6 ms·

If my recent experience is anything, Uber needs some serious regulation. I live in SF, and was flying out of OAK. I had used Uber only once before, a long time

If my recent experience is anything, Uber needs some serious regulation. I live in SF, and was flying out of OAK. I had used Uber only once before, a long time ago; but this time, I suggested to the wife that we use Uber again. We had to leave SF at 7:15AM - 7:30AM or so. Around 7:15 I pulled up the app, and saw that there were several cars around (as they usually are). I requested an UberX; punched in the destination. A driver quickly accepted, and Uber said he'd be there in < 5 minutes. A couple of minutes later, I get the notification that the driver cancelled. OK, I tried again. Same thing again: driver accepts, and then a minute or two later, cancels. This went on for 4-5 times. Now, time is getting tighter, and I have a large suitcase; and cabs don't come around in my alley. I tried Uber again, and this time Uber says: "Surge pricing in effect! Rates are 1.5X". I knew what was going on; but I had to accept out of desperation. What do you know? A driver quickly came over and we were on our way. The driver did say that some drivers may not have wanted to go to OAK because traffic back would have been bad. But here's the thing: a licensed cab cannot refuse to take you to your destination! Uber seems to be set up to take advantage of riders with their "surge pricing" scam. This experience left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I made sure I installed Lyft for the ride back.

