broken, but your arguments against the city's regulations just make you sound ignorant to how the world operates. This cannot be the wild west with a race to the bottom.

K, that's just a dumb comparison. Health and safety doesn't mean they limit how many pho places can open up. I'm not disagreeing with health and safety regulations, I'm disagreeing with the city regulating competition.

[Fuzz]

They do it for Liquor stores...

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by transplant99

I am 100% positive this simply is not true.

What sticker? Who issues it? Where do these inspections take place?

as for passenger vehicles, the only inspections required are for those from out of province and those more than 10 years old IIRC and that's solely for registration purposes. Nothing to do with city ordinance.

For the taxi industry, onsite taxi inspections take place by the taxi inspectors who are bylaw enforcement / peace officers. What gets inspected is spelled out in the livery services bylaw. otherwise i believe is is every six months at a designated commercial garages.

https://www.calgary.ca/CA/city-clerk...f?noredirect=1

SChedule C is the taxi inspection mechanical requirements.

[para transit fellow]

apparently Aviva has started started cancelling policies of policy holders driving for Uber

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hal...x-drivers.html

[TheSutterDynasty]

Just had a cabbie nearly side swipe me. Looking forward for more good stories about Uber tomorrow.

[Sainters7]

We went out downtown for Halloween, I was all excited for my first ever Uber ride for the way back, even got the app & crap ready to go in advance yesterday...then I forgot my phone at home when we were pre-gaming. That was a kick in the pants.

Thankfully cabs seemed to be in ample supply, think I waited less than 30sec for one.


Posted from Calgarypuck.com App for Android

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

Just had a cabbie nearly side swipe me. Looking forward for more good stories about Uber tomorrow.

You could have been nearly side swiped, rear ended, or run off the road by an Uber driver as well. You just wouldn't know it because they don't have signs on their cars.

[malcolmk14]

The cab lineup at Rexall after the game last night was hilarious, so we walked across the street and got an Uber to come to the Husky station. He was there in 10 minutes and we were back at our hotel 10 minutes after that.

Cab on the way to the game cost $11.80, Uber on the way back from the game due to 1.5x surge pricing was $15.50.

Good experience. The guy was nice, just drove people on the weekends to make some extra cash to support his family. Will definitely take an Uber again.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by Amethyst

You could have been nearly side swiped, rear ended, or run off the road by an Uber driver as well. You just wouldn't know it because they don't have signs on their cars.

Not my fault they're better at PR!

[peter12]

I took a cab last night and the driver was delightful.

The only thing was that he was from another country and this was his only source of income.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

apparently Aviva has started started cancelling policies of policy holders driving for Uber

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hal...x-drivers.html

An UberX driver without access to fleet insurance prices would likely have to pay about $23,000 a year for high-risk coverage, Comerford has previously estimated.

$23,000? Ouch - getting properly insured under the current Insurance products that exist pretty much means that it's highly unlikely that any Uber driver has the proper insurance.

I still don't know why Uber doesn't get a fleet policy for all it's drivers....though I suspect it has to do with their profitability....

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

I still don't know why Uber doesn't get a fleet policy for all it's drivers....though I suspect it has to do with their profitability....

I appreciate that people love the Uber experience what with the conversation that they previously didn't want with taxi drivers and bottles of water and all that, but they are a greasy company.

Again, ultimately it's not really the customer's issue to care about ethics, as we're just paying money to get somewhere and the cheapest, best option is what the masses will take, but what they're doing is taking something that isn't legal to be doing, and putting all the liability on the driver.

The reason they remain in good standing with the public is because of exactly what you see in this thread; People in most cities are so irate with taxi service that Uber is a complete breath of fresh air to the user. The drivers however are not wise at all to be working for this company, they're playing with fire and I suspect we'll eventually see a case of this in Calgary at some point.

[jayswin]

Basically they use a lot of complicated, dodgy language to dance around the fact that they're company model is "We fully understand that our drivers aren't properly insured to drive passengers for money, but we've deceitfully removed ourselves from that part of the process, so we just take money from the drivers and they do what they do".

