Taxi regulation also serves the purpose of creating consequences for harming the community. A taxi medallion is valuable. A profile on a dating site isn't. There is no cost-effective way for us to police every vehicle on the street; you'll learn this quickly if you get your license suspended when you realize that basically nothing happens as a result as long as you're a reasonable driver).
So instead, we create a different class of vehicles, require that only vehicles from that class can carry passengers for hire, and when those vehicles are driven unsafely we can revoke their licenses. It's hard to see how you can reliably revoke someone's online car dating license.
These modern rideservices can expel drivers (from the dispatch-and-payment system) far more effectively than traditional regulations could suppress gypsy cabs.
Policies should be driven by real results and demonstrated harm... not by assuming that the risks/regulatory-tools of decades ago still apply.
Ban their DL. Ban their device. Ban their car tags. Include a photo of their approved drivers.
It's then at least as hard and probably harder to masquerade to Uber as someone completely different than it is to masquerade to traditional regulatory authorities.
Entering an Uber car, my own trusted device can supply me with car and driver info, including photograph. In traditional systems, I'd have to trust unauthenticated documents (including car markings) provided by the car/driver. Such forged traditional documentation can even fool local law enforcement, in some gypsy cab situations.
And even if someone can occasionally slip into the role/reputation of another driver in good standing, with that other driver's cooperation, there is still a chain-of-control/motivation incenting good behavior and allowing punishment of transgressions (through the accomplice who loans out their valuable identity).
We would need to empirically study whether this system offers better results, overall, than the traditional system. I suspect it does: even if you can contrive a few exploits, they could still be less prevalent/practical than the weaknesses of the traditional system.
Straining one's imagination is a bad way to inform policy. Observe, don't imagine.
There won't be 10 Ubers: the reputation angle and network effects strongly favor a few large recognizable operators. And maybe just one!
But even if there were 10: accident, citation, and criminal records are easy to check. Consumers will prefer the branded/authenticated services which self-police most effectively.
Traditionally, this may have been a problem needing regulation: at the moment of flagging a streetcab, the fare was at the mercy of the provider, with minimal authentication/reputation information available.
Now with the modern mobile-dispatched services, this problem is obsolete... like the problem of needing to buy a paper street map when arriving in a new city.
You have to strain your imagination to see 10 competing companies? This is another bias routinely evident on HN: we think of public policy for new business models solely in terms of the best-known operator of that model; it's not about regulating livery, it's about regulating Uber. No.
You don't have to change the subject to be about my capacity for imagination, or some bias you perceive in other HN conversations.
There aren't 10 such companies now. There might never be. Nor is there yet any evidence of consumer harm.
Imagining the worst when it might never materialize is a bad basis for policy. Especially with all the new factors which provide stronger, more-immediate checks on bad-actors: many of which apply to one operator or 100 equally well.
Why not give them a chance to work before constraining new operators to an ancient system which (a) disappointed customers with scarcity; and (b) got captured by incumbents?
This thread began with me describing the general case, "these modern rideservices".
I happen to think there will be few of these modern rideservices, rather than many, because the matching/reputation market has natural monopoly characteristics. But that's just an aside.
The tech/market/reputation checks I've been describing don't depend on Uber or any particular company. They are inherent to the category. I am making a case for the modern mobile-dispatched-and-billed rideservices category, not Uber specifically.
(My guess would also be that the average customer is more likely to someday face economic 'harm' from an eventual dispatcher monopoly, than from the sort of dangerous/abusive/unaccountable car/driver issues that you've been mentioning. But those sorts of antitrust concerns also need to be handled in retrospect, after observing how they develop, and not based on anticipatory paranoia about what might someday happen.)
There is no way that banning someone from a single website is more effective than putting them in jail or prison (depending on the state). For that to work, all of the psuedocab/ride-sharing services would have to work together to blacklist drivers who violate their rules, but this is illegal in many states, especially California, in which several of these companies are based.
A driver doing something so bad the penalty is incarceration can be incarcerated whether they do it in a traditional cab or a new carservice. Also, accident/citation records are available to insurance companies and others, even for non-commercial drivers.