ardit33 11y ago
If you live in NYC, cabs always refuse people to go to Brooklyn/Queens/Unwanted destination, eve though it is illegal to do so. The usual excuse: I am going out of my shift, and can't go that way. (this can be legit, but often it is not). Next time don't enter your destination address, so the driver doesn't know where you go, and once you are in the car it is much harder for them to refuse you.
- tjdetwiler 11y ago
  Lyft (as far as I know) won't show the driver your destination until the ride is started. It's intended to save time in allowing the driver to bring up directions and not as a decision point for them to decide if they want to take the ride or not.
- gecko 11y ago
  I have been living in NYC for ten years. I use cabs constantly. This has happened to be exactly one time. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I think the idea that this is common for NYC cabbies to do is really outdated.
  - memset 11y ago
    More anecdata: this happens to me continually. I have successfully reported at least half a dozen drivers in as many months for refusing to go to bushwick.
    - rockshassa 11y ago
      fellow bushwick resident here, I can confirm no yellow cabs want to go to brooklyn. many cabs also will lock their doors to prevent you from getting in, until after you've told them your destination.
    - limeyx 11y ago
      Maybe the "market" is telling you not to live in bushwick ?
- brianwawok 11y ago
  Had this happen a lot in Chicago too with normal cabs. if the market was really busy and I wanted to go 3 miles away from the crowds, sorry the cabbie had to end his shift and couldn't take me. If it was a nice and quiet night, I would get the same ride no problem.
istvan__ 11y ago
This is an edge case, and you can think of it as a side effect coming from living in SF, where everybody has to deal with bay bridge problems. I understand your frustration but I would split the blame 50-50 between the city for not providing transportation, and Uber to not red flagging this problem and offer a special solution for this.
- cozzyd 11y ago
  SF provides great transportation (via BART) to its own airport and decent transportation (also via BART) to OAK.
  - discardorama 11y ago
    If I didn't have a large suitcase, I would have definitely taken the BART. But getting to a BART station is a PITA if you have some luggage.
    - cozzyd 11y ago
      There's always the multimodal option (cab -> BART)
  - istvan__ 11y ago
    BART os not even remotely close to be good, but it is lightyears away from being great. The only thing that is consistent about BART service is the interruption. It is kind of funny how people from US see BART as a great service while people from Europe or other places with excellent public transportation see it as rather expensive and bad. Just one minor example why I refuse to use BART: if I was using it i had to combine with a bus service. The bus service is leaving exactly 1 minute sooner than the BART comes in to the station making sure you have to wait additional 20 minutes. This makes my commute exactly 1 hour (each way) while using BART, while if I am driving it is exactly 20 minutes. The pricing difference is insignificant, does not justify the lost time. If BART was that great, we would see significantly less traffic on 280/101 in the commuting hours.
  - istvan__ 11y ago
bradleyland 11y ago
Or, you know, don't use Uber. I get that you had a bad experience, but the response to every bad experience should not be regulation. "Surge pricing" is no more a scam than any other market-based pricing mechanism. To be clear, I'm mixed on Uber overall, and I do think they need some regulation, but not with regard to pricing, coverage, or response time. Those are good fits for self-regulating markets. I'm more concerned with things like knowing that when I get in to an Uber, I'm covered by the proper insurance if I end up in an accident on the way to my destination.
- chimeracoder 11y ago
  > "Surge pricing" is no more a scam than any other market-based pricing mechanism. Surge pricing on an unknown fare (metered) is actually quite ridiculous. For contrast, when I order a Lyft line in Manhattan, it gives me an exact price quote (not an estimate, but the exact quote) before I order the ride, taking all surges into account. This means I have perfect knowledge of what the price is going to be before I decide whether to take the ride[0]. Uber has consistently refused to implement price quotes, to the point where they have literally jeopardized their existence in at least one city because of it: all of the legal problems they have in London would be avoided if they provided price quotes in advance. Uber has been really clever to frame the controversy as a debate about whether the cabbies should have to take an exam. But the fact that medallion cabs in London have to take the street exam is all moot, because if Uber provided price quotes in advance, they would be classified as a different kind of car service which doesn't have to take the street exam in the first place. Instead, Uber would rather launch a coordinated PR and legal campaign against the entire medallion cab system in London, just to avoid implementing an incredibly user-friendly feature. [0] This feature may not be in all locations yet (in fact, I don't know if it even works if the destination is in another borough), but it's clear to me that this is at least where Lyft is headed, whereas it's clear that Uber is committed to not providing price quotes.
  - mirashii 11y ago
    > but it's clear to me that this is at least where Lyft is headed The opposite is actually clear to me. Lyft in SF previously had the functionality you describe Uber in Manhattan having. You put your destination in, it gives you an exact price, you decide whether to call it. When Lyft Line (the carpooling variant) was introduced, that feature was actually removed, and now with a standard Lyft ride there is no way to know your fare in advance (though there is now with Lyft Line). In a similar vain, Uber gives a max fare on Uber Pool (so you know at most what it will cost, guaranteed). Uber also does do fare estimates on UberX and other rides. I've heard from a few drivers that they may have avoided giving exact fares in advance on UberX and others because people tend to want to use them a little bit more flexibly than get from point a to b (Stop and pick up a friend on the way, for instance). Point of all of this being, it's not clear to me that either company is committed to providing or not providing price quotes. I think we're still in the early stages of experimentation, with features being added and removed and changed between locations all the time, and I don't think we can yet characterize what either company is committed to doing or not.
prostoalex 11y ago
I gave up on Uber for airport rides. For LAX it's not unreasonable to request a 4:00 am ride for a 6:30 flight, which quite often comes up with "No cars available" anywhere except their most expensive tier. Wingz is a cheaper replacement for UberX and Blacklane is a cheaper replacement for Uber Black, both have to be arranged though.
fernandotakai 11y ago
that's strange -- as far as i know, the uber driver will only know your destination after they pick you up (so they cannot do this kind of thing). uber's feature page also say that https://www.uber.com/features https://www.uber.com/features -- "After pickup, we show the driver where you’re going..." I also spoke with the drivers I used here in são paulo and they said the same thing: they only get the destination after the pickup and they only get my first name -- uber now is using a 3rd party service that proxys my phone so the driver won't have my personal number.
- smackfu 11y ago
  How does Uber determine when you are picked up? That's the bit that could be gamed.
  - fernandotakai 11y ago
