5 ms·

Montreal cracks down on UberX; seizes 40 cars and fines drivers

plg 11y ago
it's worth pointing out that Quebec has no trouble at all living life as an "outsider" with respect to Canadian and north american "norms" ... i.e. no matter how "standard" uber becomes (or not) this will not be an argument in favour of adopting it. there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US) this may be just another one
- raquo 11y ago
  Well, FWIW Vancouver is just as backwards as Montreal in this regard, we don't even have Uber.
- SG- 11y ago
  It's also one of the most corrupted with government officials.
  - kelvin0 11y ago
    Yes, corruption directly correlates to Uber presence (or lack thereof).
- jbob2000 11y ago
  Can confirm. Rising tuition in Ontario? "Meh, part of inflation". Rising tuition in Quebec? "I DONT UNDERSTAND! WE NEED TO RIOT!"
- foobarqux 11y ago
  What are the arguments for a city to adopt Uber? Presumably there were reasons to implement taxi regulations and medallion caps and whatever those reasons were, if they made sense to the city 5 years ago, they probably still make sense today.
  - raquo 11y ago
    5 years? More like 40-80. In Vancouver for example the 4 taxi companies comprising the taxi industry basically regulate themselves. Of course they will never approve another entrant. I wouldn't be surprised if Montreal is about the same.
    - foobarqux 11y ago
      I didn't say the reasons were created 5 years ago.
  - philwelch 11y ago
    In most modern legal systems, the question is not what the law should allow but what the law should prohibit. So the question should really be, what are the arguments for a city to prohibit Uber?
    - foobarqux 11y ago
      That's irrelevant to the point, which is that whatever prohibits Uber today also prohibited Uber in the recent past before Uber existed. Did unregulated taxi service make sense to a city 5 years ago?
      - philwelch 11y ago
        Just because a law has been on the books doesn't mean the law continues to be in the public interest, especially when it was enacted before the technology to enable Uber was widespread enough to make Uber possible.
  - greggyb 11y ago
    The reasons tend to be closer to a century old than 5 years, and similarly tend to have been the result of preferential regulation in favor of the taxi companies. A good history of the jitney transport industry[0]. I'll note that the statistics reported regarding length of service and demographics of jitney drivers indicate that UberX is a much more apt solution to the problem of matching riders with drivers than a "traditional" taxi service with full-time employees. [0]http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/724795?uid=3739976&uid=2134&uid=2488599363&uid=2488599353&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21106185861931 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/724795?uid=3739976&uid... - note article is available with a free registration.
- pothibo 11y ago
  > there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US) Quite the prejudicial statement. While some things are different, living in Quebec is pretty similar to any other place except for the fact that we speak french. When LA or New York banned Uber, did you say how californian and New Yorkers were 'bizarre' and 'outsider'?
  - elecengin 11y ago
    My understanding is that they also legally require French to be used in a variety of contexts (with "language police"). If so, that is significantly different than most other places - and may feel "bizarre". For example, you are free to run a restaurant with employees that do not speak English in the US, but you are not allowed to run a restaurant with only English speakers in Quebec.
    - pothibo 11y ago
      Let me just say this: Nothing you wrote is remotely true. Not. A. Single. Thing.
      - elecengin 11y ago
        I didn't mean to offend. This is merely how it was described to me. I have read a little, but I could be off. I have seen things like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Language_Act_%28Quebec%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Language_Act_%28Quebec... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois_de_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois_de_l...
      - jellicle 11y ago
        Really? http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-language-police http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-language-pol... In Quebec, the law is that the public has an affirmative right to be served in French: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language and fines are issued for violators: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/french-still-under-threat-in-quebec-judge-finds-in-bill-101-case-1.2934573 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/french-still-under-th... I don't know if this counts as "bizarre" or not, but it's certainly unusual, since other provinces do not do this.
- plehoux 11y ago
  Making this a Quebec VS Canada issue is ridiculous. There are similar fines given across the country.
- napopa 11y ago
  If something does not conform to your "standards" and "norms", that does not make it automatically "bizarre" (whatever you mean by that). And as many pointed out already, uber is banned in many cities across Canada and US, which is maybe proof that those "norms" and "standars" you talk about do not actually exist. This is probably an example of your own prejudice actually.
olalonde 11y ago