Here's why Uber works;

- Drivers don't get class 4 licenses (or whatever equivalent depending on location.

- Drivers don't pay the actual insurance required to transport paying passengers (tens of thousands per year)

- Because of this they gain a huge pool of non-professional drivers who treat a very legally regulated profession like it's a part time paper route for extra cash, unknowingly or willingly putting themselves in a very scary position to ruin their lives should an injury/crash insurance issue come up.

- Uber finds loopholes to absolve themselves of most legalities, and when they are held accountable, who cares because they're making billions.

So in a nutshell, Uber works because the company makes billions and the customer either doesn't know or doesn't care about the way they operate because there's no risk to the customer. But the drivers are the idiots, imo. They're the reason the company works and they're jobs aren't real, they're taking on potentially life altering risk for some extra pocket cash.

But it's because of all these casual drivers that Uber works so well, because they're just regular guys/girls sitting on a couch, seeing a request pop up and then heading out to the location with a smile and a bottle of water and making it look like a hero company to the end user.

There's a lot more to Uber resistance in cities like ours than "muslim mayor protecting taxi cartels", and they're wise to resist, imo. It's not legal and customers loving the experience shouldn't make any city officials go "well, the customers love it too much so we'll just let it be".

[peter12]

Hah, nice one, Jayswin. I get and support why anyone would hate the taxi cartels. Nevermind that Uber's end goal is to end up being a far more powerful and dominant monopoly then any regional cab company could ever hope to be. The end game with Uber is always the same. Artificially lower transport rates and drive down the price of labour to take advantage of the excess supply of personal vehicles. Clever. Maybe not sustainable. Not to say we don't need to clean up the livery industry in some major ways. I just don't believe Uber is that solution.

Never mind that most people in this thread keep blending bad taxi cartel criticism with semi-racist hints of " I don't like how people from another country smell."

As well, given the near constant level of abuse that many drivers face from their inebriated, entitled customers it is a small wonder that a lot of drivers are a bit stand-offish.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by peter12

Hah, nice one, Jayswin. I get and support why anyone would hate the taxi cartels. Nevermind that Uber's end goal is to end up being a far more powerful and dominant monopoly then any regional cab company could ever hope to be. The end game with Uber is always the same. Artificially lower transport rates and drive down the price of labour to take advantage of the excess supply of personal vehicles. Clever. Maybe not sustainable. Not to say we don't need to clean up the livery industry in some major ways. I just don't believe Uber is that solution.

Never mind that most people in this thread keep blending bad taxi cartel criticism with semi-racist hints of " I don't like how people from another country smell."

As well, given the near constant level of abuse that many drivers face from their inebriated, entitled customers it is a small wonder that a lot of drivers are a bit stand-offish.

Absolutely. I have a couple buddies that are/were taxi drivers, and discussing the love affair with Uber the point that kept coming up was "My experience being an immigrant taxi driver that tries to be polite and offer a friendly experience ranges mostly from annoyed disinterest to rude, abrasive language telling me not converse, just drive".

I know there's bad taxi drivers, but if you get to know immigrants in that industry you'll start to see that they are generally treated pretty horribly by white Calgarians. And yes, even being annoyedly dismissive is treating someone bad. After a while it wears on them and they just start being quiet.

It also doesn't surprise me at all that once the drivers become more like "us" the conversation is not only wanted but held up as a gold standard in the taxi industry.

[TSXCman]

Used uber for first time last night. Here was the experience.

Ride to party in taxi:
-$35 after tip
-4 people
-very rude and frustrated driver right off the bat, for waiting 3 minutes while we came out.
-cab in fine condition

Ride home in Uber:
-$21 with 4 people, minus $20 promo=$1
-app was easy to use
-driver was in area
-showed up as a 40yearold lady in a new f150
-driver offered water bottles and candy
-pleasant lady to chat with
-dropped us off at 2 addresses, billed immediately to my app when second party got home safe
-got an email of a highly detailed receipt

[llwhiteoutll]

If the taxi industry wanted to be taken as a professional driving service, they would act like it and enforce standards among their drivers.