    from my experience, it uses the driver's phone gps + the place you asked to be picked + your phone's gps. and yeah, it could totally be gamed, but i think people should email uber whenever this happens since those drivers are scumbags. i emailed them before regarding problems with drivers and the customer support team is always good (twice i had problems with drivers doing longer routes when smaller ones were better and once i had a problem with a driver that accepted my request but never showed up). (btw, i'm not an uber employee, i just like the service and use at least twice a month)
  - willis77 11y ago
    It only shows when the trip/meter starts.
- discardorama 11y ago
  I spoke to the driver, as he was loading the suitcase. He clearly knew the destination, even before the ride had started.
  - jlmorton 11y ago
    Sorry, that's not possible. Drivers are not shown the destination until they begin the ride - the point where it begins billing you, and begins showing your pickup location in the map they email you immediately concluding your ride. This is not an automatic process that can go wrong. And indeed, for anyone who has used Uber any number of times, this is immediately obvious. Perhaps your driver surmised from your suitcase where you were going?
joshu 11y ago
I don't think they get to see the destination till they pick you up. I am of two minds on surge pricing. I certainly don't like it, but I don't think it is a scam so much as normal economics.
clarkmoody 11y ago
> Uber needs some serious regulation Too often our knee-jerk reaction is to want the government to get involved. But based on your experience, you are probably a) not going to trust Uber again, at least for this sort of ride b) choose a competitor / traditional cab to get you to OAK c) tell all of your friends / HN about your crappy experience, leading to reduced reputation for Uber The end result is that Uber will no longer get your business and perhaps others' business will go elsewhere too. Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market. Getting the government involved would likely put Uber out of business (hence the article) or make rates way higher and essentially no different than a traditional cab.
- discardorama 11y ago
  > Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market. I love it how libertarians believe everything will be fixed by a mythical "market". I'm sorry, but if we had left it to the "market", we'd still have separate "white" and "colored" toilets. We'd have no gay marriage. We'd have no voting rights act. The regulation I'm talking about is not being able to discriminate based on the type of passenger or destination.
  - tokenadult 11y ago
    I completely agree with your social justice agenda here. But as a historical matter, most forms of invidious discrimination have had to be be enforced by government regulations (for sure, that is the case for why gay marriage used to be illegal) rather than by the market. The market (as a historical matter) does tend to break down patterns of prejudice, because most producers would like to sell to as many customers as they can, and most buyers will shop for the producer who will treat them with respect. The former Jim Crow segregation laws in the south had to be vigorously enforced by the formal justice system and by terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan precisely because many businessmen there would have been happy to serve all their potential customers on an even-handed basis if the law had allowed them to do so.
  - elmin 11y ago
    I'm sorry but your destination is not the same as your race, sex or disability. If a business doesn't want to drive you somewhere, that's not discrimination, it's business.
rgawdzik 11y ago
Uber drivers are required to accept at least 80% of their requests.
stickfigure 11y ago
Doesn't the last sentence in your message contradict the first one? Uber provides crappy service; use different product. Done.
smokeyj 11y ago
One time I went to McDonalds and the pickles were all mixed up with the mustard. This industry really needs a regulatory overhaul.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Luckily food supply is heavily regulated and regulators take cross contamination seriously. Contact your regulators. If you're going to snark you should at least pick a good example.
  - smokeyj 11y ago
    I meant on my burger. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.
    - tedunangst 11y ago
      Your mouth is defective. Pickles and mustard are great.
dylz 11y ago
I'm more concerned with why uber/lyft/etc are so popular. They wouldn't be as big as it was if the existing system wasn't literally awful, as someone in SF -- if I wanted a '''real''' taxi, it has a chance to not bother coming several hours later more than anything. And then intentionally taking roundabout routes just to fuck me out of even more fare. And at Santa Ana Metrolink, I had 'taxi' drivers effectively try stealing my bags, throwing them into their vehicles, and trying to drag me along while I was waiting for uber/lyft. Maybe in cities where there is significantly more regulation, enough licences, and no corruption Uber would not be nearly as popular.
- Swizec 11y ago
  Personally the main reason I hate cabs, especially in SF, is that most of them feel dirty, old, and not well maintenanced. When you sit inside everything is kind of rattly and broken, things are sometimes duct taped together, the whole car gives you a grimey feeling. I've never once had that with Uber. All cars are fairly new and super shiny. When I sit in an Uber I always feel the car is well maintained and clean etc. There's no grimeyness. And when I call an Uber, I know when it's coming. After the ride is done, I get a receipt that shows the exact route and so on. It's really neat. Cabs on the other hand are a black hole. I call a cab and it's theoretically on the way, but I have no way of knowing and there's no indication on how far it is and when it's coming. After I pay for it, the money goes into a black hole and other than a small piece of paper that I lose after two minutes, there is no indication of it happening or how much I paid.
  - dylz 11y ago
    I also get harassed about using cards with the cabs, I rarely carry cash (for good reason considering the neighbourhoods I go through), and it's always a "ITS BROKEN CASH ONLY GO TO ATM AND MAKE SURE GIVE ME TIP"
    - frandroid 11y ago
      The trick for that: When you are about to enter the cab, ask "Do you take [type] cards?" And then skip that cab if they say they don't. It's magical how the potential of losing a ride suddenly fixes broken card machines.
zippergz 11y ago
> a licensed cab cannot refuse to take you to your destination! They "cannot" but they have done it to me many times in several cities. I also once had a cabbie try to strongarm me into giving a ridiculously huge tip (~100%) "because I won't be able to get a fare all the way back." Not to defend Uber here, but it's not like the cab regulation totally fixes this.
irl_zebra 11y ago
I've had the same thing happen to me a couple times, always seemingly on the way to the airport even. It's really frustrating. In those situations, I generally switch to Lyft and get picked up without cancellation. Unfortunately this isn't an option in places Lyft has pulled out of due to regulations like Houston that Lyft has pulled out of due to similar regulations by and thus only Uber remains. This is one of the unfortunate side effects of a car service pulling out of a city like Lyft did in Houston. Now only Uber remains which, despite its flaws, is light years ahead of the standard yellow cab service.
wdr1 11y ago
Honest question: If you want a regulated form of Uber, why not just take a taxi? Isn't that effectively what you're looking for?
mooted1 11y ago
I've taken Uber to OAK and other airports from SF dozens of times. You had a spot of bad luck with cancellations—they're in fact extremely rare, and I've taken hundreds of trips. On top of that, drivers cannot see your destination when a request is made. Go ahead and ask them.