Not very surprising given that Quebec has the highest unionisation rate (~40%) among all Canadian provinces and U.S. states.
- jipiboily 11y ago
  How is that related again? :)
  - kelvin0 11y ago
    yes, olalonde, enlighten us? Most taxi drivers are non-unionized people 'renting' a taxi permit/car from a permit holder
    - olalonde 11y ago
      A quick Google search shows up this union: "Regroupement professionnel des chauffeurs de taxi métallos (FTQ)". Regardless, my point was that Quebec is very pro-union and the public opinion generally tends to side with workers (taxi drivers in this case) as opposed to consumers. In fact, multiple large unions in Quebec have shown their support for taxi drivers in their fight against Uber (http://www.usw.ca/districts-fr/5/nouvelles?id=0158 http://www.usw.ca/districts-fr/5/nouvelles?id=0158 sorry, French).
- upofadown 11y ago
  Montreal has a taxi driver union? That would be unusual if true... Taxi drivers are somewhat exploited under the present system. Someone else usually owns the medallion and puts the boots to the driver. It's the sort of thing that causes a union in the first place and there have been some efforts in Canada to create a taxi driver union.
jMyles 11y ago
I'm not sure exactly what this says about the culture and business norms of Montreal, but while there for PyCon, I noticed that the number of police seemed to have increased at least 10x from last year at the same time. There is a great deal of political upheaval centered at UQAM, apparently mostly related to issues of pension promises broken for public workers. This is the ostensible reason to have so many more police and police substations, but I have to believe that it has other cultural effects as well.
- jordigh 11y ago
  There was a very iconic image recently making the rounds: http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg What's particularly striking about this picture, if you'll pardon the pun, is that the cop is wearing stickers that are protesting the same austerity that the students are protesting with their red velvet squares. Cops are not allowed to strike (i.e. not work), so they wear stickers instead. Howard Zinn's final chapter of his famous book comes to mind: "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". A system that separates people into prisoners and guards and pits them against each other, despite their common cause: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html As to what this all says about police in Montréal, I don't know either. I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant interaction with the police. The students are very leftist, though, and with such a large student population (four major universities, two Francophone, two Anglophone, plus several other research and education centres), the students' attitudes just amplify themselves.
  - nkassis 11y ago
    "I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant interaction with the police. " This is a tangent from your original post but I've noticed that Montreal cops seem much more relax than the ones I've dealt with in the US. This is completely anecdotal but I feel like cops in the US are somewhat more prone to talk and act aggressively when they start interaction with people. I'm wondering if that's a side effect of their training. In general I've had the opposite impression from the Montreal and Canadian cops in general. (Also border patrol in both country are night and day in how they interact with you).
walterbell 11y ago
Has any taxi service, in any city, rolled out a self-dispatching app for end-users?
- kjjw 11y ago
  Yes there are apps that work with existing taxi services. https://www.hailoapp.com/ https://www.hailoapp.com/
  - angryMontrealer 11y ago
    Hailo was quite popular in Montreal for a while until Uber launched and drove them out of business. As far as i recall they shut down all of their North American operations to focus on EU. Wonder how that's going. I quite liked them, but I prefer UberX any day
  - eli 11y ago
    Though Hailo is notable for recently having withdrawn from the North American market. Mytaxi.com is still around though.
- dougmccune 11y ago
  Flywheel in SF is in use by all the cab companies I think. Same features as uber (hail from the app, pay with your phone, etc) but only for the taxis. One cool feature is that if you get in a cab off the street without the app you can pull up the app while riding and they figure out which taxi you're in and you can pay via the app automatically.
- gilini 11y ago
  We have a few of these here in Brazil (i.e. http://www.99taxis.com/ http://www.99taxis.com/). The apps work just fine, it's the taxis that lack quality in their service. Cars are usually beaten down, dirty. Drivers are impolite, almost never use Waze or some other GPS app and the fare at night rivals Uber's. There has been some drama regarding Uber v. Taxi around here as well (São Paulo, Brazil). One thing I know for sure is that as long as Uber's around I'll never call a taxi again.
- 11y ago
jipiboily 11y ago
