New York

Uber Has Changed My Life And As God Is My Witness I Will Never Take A Taxi Again (Where Available)

Last weekend I stepped out of a taxi in front of my house and realized I just don't have to put up with this garbage anymore:

It started in line at the taxi stand, with the driver trying to get another customer — a total stranger — to share the ride with me. Then the driver expressed his disappointment that I wasn't going very far (I guess he was hoping for a bigger fare). The interior of the car was filthy; the seats were ripped and worn. The car itself was an ancient Chevy Caprice. In the 10-block ride, the driver carried on a conversation via his headset the entire way, in a foreign language. (Research shows that talking on a phone, even hands free, while driving is as good as driving drunk.) His English was rudimentary at best. That turned out to be a good thing, because I couldn't understand what he was trying to say when he insulted me for not tipping him enough.

I was too tired to explain to him that nothing he had done warranted encouragement.

No more.

And now I'm done with taxis.

As long as cars are available on my Uber app — which connects limo drivers with customers based on a mapping and pricing algorithm that delivers rides that are often cheaper than metered taxis — I'm taking Uber instead.

Don't underestimate Uber. What it does is incredibly simple but incredibly clever — and it's going to fix bad taxis forever.

If you've ever taken a taxi in the New York metro area — especially outside Manhattan — "the depressing taxi experience" will be familiar to you. New Yorkers swap awful taxi tales like they're war stories. We're almost proud of them.

I'm not saying all taxi drivers are awful. I've had some really great taxi drivers. But it is not a generalization to say that really bad taxi experiences are too common to be ignored. If service at Starbucks was as routinely disappointing as service from taxis, Starbucks would have gone out of business long ago.

Yes, taxi drivers should be able to speak English.

Different American cities set different rules for taxis, and that plays out as wildly different levels of service depending on the standards they're required to meet. Taxis in Las Vegas are great, for instance, and I've never had a Vegas driver who wasn't fluent in English. In Jersey City, N.J., however, it's unusual to get a driver who can converse beyond the minimum exchange required to get the fare from A to B.

This "speaking English" thing is important. The job requires drivers to be able to communicate in the language of the customers they're serving. They need to be able to obey instructions from law enforcement. And it would be nice if they could chat politely with their fares, like Vegas drivers do. (In case you're about to accuse me of being racist, turn the situation on its head: If I was to announce I was moving to France to become a taxi driver but I wasn't going to bother to learn French, you'd laugh at my stupidity.)

Uber fixes this because it requires drivers to pass an orientation before they can start accepting fares. They can't get through the orientation unless they can converse in English, a driver told me recently. And, of course, an Uber driver who can't communicate will get low ratings from customers, and eventually be dropped from the system.

Good behavior is rewarded.

Unlike regular taxis, the Uber system punishes bad service.

It works both ways, too, because the drivers get to rate the passengers as well. Be rude, late or drunk once too often and suddenly you'll find there is never a driver willing to pick you up. The customer-driver mutual rating system creates reciprocal obligations in which both sides are incentivized to be as nice as possible.
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Liverpool

Courts fine Liverpool hackney taxi’s targeting Sefton’s streets

FIGURES reveal a shock rise in the number of hackney carriages with Liverpool licences caught plying for hire in Sefton.

Statistics gathered through a joint police and taxi licensing unit operation were sent before Sefton Council’s licensing and regulatory committee on Tuesday.

The results show that the number of Liverpool licensed hackney carriage drivers among the taxi drivers brought before the courts increased from 66% in 2011/2012 to 80% in 2012/2013.

Ex-hackney cab driver, and Conservative Cambridge Ward councillor, Tony Crabtree said the figures and statistics reflect just how desperate the taxi trade is.

He added: “Once you go out of your own area, you are not supposed to have your ‘for hire’ sign on if you are a hackney. But there will be some that just forget to turn it off and have been caught that way.

“Then some of these cabs will be deliberately competing, or plying for hire, in Sefton.”

John Whiteside, the boss of Southport’s Yellow Tops Taxis told the Visiter that he does not see many Liverpool cabs in the Southport area and that it is the south of the borough that is most affected.

He added: “Because it is Sefton as a whole, it might be that these drivers are getting caught coming over the boundary to Bootle.

“My drivers have not said many Liverpool cabs are coming up here. I know we get Bootle taxis up here at the weekend because our economy is better, but they are allowed to work the ranks here.”

The statistics also showed that the number of Sefton private hire drivers caught illegally plying for hire has decreased from 25% to 8% of the cases prosecuted. Knowsley drivers now account for 12%.

Private hire taxis are only permitted to take fares that have been booked with a firm, otherwise they are not insured.

David Moorhouse, a driver with Quick Cars, said that in 2005 he was fined £715 and received six points on his licence after picking up a non-booked fare in an undercover operation.

He added: “Money is money, of course I wanted to earn the fare.

“They looked like a respectable couple, so I let them jump in quick and took them to Ormskirk. They paid me and no one said a word.

“The next day I found out I had actually picked up two undercover community police officers – and I was taken to court and fined.

“This day and age money is tight and all the drivers want or need to make money. If someone flags me, at the end of the day I am taxi and I will go and pick them up.”


http://tinyurl.com/p2rcnjx
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