ardit33 11y ago

If you live in NYC, cabs always refuse people to go to Brooklyn/Queens/Unwanted destination, eve though it is illegal to do so. The usual excuse: I am going out of my shift, and can't go that way. (this can be legit, but often it is not). Next time don't enter your destination address, so the driver doesn't know where you go, and once you are in the car it is much harder for them to refuse you.

tjdetwiler 11y ago
Lyft (as far as I know) won't show the driver your destination until the ride is started. It's intended to save time in allowing the driver to bring up directions and not as a decision point for them to decide if they want to take the ride or not.
gecko 11y ago
I have been living in NYC for ten years. I use cabs constantly. This has happened to be exactly one time. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I think the idea that this is common for NYC cabbies to do is really outdated.
- memset 11y ago
  More anecdata: this happens to me continually. I have successfully reported at least half a dozen drivers in as many months for refusing to go to bushwick.
  - rockshassa 11y ago
    fellow bushwick resident here, I can confirm no yellow cabs want to go to brooklyn. many cabs also will lock their doors to prevent you from getting in, until after you've told them your destination.
  - limeyx 11y ago
    Maybe the "market" is telling you not to live in bushwick ?
brianwawok 11y ago
Had this happen a lot in Chicago too with normal cabs. if the market was really busy and I wanted to go 3 miles away from the crowds, sorry the cabbie had to end his shift and couldn't take me. If it was a nice and quiet night, I would get the same ride no problem.