This is sad. I live in Quebec Province, but not in Montreal. Quebec's laws regarding taxis are old and stupid, but they exists. I hope they will change, but in the meantime, sadly, this is their right to execute those laws. The population (including me) wouldn't be so angry at the taxi industry if they embraced innovation instead of fighting with laws. Please, I want an app to know when my cab will be here, I don't mind that much about saving money, but I do want to pay easily and have a great and easy ride. That's all I want. FYI, the taxi owners need a licenses, which I think is over $100k, and none were issued in a long time, so price increases. So, if I had one, yes, I would be super angry seeing Uber and stuff like that. Still makes me very sad that this industry stagnated for so long and is not even trying to adapt now, but getting more laws :( Edit: fixed typo.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  If Montreal is like most other cities, people driving taxis do not own their own permit -- they typically rent them from a small number of people who control a large number of permits.
  - jipiboily 11y ago
    That's indeed the norm I think in most cities.
  - igrekel 11y ago
    Which always make it funny when your Taxi driver gives you his card for Uber service. Again, in this case its not Uber thats in question but UberX.
- angryMontrealer 11y ago
  It baffles me how very little cabs accept credit cards in the city, and even less with an electronic POS. many of them still use paper based forms (if at all) and they'll almost always be rude about it and demand an extra $2-3 on the fare.
  - jordigh 11y ago
mrbig4545 11y ago
In Manchester, UK (I don't know if it's like this in the rest of the country), uber is a normal registered taxi service, it's not normal people using the app to give people rides. It works really well
- igrekel 11y ago
  UberX is different, with UberX "anyone" can be a taxi driver.
jellicle 11y ago
Most Canadian cities are fighting Uber's refusal to follow city bylaws and insurance requirements, Montreal is only the most recent: http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-developments-regarding-uber-service-in-toronto/ http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-developme... Uber's current tactic is to assert that their drivers are insured in Canada, but refuse to provide proof of that to anyone, including drivers themselves and city regulators. This sort of "Russell's teapot" insurance claim is, unsurprisingly, looked upon dimly by the regulators. The laws are quite clear in Canada that personal insurance will not cover Uber drivers.
logicallee 11y ago
And people joke when startups are considered "disruptive." This is disruption in action. Uber is changing the face of society. (When it comes to cabs.) And society is resisting. Any other company, in any other market, would just give up. But a San Francisco tech company is different: it can KNOW that progress is right, and push, push, push it through throughout society. This is a story that repeats again and again. Idealistic disruptive startups actually change the face of society, while everyone else poo-poos and wrings their hands, until they don't.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  And disrupting moral standards in business, according to some. (I'm not judging Uber or those who say that, including one of their investors)
  - logicallee 11y ago
    (Actually that is a separate matter and I agree with you completely. They need to return to their roots and not do any of that spoiled only-child stuff (no offense to people who are an only child, I just can't think of a better example, and of course if someone is an only child they can still learn to cooperate-etc.) If you want, Uber, you can be a child who doesn't share their toys: just create something new again! You can't retain a monopoly otherwise. Wouldn't you rather keep growing, like Google after search, than retain a hundred percent of some single tiny specific market, like Windows as a monopoly? Just take a look at the two respective stock charts (goog and msft, max timeframe). I actually take this subject totally seriously. However it's orthogonal to what we were discussing. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, it doesn't matter here.)
kyriee 11y ago
This is NOT a Montreal-only phenomenon: UberX cars have also been sized in Toronto and Vancouver. Edmonton is calling to ban UberX and the service has been shuttered in Calgary... Toronto: http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-drivers-face-charges/ http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-drivers-f... Ontario: http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-toronto/1345960/queens-park-bill-53-could-put-the-brakes-on-uber-in-ontario/ http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-toronto/1345960/queens-... BC: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-companies-file-lawsuit-to-block-uber-from-expanding-into-vancouver/article21451479/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-co... Edmonton: http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-association-calls-for-seizure-of-uber-vehicles/ http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-asso...
stormqloud 11y ago
Who cares if Uber is illegal. The unions, the politicians, the construction companies. These groups steal from the population for decades (Charbinneau commission). Who cares what the govt thinks in Quebec. The Quebec govt is out to steal and cheat for their own benefit, not the benefit of the population of Quebec. Speaking English in Quebec is illegal in certain situation. Ignore laws in Quebec. Choose what laws you follow, just like the unions, politicians etc. If you get caught just say sorry. Quebec society loves apologies and forgives immediately so you can get back to stealing and scamming people. Not a single person from 40 years of corruption we say at Charbonneu will even get a fine. Uber, keep going! Fuck Quebec laws. It doesn;t matter.

