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I am a consumer (of UberPop among other transport solutions) and I am (genuinely) not understanding: agreed it's not ride-shares, but why is there laws that mak

I am a consumer (of UberPop among other transport solutions) and I am (genuinely) not understanding: agreed it's not ride-shares, but why is there laws that make non-ride-shares so complicated? UberPop is simple, for the driver, the consumer and it drives the costs down, this sounds really nice to me. If it's only about safety and consumer protection, well shouldn't it be a consumer choice anyway? (agreed it's easy for me, a male above 30 to tell this... and despite the bad experiences I also had in Paris with UberPop although my drivers had GPSes - one had 2 of them, was confused as hell and should certainly be looking more at the road) Just like I do when I choose real ride-shares (i.e. not UberPop. We have blablacar in France for example which is hitchhiking through the internet). It seems that, in France, politics made a huge mistake coming up with horrendously expensive (apparently 200k to 300k EUR) taxi licenses and now some people are at risk to pay for those mistakes, namely people who have recently invested in one of this license. Cause even if UberPop is banned, VTC (Vehicule de Tourisme avec Chauffeur) are now legal and make those licenses quite useless (or at least the investment isn't nearly as justified as before). It's obvious to me that the law have to go in the direction of new technology or the consequences will be quite disastrous. I agree that Uber's attitude seems a bit harsh but I would thanks them for any induced (political) changes in the direction of technology. EDIT: didn't know the adverb "patently" was not referring to patents, thanks dminor for teaching me english :) (I'm french obviously :/)

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "If it's only about safety and consumer protection, well shouldn't it be a consumer choice anyway?" Ideally BUT it's unlikely the consumer will have the full information to make that choice. Is the taxi going to provide it and wait until they've read it and made an informed decision?
dminor 12y ago
> The word "patent" sounds especially weird to me in that context. Are they seriously "patents" for taxiing people? "Patently" is a synonym for "obviously" - nothing to do with patents.
- joeyo 12y ago
  This is one of those funny cases where the etymological connection has been a bit obscured by time. Patents are called such because they are "open letters" disclosing the invention. Patent : Open :: Latent : Hidden. Of course in this case it's patent that patent disclosures are not what is being referred to. :-)
  - HackinOut 12y ago
    Just saw your comment: Thanks for the insight! Now that I understood the root causes and laughed at the related word play, I won't forget anymore :)
hokkos 12y ago
Politics didn't make taxi medallion expensive, they gave it free, it's supply and demand that made them expensive[1]. Taxi are not useless, not everyone is able to use and app on his smartphone and some people want the simplicity to hail a cab. But the taxi license starts to decrease. Banning UberPOP is about consumer protection because VTC or taxis are professional that had an exam, special insurance, they pay there taxes, unlike UberPOP which is about transferring the costs on insecure workers and unsustainable jobs that don't take in account of all the costs of doing this job. [1] : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_parisiens#Le_prix_de_la_licence http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_parisiens#Le_prix_de_la_l...
- HackinOut 12y ago
  Thanks, so apparently they limit the number of licenses causing those horrendous prices? In that case it seems to me they are still at the root of the problem and should fix it now that it has surfaced (paying back licenses that where purchased shortly before the VTC law for example). If you ask me, we are way to focus on sustainable job in France. Unemployed people need to start somewhere. Which is far more easy if you are from the UK or the USA.
  - Kankuro 12y ago
    I think that paying back would a way to go out of this system. But the loser will be the tax payer. When the state/politics decided to give licences for free (a long time ago) and then let the offer and the demand decide the price, they created a speculative bubble: every buyer expected to resell it for at least the same price or make a profit (often a big one). Now, if this market is opened to more actors, the lasts to buy will get a big debt out of their deal and may be in a bad position for the rest of their life. For me the ones to blame are those politics who created this situation. Concerning the taxi drivers who made a big profit, why should they be blamed for a system the state has put in place? (well, I do for being so greedy and making the taxi a transportation for affluent people) Note also that taxi drivers are well known for hidding parts of their revenues (proof or source: none). Because of that, taking the taxi is really the last resort for me.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jcfrei 12y ago
The idea behind regulating personal transportation, aka taxis is because of the big external effects. If there was a free, unregulated market for taxis, obviously fares would be much lower and there would be much more taxis on the streets. However this in turn decreases the experience for the individual passenger (more traffic leads to longer rides) and much more importantly causes traffic lags for all other users of the road - most notably for the transportation of goods. So while a completely liberated taxi market might work out for the passengers (especially outside of rush hours) it most likely won't work out for the economy at large. This is an inherent problem when you have a liberal market (transportation) which uses a publicly owned good (the streets) which can't be priced appropriately (or only in a limited way - see London).
- cromwellian 12y ago
  But doesn't fewer taxis also mean longer waiting times to get a taxi, and encourage an increase in private car ownership, replacing taxis on the road with private drivers driving themselves? Won't one Uber driver replace many cars on the road, especially as the price is driven down, the cost of using Uber makes owning a car less appealing in many locales? Rather than ban Uber, they could just implement taxes, just like Uber implements real time surge pricing. The tax could be tied to congestion. Uber would pass these onto consumers, prices would rise, and presumably demand for drivers would equalize with how much time and money people collectively would be willing to pay.
  - seanp2k2 12y ago
    Fwiw, congestion tax is already a thing: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing
  - jcfrei 12y ago
    I agree; real time surge pricing for congested roads would be the optimal solution. But just imagine the outcry in the population when you try to implement road charges for all inner city roads. This is another example of an economically perfectly sound concept which is in many parts of the world politically completely unfeasible (at least for the moment). On top of that, couldn't you argue that transportation is a basic human right? If so, you would have to either discriminate against the poor or adjust the rates based on income, which again makes this a politically very hot and difficult topic.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "If it's only about safety and consumer protection, well shouldn't it be a consumer choice anyway?" Ideally BUT it's unlikely the consumer will have the full information to make that choice. Is the taxi going to provide it and wait until they've read it and made an informed decision?