istvan__ 11y ago

This is an edge case, and you can think of it as a side effect coming from living in SF, where everybody has to deal with bay bridge problems. I understand your frustration but I would split the blame 50-50 between the city for not providing transportation, and Uber to not red flagging this problem and offer a special solution for this.

cozzyd 11y ago
SF provides great transportation (via BART) to its own airport and decent transportation (also via BART) to OAK.
- discardorama 11y ago
  If I didn't have a large suitcase, I would have definitely taken the BART. But getting to a BART station is a PITA if you have some luggage.
  - cozzyd 11y ago
    There's always the multimodal option (cab -> BART)
- istvan__ 11y ago
  BART os not even remotely close to be good, but it is lightyears away from being great. The only thing that is consistent about BART service is the interruption. It is kind of funny how people from US see BART as a great service while people from Europe or other places with excellent public transportation see it as rather expensive and bad. Just one minor example why I refuse to use BART: if I was using it i had to combine with a bus service. The bus service is leaving exactly 1 minute sooner than the BART comes in to the station making sure you have to wait additional 20 minutes. This makes my commute exactly 1 hour (each way) while using BART, while if I am driving it is exactly 20 minutes. The pricing difference is insignificant, does not justify the lost time. If BART was that great, we would see significantly less traffic on 280/101 in the commuting hours.
- istvan__ 11y ago

bradleyland 11y ago

Or, you know, don't use Uber. I get that you had a bad experience, but the response to every bad experience should not be regulation. "Surge pricing" is no more a scam than any other market-based pricing mechanism. To be clear, I'm mixed on Uber overall, and I do think they need some regulation, but not with regard to pricing, coverage, or response time. Those are good fits for self-regulating markets. I'm more concerned with things like knowing that when I get in to an Uber, I'm covered by the proper insurance if I end up in an accident on the way to my destination.

chimeracoder 11y ago
> "Surge pricing" is no more a scam than any other market-based pricing mechanism. Surge pricing on an unknown fare (metered) is actually quite ridiculous. For contrast, when I order a Lyft line in Manhattan, it gives me an exact price quote (not an estimate, but the exact quote) before I order the ride, taking all surges into account. This means I have perfect knowledge of what the price is going to be before I decide whether to take the ride[0]. Uber has consistently refused to implement price quotes, to the point where they have literally jeopardized their existence in at least one city because of it: all of the legal problems they have in London would be avoided if they provided price quotes in advance. Uber has been really clever to frame the controversy as a debate about whether the cabbies should have to take an exam. But the fact that medallion cabs in London have to take the street exam is all moot, because if Uber provided price quotes in advance, they would be classified as a different kind of car service which doesn't have to take the street exam in the first place. Instead, Uber would rather launch a coordinated PR and legal campaign against the entire medallion cab system in London, just to avoid implementing an incredibly user-friendly feature. [0] This feature may not be in all locations yet (in fact, I don't know if it even works if the destination is in another borough), but it's clear to me that this is at least where Lyft is headed, whereas it's clear that Uber is committed to not providing price quotes.
- mirashii 11y ago
  > but it's clear to me that this is at least where Lyft is headed The opposite is actually clear to me. Lyft in SF previously had the functionality you describe Uber in Manhattan having. You put your destination in, it gives you an exact price, you decide whether to call it. When Lyft Line (the carpooling variant) was introduced, that feature was actually removed, and now with a standard Lyft ride there is no way to know your fare in advance (though there is now with Lyft Line). In a similar vain, Uber gives a max fare on Uber Pool (so you know at most what it will cost, guaranteed). Uber also does do fare estimates on UberX and other rides. I've heard from a few drivers that they may have avoided giving exact fares in advance on UberX and others because people tend to want to use them a little bit more flexibly than get from point a to b (Stop and pick up a friend on the way, for instance). Point of all of this being, it's not clear to me that either company is committed to providing or not providing price quotes. I think we're still in the early stages of experimentation, with features being added and removed and changed between locations all the time, and I don't think we can yet characterize what either company is committed to doing or not.