plg 11y ago

it's worth pointing out that Quebec has no trouble at all living life as an "outsider" with respect to Canadian and north american "norms" ... i.e. no matter how "standard" uber becomes (or not) this will not be an argument in favour of adopting it. there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US) this may be just another one

raquo 11y ago
Well, FWIW Vancouver is just as backwards as Montreal in this regard, we don't even have Uber.
SG- 11y ago
It's also one of the most corrupted with government officials.
- kelvin0 11y ago
  Yes, corruption directly correlates to Uber presence (or lack thereof).
jbob2000 11y ago
Can confirm. Rising tuition in Ontario? "Meh, part of inflation". Rising tuition in Quebec? "I DONT UNDERSTAND! WE NEED TO RIOT!"
foobarqux 11y ago
What are the arguments for a city to adopt Uber? Presumably there were reasons to implement taxi regulations and medallion caps and whatever those reasons were, if they made sense to the city 5 years ago, they probably still make sense today.
- raquo 11y ago
  5 years? More like 40-80. In Vancouver for example the 4 taxi companies comprising the taxi industry basically regulate themselves. Of course they will never approve another entrant. I wouldn't be surprised if Montreal is about the same.
  - foobarqux 11y ago
    I didn't say the reasons were created 5 years ago.
- philwelch 11y ago
  In most modern legal systems, the question is not what the law should allow but what the law should prohibit. So the question should really be, what are the arguments for a city to prohibit Uber?
  - foobarqux 11y ago
    That's irrelevant to the point, which is that whatever prohibits Uber today also prohibited Uber in the recent past before Uber existed. Did unregulated taxi service make sense to a city 5 years ago?
    - philwelch 11y ago
      Just because a law has been on the books doesn't mean the law continues to be in the public interest, especially when it was enacted before the technology to enable Uber was widespread enough to make Uber possible.
- greggyb 11y ago
  The reasons tend to be closer to a century old than 5 years, and similarly tend to have been the result of preferential regulation in favor of the taxi companies. A good history of the jitney transport industry[0]. I'll note that the statistics reported regarding length of service and demographics of jitney drivers indicate that UberX is a much more apt solution to the problem of matching riders with drivers than a "traditional" taxi service with full-time employees. [0]http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/724795?uid=3739976&uid=2134&uid=2488599363&uid=2488599353&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&sid=21106185861931 http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/724795?uid=3739976&uid... - note article is available with a free registration.
pothibo 11y ago
> there are a metric ton of examples of how life in quebec is bizarre compared to neighbouring provinces in Canada (and compared to the US) Quite the prejudicial statement. While some things are different, living in Quebec is pretty similar to any other place except for the fact that we speak french. When LA or New York banned Uber, did you say how californian and New Yorkers were 'bizarre' and 'outsider'?
- elecengin 11y ago
  My understanding is that they also legally require French to be used in a variety of contexts (with "language police"). If so, that is significantly different than most other places - and may feel "bizarre". For example, you are free to run a restaurant with employees that do not speak English in the US, but you are not allowed to run a restaurant with only English speakers in Quebec.
  - pothibo 11y ago
    Let me just say this: Nothing you wrote is remotely true. Not. A. Single. Thing.
    - elecengin 11y ago
      I didn't mean to offend. This is merely how it was described to me. I have read a little, but I could be off. I have seen things like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Language_Act_%28Quebec%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Language_Act_%28Quebec... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois_de_la_langue_fran%C3%A7aise http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois_de_l...
    - jellicle 11y ago
      Really? http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-language-police http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/quebec-language-pol... In Quebec, the law is that the public has an affirmative right to be served in French: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language and fines are issued for violators: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/french-still-under-threat-in-quebec-judge-finds-in-bill-101-case-1.2934573 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/french-still-under-th... I don't know if this counts as "bizarre" or not, but it's certainly unusual, since other provinces do not do this.
plehoux 11y ago
Making this a Quebec VS Canada issue is ridiculous. There are similar fines given across the country.
napopa 11y ago
If something does not conform to your "standards" and "norms", that does not make it automatically "bizarre" (whatever you mean by that). And as many pointed out already, uber is banned in many cities across Canada and US, which is maybe proof that those "norms" and "standars" you talk about do not actually exist. This is probably an example of your own prejudice actually.

olalonde 11y ago

Not very surprising given that Quebec has the highest unionisation rate (~40%) among all Canadian provinces and U.S. states.