We can make the penalties for any real problems that arise as strong as needed... when they arise. Expulsion from Uber/etc might be enough. If it isn't, it doesn't require traditional licensing/regulation to increase the penalties for specific actions.
1. The fundamental difference about Uber (that I think is implicit to proponents but gets lost in the actual discussion), is that you're using a well-known public-facing party to request the service in the first place. This has wide ranging benefits for consumer protection (not that it solves everything, but most taxi regulations exist because you've traditionally had to trust the first guy that drives by in a yellow car, or an informally run dispatch station). Specifically in relation to your point, Uber has a strong incentive to make sure drivers are licensed (and if not, their business insurance sure does).
2. Maybe two years ago, I was in the car when my friend got pulled over for driving "without" a license (MA RMV SOP is to suspend licenses without notifying). He passed a clearly visible state trooper (going under speed limit, ofc) stopped two lanes over. Five miles later, he's being pulled over because the trooper had run his plate and saw that the vehicle was owned by someone with a suspended license. Whether it's technology or simply an overabundance of cops, those quaint days of enforcement directed only at drivers that stick out are pretty much over.
Uber's drivers are, I believe, 1099 contractors. If an Uber driver operates unsafely, the driver and Uber simply sever the relationship, and the driver goes somewhere else.
I'm not sure I buy the story about being pulled over for a suspended license, for a bunch of reasons:
* Over the last 10 years, I've driven more on suspended licenses than valid ones (I'm a very safe driver but I suck at getting my plate sticker updated and suck even worse at actually paying the resulting tickets). I've never been pulled over for having a suspended license, or even heard of someone being pulled over for that.†
* The police in Illinois and, I assume, most other states have strict rules about when they can pull people over (the "primary" and "secondary" offenses). If your car is compliant and you aren't committing a moving violation and you're wearing your seatbelt, what grounds does an officer have to pull you over? Consider that cars are often driven by people other than their owners.
* There are too many valid reasons you can be pulled over. Tail light out. Sticker's a month out of date. Improper lane change. "Not wearing seat belt".
Are you sure you're not confusing "suspended license" with "suspended tags"? Driving on suspended tags will get you pulled over quickly. Illinois will suspend your plates for things like toll violations.
I stand by my assertion: if you're a good driver, and your car is compliant, you're probably pretty safe driving on a suspended license. There is a pretty low probability of getting a relatively stiff ticket, and that's about it. Make sure your plates are good.
† I get pulled over, mind you. Just not for having a suspended license.
But the customer remains with Uber. And it's not like taxi drivers drive safe - I rarely take taxis, yet I once had a taxi driver who simply went through a red light after I casually remarked "this light is always red".
Really, you don't "buy" the story? Well it happened, in point of fact. Maybe telling you that said friend works at that binary analysis company in Burlington will provide enough of a connection to let you be convinced that I'm not just making up stories on the Internet for kicks?
This was at night, simple driving with no other cars around. I'm pretty sure the cop actually said that his probable cause was that the owner of the car was unlicensed. We switched places at the cop's direction (after he checked my license) and I drove the car for the rest of the trip.
The cop could have simply been done stopping, caught up to us (their standard speed is 110mph), and lingered next to us to idly run the plates. But at the time it really felt like the plate must have been automatically captured as we drove by.
I very very much doubt you'd just make something up. I'm just saying there are alternate explanations that make more sense. Happy to be wrong; still stand by my analysis. :)
The attention could have been due to racial profiling, but that would require the cop to have seen the driver in the dark at 60mph - still requiring deliberate effort in the first place. The cop could have just been passing us, which gets him closer but requires assessment from the rear to notice the in-progress DWB. But also the way he came up really didn't read as a dwell-and-pass. What are other alternate explanations?
Furthermore it's not really a matter of IF cop cars have automated license plate scanners, it's a matter of WHEN. And then if the law allows a presumption that the owner is driving, which is perhaps the only thing saving you from even more tickets in IL. :)
Alternate explanation: the cop was going to pull you over anyways, for whatever reason ("improper lane change" is a synonym for "I need to write someone a ticket now"), and, once he did so, he ran the plates like the police always do when they pull someone over... and poof! there's his ticket to write.