prostoalex 11y ago

I gave up on Uber for airport rides. For LAX it's not unreasonable to request a 4:00 am ride for a 6:30 flight, which quite often comes up with "No cars available" anywhere except their most expensive tier. Wingz is a cheaper replacement for UberX and Blacklane is a cheaper replacement for Uber Black, both have to be arranged though.

fernandotakai 11y ago

that's strange -- as far as i know, the uber driver will only know your destination after they pick you up (so they cannot do this kind of thing). uber's feature page also say that https://www.uber.com/features https://www.uber.com/features -- "After pickup, we show the driver where you’re going..." I also spoke with the drivers I used here in são paulo and they said the same thing: they only get the destination after the pickup and they only get my first name -- uber now is using a 3rd party service that proxys my phone so the driver won't have my personal number.

smackfu 11y ago
How does Uber determine when you are picked up? That's the bit that could be gamed.
- fernandotakai 11y ago
  from my experience, it uses the driver's phone gps + the place you asked to be picked + your phone's gps. and yeah, it could totally be gamed, but i think people should email uber whenever this happens since those drivers are scumbags. i emailed them before regarding problems with drivers and the customer support team is always good (twice i had problems with drivers doing longer routes when smaller ones were better and once i had a problem with a driver that accepted my request but never showed up). (btw, i'm not an uber employee, i just like the service and use at least twice a month)
- willis77 11y ago
  It only shows when the trip/meter starts.
discardorama 11y ago
I spoke to the driver, as he was loading the suitcase. He clearly knew the destination, even before the ride had started.
- jlmorton 11y ago
  Sorry, that's not possible. Drivers are not shown the destination until they begin the ride - the point where it begins billing you, and begins showing your pickup location in the map they email you immediately concluding your ride. This is not an automatic process that can go wrong. And indeed, for anyone who has used Uber any number of times, this is immediately obvious. Perhaps your driver surmised from your suitcase where you were going?

joshu 11y ago

I don't think they get to see the destination till they pick you up. I am of two minds on surge pricing. I certainly don't like it, but I don't think it is a scam so much as normal economics.

clarkmoody 11y ago

> Uber needs some serious regulation Too often our knee-jerk reaction is to want the government to get involved. But based on your experience, you are probably a) not going to trust Uber again, at least for this sort of ride b) choose a competitor / traditional cab to get you to OAK c) tell all of your friends / HN about your crappy experience, leading to reduced reputation for Uber The end result is that Uber will no longer get your business and perhaps others' business will go elsewhere too. Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market. Getting the government involved would likely put Uber out of business (hence the article) or make rates way higher and essentially no different than a traditional cab.

discardorama 11y ago
> Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market. I love it how libertarians believe everything will be fixed by a mythical "market". I'm sorry, but if we had left it to the "market", we'd still have separate "white" and "colored" toilets. We'd have no gay marriage. We'd have no voting rights act. The regulation I'm talking about is not being able to discriminate based on the type of passenger or destination.
- tokenadult 11y ago
  I completely agree with your social justice agenda here. But as a historical matter, most forms of invidious discrimination have had to be be enforced by government regulations (for sure, that is the case for why gay marriage used to be illegal) rather than by the market. The market (as a historical matter) does tend to break down patterns of prejudice, because most producers would like to sell to as many customers as they can, and most buyers will shop for the producer who will treat them with respect. The former Jim Crow segregation laws in the south had to be vigorously enforced by the formal justice system and by terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan precisely because many businessmen there would have been happy to serve all their potential customers on an even-handed basis if the law had allowed them to do so.
- elmin 11y ago
  I'm sorry but your destination is not the same as your race, sex or disability. If a business doesn't want to drive you somewhere, that's not discrimination, it's business.

rgawdzik 11y ago

Uber drivers are required to accept at least 80% of their requests.

stickfigure 11y ago

Doesn't the last sentence in your message contradict the first one? Uber provides crappy service; use different product. Done.

smokeyj 11y ago

One time I went to McDonalds and the pickles were all mixed up with the mustard. This industry really needs a regulatory overhaul.