jipiboily 11y ago
How is that related again? :)
- kelvin0 11y ago
  yes, olalonde, enlighten us? Most taxi drivers are non-unionized people 'renting' a taxi permit/car from a permit holder
  - olalonde 11y ago
    A quick Google search shows up this union: "Regroupement professionnel des chauffeurs de taxi métallos (FTQ)". Regardless, my point was that Quebec is very pro-union and the public opinion generally tends to side with workers (taxi drivers in this case) as opposed to consumers. In fact, multiple large unions in Quebec have shown their support for taxi drivers in their fight against Uber (http://www.usw.ca/districts-fr/5/nouvelles?id=0158 http://www.usw.ca/districts-fr/5/nouvelles?id=0158 sorry, French).
upofadown 11y ago
Montreal has a taxi driver union? That would be unusual if true... Taxi drivers are somewhat exploited under the present system. Someone else usually owns the medallion and puts the boots to the driver. It's the sort of thing that causes a union in the first place and there have been some efforts in Canada to create a taxi driver union.

jMyles 11y ago

I'm not sure exactly what this says about the culture and business norms of Montreal, but while there for PyCon, I noticed that the number of police seemed to have increased at least 10x from last year at the same time. There is a great deal of political upheaval centered at UQAM, apparently mostly related to issues of pension promises broken for public workers. This is the ostensible reason to have so many more police and police substations, but I have to believe that it has other cultural effects as well.

jordigh 11y ago
There was a very iconic image recently making the rounds: http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IHIOxLK.jpg What's particularly striking about this picture, if you'll pardon the pun, is that the cop is wearing stickers that are protesting the same austerity that the students are protesting with their red velvet squares. Cops are not allowed to strike (i.e. not work), so they wear stickers instead. Howard Zinn's final chapter of his famous book comes to mind: "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". A system that separates people into prisoners and guards and pits them against each other, despite their common cause: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html As to what this all says about police in Montréal, I don't know either. I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant interaction with the police. The students are very leftist, though, and with such a large student population (four major universities, two Francophone, two Anglophone, plus several other research and education centres), the students' attitudes just amplify themselves.
- nkassis 11y ago
  "I've lived here for nearly eight years and have never had any unpleasant interaction with the police. " This is a tangent from your original post but I've noticed that Montreal cops seem much more relax than the ones I've dealt with in the US. This is completely anecdotal but I feel like cops in the US are somewhat more prone to talk and act aggressively when they start interaction with people. I'm wondering if that's a side effect of their training. In general I've had the opposite impression from the Montreal and Canadian cops in general. (Also border patrol in both country are night and day in how they interact with you).

walterbell 11y ago

Has any taxi service, in any city, rolled out a self-dispatching app for end-users?

kjjw 11y ago
Yes there are apps that work with existing taxi services. https://www.hailoapp.com/ https://www.hailoapp.com/
- angryMontrealer 11y ago
  Hailo was quite popular in Montreal for a while until Uber launched and drove them out of business. As far as i recall they shut down all of their North American operations to focus on EU. Wonder how that's going. I quite liked them, but I prefer UberX any day
- eli 11y ago
  Though Hailo is notable for recently having withdrawn from the North American market. Mytaxi.com is still around though.
dougmccune 11y ago
Flywheel in SF is in use by all the cab companies I think. Same features as uber (hail from the app, pay with your phone, etc) but only for the taxis. One cool feature is that if you get in a cab off the street without the app you can pull up the app while riding and they figure out which taxi you're in and you can pay via the app automatically.
gilini 11y ago
We have a few of these here in Brazil (i.e. http://www.99taxis.com/ http://www.99taxis.com/). The apps work just fine, it's the taxis that lack quality in their service. Cars are usually beaten down, dirty. Drivers are impolite, almost never use Waze or some other GPS app and the fare at night rivals Uber's. There has been some drama regarding Uber v. Taxi around here as well (São Paulo, Brazil). One thing I know for sure is that as long as Uber's around I'll never call a taxi again.
11y ago

jipiboily 11y ago

This is sad. I live in Quebec Province, but not in Montreal. Quebec's laws regarding taxis are old and stupid, but they exists. I hope they will change, but in the meantime, sadly, this is their right to execute those laws. The population (including me) wouldn't be so angry at the taxi industry if they embraced innovation instead of fighting with laws. Please, I want an app to know when my cab will be here, I don't mind that much about saving money, but I do want to pay easily and have a great and easy ride. That's all I want. FYI, the taxi owners need a licenses, which I think is over $100k, and none were issued in a long time, so price increases. So, if I had one, yes, I would be super angry seeing Uber and stuff like that. Still makes me very sad that this industry stagnated for so long and is not even trying to adapt now, but getting more laws :( Edit: fixed typo.

