7 ms·

worse than taxis (in some ways) for drivers ... and taxpayers. Someone else pays for the upkeep of those roads, without which their business could not exist. I

by gaius 9y ago

worse than taxis (in some ways) for drivers ... and taxpayers. Someone else pays for the upkeep of those roads, without which their business could not exist. In the UK, someone else pays for the healthcare of their drivers, as they dodge Employer's NI. Etc etc. The entire business model of "disruption" is pocketing what everyone else pays for the dependencies and externalities.

cgag 9y ago
what about uber/lyft is worse for the roads than taxis?
- cozzyd 9y ago
  Taxis often have extra taxes/fees/tolls that theoretically go into maintenance (though I'm sure they may not in practice).
- gaius 9y ago
  The fact that they contribute so little to the public purse: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/29/londons-black-cab-drivers-consider-court-action-against-uber https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/29/londons-b...
- mrbabbage 9y ago
  At least in San Francisco, there's far more of them. The extra wear and tear on the roads ends up as a road repair bill that taxpayers pick up. If the TNCs were a 1:1 replacement for traditional taxis, this wouldn't be a legitimate argument, but the evidence out there suggests that TNCs have grown the size of the car hail market at the expense of off-peak transit, so the TNCs really are putting more cars on the streets.
  - nradov 9y ago
    Road wear is exponentially proportional to vehicle weight. Almost all of the wear is caused by large commercial trucks and other heavy vehicles such as buses. Passenger cars cause very little road wear. TNC drivers are mostly using lighter vehicles. https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/ https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/
    - mrbabbage 9y ago
      Your link supports the claim that "trucks cause exponentially more road damage than passenger vehicles"; it does not support your claim that "almost all of the wear is caused by large commercial trucks" or "passenger cars cause very little road wear". In San Francisco, the Treasurer estimated 45,000 TNC vehicles in operation compared to just 1,800 taxis. That's an enormous increase in car hail traffic, and one that I claim has a substantial maintenance impact absent evidence to the contrary. http://www.sfexaminer.com/45000-uber-lyft-drivers-may-now-operate-san-francisco-drivers-continue-multiply/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/45000-uber-lyft-drivers-may-now-op...
SilasX 9y ago
>Someone else pays for the upkeep of those roads, without which their business could not exist. Everyone pays gas taxes that scale with the amount driven and therefore their use of the roads. Any unusually high driving would be made up by the higher gas consumption and the resultant taxes thereon. If anything: 1) Taxi routes are concentrated in cities, where they have lower miles per gallon and thus pay more taxes per mile driven than the typical car. (Edit: and city roads probably have lower maintenance costs per ton-mile due to not having to drag people out as far to maintain it and related factors.) 2) Maintenance costs on roads are almost entirely due to cargo trucks, not sedans, since road damage scales with (something like) the fourth power of weight per axle. Side note: why is it that every time there's an unpopular big player, everyone finds a way to label any publicly provided good as a subsidy to that player? It's not just this but "arresting shoplifters is a subsidy to Walmart", "public roads are a subsidy to Amazon", "public infra is a subsidy to Netflix", "navies are a subsidy to shipping". > someone else pays for the healthcare of their drivers No, the government collects income taxes from everyone to provide universal health care through the NHS. Uber's drivers pay the social insurance taxes on their income. The fact that it isn't billed to Uber specifically is irrelevant. Lloyd's isn't billed for the NHS taxes on the couriers that drop them packages, but that doesn't mean Lloyd's "dodges employer's NI". If your point is that they should be so assessed because they're really employers, not clients, that's economically questionable too -- the burden of a tax is independent of who you assess it to; if one day they forced Uber to pay NI, they could just cut payments to drivers to cover the tax, since all the income streams would be unaffected. Same effect as if they started assessing VAT by charging customers as they leave the store instead of taking it from retailers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence
- gaius 9y ago
  No, the government collects income taxes from everyone to provide universal health care through the NHS. Uber's drivers pay the social insurance taxes on their income. You've clearly not researched just how much Employer's NI is. It's a lot more than an employee pays. It's clearly not a subsidy if a company is paying their fair share in taxes. Also here in the UK we have workers on income support (welfare) because their employers underpay them... That is quite literally a case of the public purse subsidising a private enterprise.
mlindner 9y ago
This circles back to that Governments making rules will always find those who find ways to work around them. How about we try making rules that even if worked around, don't harm others?