DanBC 11y ago
Luckily food supply is heavily regulated and regulators take cross contamination seriously. Contact your regulators. If you're going to snark you should at least pick a good example.
- smokeyj 11y ago
  I meant on my burger. It really left a bad taste in my mouth.
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    Your mouth is defective. Pickles and mustard are great.

dylz 11y ago

I'm more concerned with why uber/lyft/etc are so popular. They wouldn't be as big as it was if the existing system wasn't literally awful, as someone in SF -- if I wanted a '''real''' taxi, it has a chance to not bother coming several hours later more than anything. And then intentionally taking roundabout routes just to fuck me out of even more fare. And at Santa Ana Metrolink, I had 'taxi' drivers effectively try stealing my bags, throwing them into their vehicles, and trying to drag me along while I was waiting for uber/lyft. Maybe in cities where there is significantly more regulation, enough licences, and no corruption Uber would not be nearly as popular.

Swizec 11y ago
Personally the main reason I hate cabs, especially in SF, is that most of them feel dirty, old, and not well maintenanced. When you sit inside everything is kind of rattly and broken, things are sometimes duct taped together, the whole car gives you a grimey feeling. I've never once had that with Uber. All cars are fairly new and super shiny. When I sit in an Uber I always feel the car is well maintained and clean etc. There's no grimeyness. And when I call an Uber, I know when it's coming. After the ride is done, I get a receipt that shows the exact route and so on. It's really neat. Cabs on the other hand are a black hole. I call a cab and it's theoretically on the way, but I have no way of knowing and there's no indication on how far it is and when it's coming. After I pay for it, the money goes into a black hole and other than a small piece of paper that I lose after two minutes, there is no indication of it happening or how much I paid.
- dylz 11y ago
  I also get harassed about using cards with the cabs, I rarely carry cash (for good reason considering the neighbourhoods I go through), and it's always a "ITS BROKEN CASH ONLY GO TO ATM AND MAKE SURE GIVE ME TIP"
  - frandroid 11y ago
    The trick for that: When you are about to enter the cab, ask "Do you take [type] cards?" And then skip that cab if they say they don't. It's magical how the potential of losing a ride suddenly fixes broken card machines.

zippergz 11y ago

> a licensed cab cannot refuse to take you to your destination! They "cannot" but they have done it to me many times in several cities. I also once had a cabbie try to strongarm me into giving a ridiculously huge tip (~100%) "because I won't be able to get a fare all the way back." Not to defend Uber here, but it's not like the cab regulation totally fixes this.

irl_zebra 11y ago

I've had the same thing happen to me a couple times, always seemingly on the way to the airport even. It's really frustrating. In those situations, I generally switch to Lyft and get picked up without cancellation. Unfortunately this isn't an option in places Lyft has pulled out of due to regulations like Houston that Lyft has pulled out of due to similar regulations by and thus only Uber remains. This is one of the unfortunate side effects of a car service pulling out of a city like Lyft did in Houston. Now only Uber remains which, despite its flaws, is light years ahead of the standard yellow cab service.

wdr1 11y ago

Honest question: If you want a regulated form of Uber, why not just take a taxi? Isn't that effectively what you're looking for?

mooted1 11y ago

I've taken Uber to OAK and other airports from SF dozens of times. You had a spot of bad luck with cancellations—they're in fact extremely rare, and I've taken hundreds of trips. On top of that, drivers cannot see your destination when a request is made. Go ahead and ask them.