37 ms·

This kind of concerns me. I have a T4/T5 spinal cord injury from a snowboarding accident 4.5Y ago. I have good hand and arm function but that's it no abdominals

by dia80 11y ago

This kind of concerns me. I have a T4/T5 spinal cord injury from a snowboarding accident 4.5Y ago. I have good hand and arm function but that's it no abdominals etc. I drive myself to work everyday and transfer in and out and fold up my wheelchair. London's black cabs all have ramps. UBER is making big inroads here and I'm worried that eventually it'll be tricky to get a black cab. I can transfer into a regular car but I would need the driver to put my wheelchair in the boot (trunk) and given busy streets, harassed drivers, needing to pull right up to the kerb etc. I've not really had the guts to try it. It's particularly relevant here as the tube is mostly inaccessible and the buses painfully slow.

hahainternet 11y ago
Uber in the UK uses licensed taxi drivers the same as any other Private Hire firm. I think they'd have an extremely hard time claiming that they are exempt from UK and EU law. Furthermore, Black Cabs are an entirely different taxi group and the competition between them is regulated AFAIK.
- jackgavigan 11y ago
  > Uber in the UK uses licensed taxi drivers the same as any other Private Hire firm. That is not correct.
  - hahainternet 11y ago
    Is it not? Can you tell me why all the Ubers I use have the exact same markings and plates as private hire firms? I'm in Manchester.
    - jackgavigan 11y ago
      > licensed taxi drivers > private hire firms You need to learn the difference between these.
viscanti 11y ago
The issue isn't that Uber is discriminating. In fact, the subject of the article was a twice weekly user of Uber for two years. A single driver didn't think the wheelchair would fit in the car. It seems like something that should be reported, and the driver should be dealt with. To take an issue that happens less than 1% of the time and make it sound like it's UBER is a bit absurd.
- URSpider94 11y ago
  No, it happened twice to her in two weeks. The question is, does Uber have training in place on what rights a disabled passenger has? Do they discipline or dismiss drivers who receive disability complaints? It sounds like Uber's response has been that it has no duty to support or enforce the ADA. Uber is forcing taxis out of business. One of the reasons that taxis are regulated is that they are bound by law to transport the disabled. If we are going to let Uber put them out of business, then we have to aggressively protect the rights of the disabled.
  - true_religion 11y ago
    Taxis are regulated primarily because they do business on public streets. If the only way to get a taxi were to call them up, there'd be far less of a reason to regulate them.
    - dhruvbird 11y ago
      Do you mean to say that it's okay for private operators to discrimate based on whether their potential client is disabled or not (when it has nothing to do with the safety of the client or the driver)?
      - true_religion 11y ago
        You're using discriminate in an odd way. Is it discrimination to not set yourself up to be able to provide service for someone because of an additional cost?
    - 11y ago
stevenjohns 11y ago
I think what we'll eventually see are Uber drivers purchasing their own ramps and Uber marking them as wheelchair-friendly, with the customer given the ability to request a wheelchair-friendly car. In turn this would probably pressure other Uber drivers to also get ramps so they're able to compete, and the majority of fulltime Uber drivers will eventually get ramps. Edit: this might also extend to things like baby seats and various other specialized passenger modifications.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  Yeah they did that in Houston and Sydney, Australia http://blog.uber.com/UberACCESSHou http://blog.uber.com/UberACCESSHou http://blog.uber.com/WATSYD http://blog.uber.com/WATSYD
- wang_li 11y ago
  They won't compete. There's a reason that the ADA exists and it's not because people are mean, it's because it's more expensive to support people with disabilities. And because disabled customers are a very small portion of the total customers service providers would just forgo their business. The end result being there is no competition and without a legal requirement, there would generally be no accommodations.
jackgavigan 11y ago
> London's black cabs all have ramps. It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) must be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that weren't wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade. So, in addition to successfully completing the Knowledge[1], black taxi drivers must operate using a compliant vehicle (which is inevitably more expensive than a normal vehicle, which Uber drivers typically use), and they must pick up anyone (including a disabled person who hails them while their light is on (if they ignore you or refuse to carry you without good reason, you can complain to the Public Carriage Office, which can take away a driver's taxi license). In return for complying with all these requirements, licensed taxi drivers are allowed to pick people up on the street and calculate the fare using a taximeter. Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter.[2] London's licensed taxis drivers' view is that the Uber app is effectively a meter, and therefore, Uber drivers are breaking the law. The High Court will rule on the matter this summer.[3] 1: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/london-taxi-test-knowledge/ http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/london-taxi-te... 2: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/11 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/11 3: http://www.cityam.com/212676/high-court-ruling-taximeters-could-mean-end-uber-london http://www.cityam.com/212676/high-court-ruling-taximeters-co...
- sillygoose 11y ago
  > Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter. Their lives must be miserable without The Queen's "taximeter"!
  - true_religion 11y ago
    I think the UK situation is fair. If the uber app lets you go to random destinations, or charges you extra per the mile, then it is a meter. Uber should be just like a black car service: point A to point B, with no extras. If Uber doesn't find this as profitable, they're free to open a segment of their company that actually is a taxi service and follows regulation in exchange for picking up the public and being able to run a meter on public traffic.