That means:
- No longhauling
- Actually know where you're going (know major destinations and have a GPS). For what they charge, they should not be asking their fare which roads to take
- Bathe, once or twice a month is not acceptable
- Going along with above, a gallon of cologne is not bathing
- Don't have a cab that smells. For what they charge, they should not expect people to put up with stale cigarette smells, driver odor and various other things
- Accept EVERY ride. Doesn't matter if its 5 minutes or 50 minutes, down the block or from the airport to Legacy
- Alberta has distracted driving legislation, follow it.
- If you're on a timed pickup, it doesn't mean show up 15 minutes early and ring the doorbell and get upset when I'm not ready.

If none of this happened, people wouldn't be embracing Uber as much.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by peter12

Hah, nice one, Jayswin. I get and support why anyone would hate the taxi cartels. Nevermind that Uber's end goal is to end up being a far more powerful and dominant monopoly then any regional cab company could ever hope to be. The end game with Uber is always the same. Artificially lower transport rates and drive down the price of labour to take advantage of the excess supply of personal vehicles. Clever. Maybe not sustainable. Not to say we don't need to clean up the livery industry in some major ways. I just don't believe Uber is that solution.

Never mind that most people in this thread keep blending bad taxi cartel criticism with semi-racist hints of " I don't like how people from another country smell."

As well, given the near constant level of abuse that many drivers face from their inebriated, entitled customers it is a small wonder that a lot of drivers are a bit stand-offish.

Actually I don't think MOST people in this thread are semi-racist people that prefer Uber because you might get a chance at a white driver, at all. I'm not even sure where you are even getting that from. I think what MOST people want is a reliable, cheap transportation service and in my opinion this has absolutely zero to do with race. It is a disservice to the deliciousness of this thread that some people would try to bend this discussion in some obtuse way to capture a discussion topic that is irrelevant.

Let's be completely honest and stay on topic here- let us not wade into distracting rhetoric about racism because that is not at all what this is about and you know it. I don't give a rats' ass, and I refuse to believe that MOST people give a rats' ass, about who is driving them around. It could be a monkey with a toupee for all I care as long as there is a ####ing car available when I'm drunk and it's -20C outside. The attempts to over complicate a simple situation almost seem like debating for the sake of debating.

As to jaywins point regarding Uber and "ethics"; please explain if the proposed "questionable" business plan of Uber is any worse than taxi commissions bribing city officials to artificially prevent a naturally occurring market with some regulation.

Again the taxi industry created this mess themselves, people are pissed off and for good reason.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Let's be completely honest and stay on topic here- let us not wade into distracting rhetoric about racism because that is not at all what this is about and you know it.

I won't speak for Peter12, but I wasn't really referring to this thread about racism in the taxi industry. But it's very real and the amount of it I think would blow away a lot of people. It's very bad, both the subtle and direct racism those drivers face on a daily basis. It's absolutely not to be dismissed in a discussion like this.

Like what do you think the poster below is referring to, white guys who don't shower? Very few people in general don't shower before going to work, but my one buddy is Indian and says he gets told to shower a few times a week because they eat a lot of curry in their culture and white people tend to take it as an off putting smell and equate it to lack of hygiene. For the record, I can smell it and what people are likely referring to but it's not a BO smell, it's just a different smell than white people are used to.

Originally Posted by llwhiteoutll

- Bathe, once or twice a month is not acceptable.

[Mr.Coffee]

that's fine and all but I don't think that opinion represents "most people". At all. It sure doesn't represent mine.

I think most people are that annoyed to the point of warmly welcoming a "questionable" business into a broken market to solve what should be a simple problem that's been exacerbated (with a high probability of illegally) by our municipal government.

That is the core problem. Racism may be in play but it's not the core problem and is a distraction to the big issue.