nostrebored 11y ago
If Montreal is like most other cities, people driving taxis do not own their own permit -- they typically rent them from a small number of people who control a large number of permits.
- jipiboily 11y ago
  That's indeed the norm I think in most cities.
- igrekel 11y ago
  Which always make it funny when your Taxi driver gives you his card for Uber service. Again, in this case its not Uber thats in question but UberX.
angryMontrealer 11y ago
It baffles me how very little cabs accept credit cards in the city, and even less with an electronic POS. many of them still use paper based forms (if at all) and they'll almost always be rude about it and demand an extra $2-3 on the fare.
- jordigh 11y ago

mrbig4545 11y ago

In Manchester, UK (I don't know if it's like this in the rest of the country), uber is a normal registered taxi service, it's not normal people using the app to give people rides. It works really well

igrekel 11y ago
UberX is different, with UberX "anyone" can be a taxi driver.

jellicle 11y ago

Most Canadian cities are fighting Uber's refusal to follow city bylaws and insurance requirements, Montreal is only the most recent: http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-developments-regarding-uber-service-in-toronto/ http://globalnews.ca/news/1678342/city-to-announce-developme... Uber's current tactic is to assert that their drivers are insured in Canada, but refuse to provide proof of that to anyone, including drivers themselves and city regulators. This sort of "Russell's teapot" insurance claim is, unsurprisingly, looked upon dimly by the regulators. The laws are quite clear in Canada that personal insurance will not cover Uber drivers.

logicallee 11y ago

And people joke when startups are considered "disruptive." This is disruption in action. Uber is changing the face of society. (When it comes to cabs.) And society is resisting. Any other company, in any other market, would just give up. But a San Francisco tech company is different: it can KNOW that progress is right, and push, push, push it through throughout society. This is a story that repeats again and again. Idealistic disruptive startups actually change the face of society, while everyone else poo-poos and wrings their hands, until they don't.

bayesianhorse 11y ago
And disrupting moral standards in business, according to some. (I'm not judging Uber or those who say that, including one of their investors)
- logicallee 11y ago
  (Actually that is a separate matter and I agree with you completely. They need to return to their roots and not do any of that spoiled only-child stuff (no offense to people who are an only child, I just can't think of a better example, and of course if someone is an only child they can still learn to cooperate-etc.) If you want, Uber, you can be a child who doesn't share their toys: just create something new again! You can't retain a monopoly otherwise. Wouldn't you rather keep growing, like Google after search, than retain a hundred percent of some single tiny specific market, like Windows as a monopoly? Just take a look at the two respective stock charts (goog and msft, max timeframe). I actually take this subject totally seriously. However it's orthogonal to what we were discussing. For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, it doesn't matter here.)

kyriee 11y ago

This is NOT a Montreal-only phenomenon: UberX cars have also been sized in Toronto and Vancouver. Edmonton is calling to ban UberX and the service has been shuttered in Calgary... Toronto: http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-drivers-face-charges/ http://globalnews.ca/news/1914064/11-toronto-uberx-drivers-f... Ontario: http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-toronto/1345960/queens-park-bill-53-could-put-the-brakes-on-uber-in-ontario/ http://metronews.ca/voices/your-ride-toronto/1345960/queens-... BC: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-companies-file-lawsuit-to-block-uber-from-expanding-into-vancouver/article21451479/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/taxi-co... Edmonton: http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-association-calls-for-seizure-of-uber-vehicles/ http://metronews.ca/news/edmonton/1331675/edmonton-taxi-asso...

stormqloud 11y ago

Who cares if Uber is illegal. The unions, the politicians, the construction companies. These groups steal from the population for decades (Charbinneau commission). Who cares what the govt thinks in Quebec. The Quebec govt is out to steal and cheat for their own benefit, not the benefit of the population of Quebec. Speaking English in Quebec is illegal in certain situation. Ignore laws in Quebec. Choose what laws you follow, just like the unions, politicians etc. If you get caught just say sorry. Quebec society loves apologies and forgives immediately so you can get back to stealing and scamming people. Not a single person from 40 years of corruption we say at Charbonneu will even get a fine. Uber, keep going! Fuck Quebec laws. It doesn;t matter.