dminor 12y ago

> The word "patent" sounds especially weird to me in that context. Are they seriously "patents" for taxiing people? "Patently" is a synonym for "obviously" - nothing to do with patents.

joeyo 12y ago
This is one of those funny cases where the etymological connection has been a bit obscured by time. Patents are called such because they are "open letters" disclosing the invention. Patent : Open :: Latent : Hidden. Of course in this case it's patent that patent disclosures are not what is being referred to. :-)
- HackinOut 12y ago
  Just saw your comment: Thanks for the insight! Now that I understood the root causes and laughed at the related word play, I won't forget anymore :)

hokkos 12y ago

Politics didn't make taxi medallion expensive, they gave it free, it's supply and demand that made them expensive[1]. Taxi are not useless, not everyone is able to use and app on his smartphone and some people want the simplicity to hail a cab. But the taxi license starts to decrease. Banning UberPOP is about consumer protection because VTC or taxis are professional that had an exam, special insurance, they pay there taxes, unlike UberPOP which is about transferring the costs on insecure workers and unsustainable jobs that don't take in account of all the costs of doing this job. [1] : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_parisiens#Le_prix_de_la_licence http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxis_parisiens#Le_prix_de_la_l...

HackinOut 12y ago
Thanks, so apparently they limit the number of licenses causing those horrendous prices? In that case it seems to me they are still at the root of the problem and should fix it now that it has surfaced (paying back licenses that where purchased shortly before the VTC law for example). If you ask me, we are way to focus on sustainable job in France. Unemployed people need to start somewhere. Which is far more easy if you are from the UK or the USA.
- Kankuro 12y ago
  I think that paying back would a way to go out of this system. But the loser will be the tax payer. When the state/politics decided to give licences for free (a long time ago) and then let the offer and the demand decide the price, they created a speculative bubble: every buyer expected to resell it for at least the same price or make a profit (often a big one). Now, if this market is opened to more actors, the lasts to buy will get a big debt out of their deal and may be in a bad position for the rest of their life. For me the ones to blame are those politics who created this situation. Concerning the taxi drivers who made a big profit, why should they be blamed for a system the state has put in place? (well, I do for being so greedy and making the taxi a transportation for affluent people) Note also that taxi drivers are well known for hidding parts of their revenues (proof or source: none). Because of that, taking the taxi is really the last resort for me.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jcfrei 12y ago

The idea behind regulating personal transportation, aka taxis is because of the big external effects. If there was a free, unregulated market for taxis, obviously fares would be much lower and there would be much more taxis on the streets. However this in turn decreases the experience for the individual passenger (more traffic leads to longer rides) and much more importantly causes traffic lags for all other users of the road - most notably for the transportation of goods. So while a completely liberated taxi market might work out for the passengers (especially outside of rush hours) it most likely won't work out for the economy at large. This is an inherent problem when you have a liberal market (transportation) which uses a publicly owned good (the streets) which can't be priced appropriately (or only in a limited way - see London).

cromwellian 12y ago
But doesn't fewer taxis also mean longer waiting times to get a taxi, and encourage an increase in private car ownership, replacing taxis on the road with private drivers driving themselves? Won't one Uber driver replace many cars on the road, especially as the price is driven down, the cost of using Uber makes owning a car less appealing in many locales? Rather than ban Uber, they could just implement taxes, just like Uber implements real time surge pricing. The tax could be tied to congestion. Uber would pass these onto consumers, prices would rise, and presumably demand for drivers would equalize with how much time and money people collectively would be willing to pay.
- seanp2k2 12y ago
  Fwiw, congestion tax is already a thing: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing
- jcfrei 12y ago
  I agree; real time surge pricing for congested roads would be the optimal solution. But just imagine the outcry in the population when you try to implement road charges for all inner city roads. This is another example of an economically perfectly sound concept which is in many parts of the world politically completely unfeasible (at least for the moment). On top of that, couldn't you argue that transportation is a basic human right? If so, you would have to either discriminate against the poor or adjust the rates based on income, which again makes this a politically very hot and difficult topic.