by gaius 9y ago

cgag 9y ago

what about uber/lyft is worse for the roads than taxis?

cozzyd 9y ago
Taxis often have extra taxes/fees/tolls that theoretically go into maintenance (though I'm sure they may not in practice).
gaius 9y ago
The fact that they contribute so little to the public purse: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/29/londons-black-cab-drivers-consider-court-action-against-uber https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/29/londons-b...
mrbabbage 9y ago
At least in San Francisco, there's far more of them. The extra wear and tear on the roads ends up as a road repair bill that taxpayers pick up. If the TNCs were a 1:1 replacement for traditional taxis, this wouldn't be a legitimate argument, but the evidence out there suggests that TNCs have grown the size of the car hail market at the expense of off-peak transit, so the TNCs really are putting more cars on the streets.
- nradov 9y ago
  Road wear is exponentially proportional to vehicle weight. Almost all of the wear is caused by large commercial trucks and other heavy vehicles such as buses. Passenger cars cause very little road wear. TNC drivers are mostly using lighter vehicles. https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/ https://www.vabike.org/vehicle-weight-and-road-damage/
  - mrbabbage 9y ago
    Your link supports the claim that "trucks cause exponentially more road damage than passenger vehicles"; it does not support your claim that "almost all of the wear is caused by large commercial trucks" or "passenger cars cause very little road wear". In San Francisco, the Treasurer estimated 45,000 TNC vehicles in operation compared to just 1,800 taxis. That's an enormous increase in car hail traffic, and one that I claim has a substantial maintenance impact absent evidence to the contrary. http://www.sfexaminer.com/45000-uber-lyft-drivers-may-now-operate-san-francisco-drivers-continue-multiply/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/45000-uber-lyft-drivers-may-now-op...

SilasX 9y ago

>Someone else pays for the upkeep of those roads, without which their business could not exist. Everyone pays gas taxes that scale with the amount driven and therefore their use of the roads. Any unusually high driving would be made up by the higher gas consumption and the resultant taxes thereon. If anything: 1) Taxi routes are concentrated in cities, where they have lower miles per gallon and thus pay more taxes per mile driven than the typical car. (Edit: and city roads probably have lower maintenance costs per ton-mile due to not having to drag people out as far to maintain it and related factors.) 2) Maintenance costs on roads are almost entirely due to cargo trucks, not sedans, since road damage scales with (something like) the fourth power of weight per axle. Side note: why is it that every time there's an unpopular big player, everyone finds a way to label any publicly provided good as a subsidy to that player? It's not just this but "arresting shoplifters is a subsidy to Walmart", "public roads are a subsidy to Amazon", "public infra is a subsidy to Netflix", "navies are a subsidy to shipping". > someone else pays for the healthcare of their drivers No, the government collects income taxes from everyone to provide universal health care through the NHS. Uber's drivers pay the social insurance taxes on their income. The fact that it isn't billed to Uber specifically is irrelevant. Lloyd's isn't billed for the NHS taxes on the couriers that drop them packages, but that doesn't mean Lloyd's "dodges employer's NI". If your point is that they should be so assessed because they're really employers, not clients, that's economically questionable too -- the burden of a tax is independent of who you assess it to; if one day they forced Uber to pay NI, they could just cut payments to drivers to cover the tax, since all the income streams would be unaffected. Same effect as if they started assessing VAT by charging customers as they leave the store instead of taking it from retailers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence

gaius 9y ago
No, the government collects income taxes from everyone to provide universal health care through the NHS. Uber's drivers pay the social insurance taxes on their income. You've clearly not researched just how much Employer's NI is. It's a lot more than an employee pays. It's clearly not a subsidy if a company is paying their fair share in taxes. Also here in the UK we have workers on income support (welfare) because their employers underpay them... That is quite literally a case of the public purse subsidising a private enterprise.

mlindner 9y ago

This circles back to that Governments making rules will always find those who find ways to work around them. How about we try making rules that even if worked around, don't harm others?