by dia80 11y ago

hahainternet 11y ago

Uber in the UK uses licensed taxi drivers the same as any other Private Hire firm. I think they'd have an extremely hard time claiming that they are exempt from UK and EU law. Furthermore, Black Cabs are an entirely different taxi group and the competition between them is regulated AFAIK.

jackgavigan 11y ago
> Uber in the UK uses licensed taxi drivers the same as any other Private Hire firm. That is not correct.
- hahainternet 11y ago
  Is it not? Can you tell me why all the Ubers I use have the exact same markings and plates as private hire firms? I'm in Manchester.
  - jackgavigan 11y ago
    > licensed taxi drivers > private hire firms You need to learn the difference between these.

viscanti 11y ago

The issue isn't that Uber is discriminating. In fact, the subject of the article was a twice weekly user of Uber for two years. A single driver didn't think the wheelchair would fit in the car. It seems like something that should be reported, and the driver should be dealt with. To take an issue that happens less than 1% of the time and make it sound like it's UBER is a bit absurd.

URSpider94 11y ago
No, it happened twice to her in two weeks. The question is, does Uber have training in place on what rights a disabled passenger has? Do they discipline or dismiss drivers who receive disability complaints? It sounds like Uber's response has been that it has no duty to support or enforce the ADA. Uber is forcing taxis out of business. One of the reasons that taxis are regulated is that they are bound by law to transport the disabled. If we are going to let Uber put them out of business, then we have to aggressively protect the rights of the disabled.
- true_religion 11y ago
  Taxis are regulated primarily because they do business on public streets. If the only way to get a taxi were to call them up, there'd be far less of a reason to regulate them.
  - dhruvbird 11y ago
    Do you mean to say that it's okay for private operators to discrimate based on whether their potential client is disabled or not (when it has nothing to do with the safety of the client or the driver)?
    - true_religion 11y ago
      You're using discriminate in an odd way. Is it discrimination to not set yourself up to be able to provide service for someone because of an additional cost?
  - 11y ago

stevenjohns 11y ago

I think what we'll eventually see are Uber drivers purchasing their own ramps and Uber marking them as wheelchair-friendly, with the customer given the ability to request a wheelchair-friendly car. In turn this would probably pressure other Uber drivers to also get ramps so they're able to compete, and the majority of fulltime Uber drivers will eventually get ramps. Edit: this might also extend to things like baby seats and various other specialized passenger modifications.

madeofpalk 11y ago
Yeah they did that in Houston and Sydney, Australia http://blog.uber.com/UberACCESSHou http://blog.uber.com/UberACCESSHou http://blog.uber.com/WATSYD http://blog.uber.com/WATSYD
wang_li 11y ago
They won't compete. There's a reason that the ADA exists and it's not because people are mean, it's because it's more expensive to support people with disabilities. And because disabled customers are a very small portion of the total customers service providers would just forgo their business. The end result being there is no competition and without a legal requirement, there would generally be no accommodations.

jackgavigan 11y ago

> London's black cabs all have ramps. It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) must be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that weren't wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade. So, in addition to successfully completing the Knowledge[1], black taxi drivers must operate using a compliant vehicle (which is inevitably more expensive than a normal vehicle, which Uber drivers typically use), and they must pick up anyone (including a disabled person who hails them while their light is on (if they ignore you or refuse to carry you without good reason, you can complain to the Public Carriage Office, which can take away a driver's taxi license). In return for complying with all these requirements, licensed taxi drivers are allowed to pick people up on the street and calculate the fare using a taximeter. Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter.[2] London's licensed taxis drivers' view is that the Uber app is effectively a meter, and therefore, Uber drivers are breaking the law. The High Court will rule on the matter this summer.[3] 1: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/london-taxi-test-knowledge/ http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/london-taxi-te... 2: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/11 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/34/section/11 3: http://www.cityam.com/212676/high-court-ruling-taximeters-could-mean-end-uber-london http://www.cityam.com/212676/high-court-ruling-taximeters-co...

sillygoose 11y ago
> Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter. Their lives must be miserable without The Queen's "taximeter"!
- true_religion 11y ago
  I think the UK situation is fair. If the uber app lets you go to random destinations, or charges you extra per the mile, then it is a meter. Uber should be just like a black car service: point A to point B, with no extras. If Uber doesn't find this as profitable, they're free to open a segment of their company that actually is a taxi service and follows regulation in exchange for picking up the public and being able to run a meter on public traffic.