Comments
Taxi regulation also serves the purpose of creating consequences for harming the community. A taxi medallion is valuable. A profile on a dating site isn't. There is no cost-effective way for us to police every vehicle on the street; you'll learn this quickly if you get your license suspended when you realize that basically nothing happens as a result as long as you're a reasonable driver).
So instead, we create a different class of vehicles, require that only vehicles from that class can carry passengers for hire, and when those vehicles are driven unsafely we can revoke their licenses. It's hard to see how you can reliably revoke someone's online car dating license.
These modern rideservices can expel drivers (from the dispatch-and-payment system) far more effectively than traditional regulations could suppress gypsy cabs.
Policies should be driven by real results and demonstrated harm... not by assuming that the risks/regulatory-tools of decades ago still apply.
Exactly how does Uber reliably "expel" a driver?
Ban their DL. Ban their device. Ban their car tags. Include a photo of their approved drivers.
It's then at least as hard and probably harder to masquerade to Uber as someone completely different than it is to masquerade to traditional regulatory authorities.
Entering an Uber car, my own trusted device can supply me with car and driver info, including photograph. In traditional systems, I'd have to trust unauthenticated documents (including car markings) provided by the car/driver. Such forged traditional documentation can even fool local law enforcement, in some gypsy cab situations.
And even if someone can occasionally slip into the role/reputation of another driver in good standing, with that other driver's cooperation, there is still a chain-of-control/motivation incenting good behavior and allowing punishment of transgressions (through the accomplice who loans out their valuable identity).
We would need to empirically study whether this system offers better results, overall, than the traditional system. I suspect it does: even if you can contrive a few exploits, they could still be less prevalent/practical than the weaknesses of the traditional system.
Ok, now imagine there are 10 competing Ubers.
Straining one's imagination is a bad way to inform policy. Observe, don't imagine.
There won't be 10 Ubers: the reputation angle and network effects strongly favor a few large recognizable operators. And maybe just one!
But even if there were 10: accident, citation, and criminal records are easy to check. Consumers will prefer the branded/authenticated services which self-police most effectively.
Traditionally, this may have been a problem needing regulation: at the moment of flagging a streetcab, the fare was at the mercy of the provider, with minimal authentication/reputation information available.
Now with the modern mobile-dispatched services, this problem is obsolete... like the problem of needing to buy a paper street map when arriving in a new city.
You have to strain your imagination to see 10 competing companies? This is another bias routinely evident on HN: we think of public policy for new business models solely in terms of the best-known operator of that model; it's not about regulating livery, it's about regulating Uber. No.
You don't have to change the subject to be about my capacity for imagination, or some bias you perceive in other HN conversations.
There aren't 10 such companies now. There might never be. Nor is there yet any evidence of consumer harm.
Imagining the worst when it might never materialize is a bad basis for policy. Especially with all the new factors which provide stronger, more-immediate checks on bad-actors: many of which apply to one operator or 100 equally well.
Why not give them a chance to work before constraining new operators to an ancient system which (a) disappointed customers with scarcity; and (b) got captured by incumbents?
You don't design public policy based on the interests and controls of one single private company.
This thread began with me describing the general case, "these modern rideservices".
I happen to think there will be few of these modern rideservices, rather than many, because the matching/reputation market has natural monopoly characteristics. But that's just an aside.
The tech/market/reputation checks I've been describing don't depend on Uber or any particular company. They are inherent to the category. I am making a case for the modern mobile-dispatched-and-billed rideservices category, not Uber specifically.
(My guess would also be that the average customer is more likely to someday face economic 'harm' from an eventual dispatcher monopoly, than from the sort of dangerous/abusive/unaccountable car/driver issues that you've been mentioning. But those sorts of antitrust concerns also need to be handled in retrospect, after observing how they develop, and not based on anticipatory paranoia about what might someday happen.)
Don't tell the driver where the customers are.
There is no way that banning someone from a single website is more effective than putting them in jail or prison (depending on the state). For that to work, all of the psuedocab/ride-sharing services would have to work together to blacklist drivers who violate their rules, but this is illegal in many states, especially California, in which several of these companies are based.
A driver doing something so bad the penalty is incarceration can be incarcerated whether they do it in a traditional cab or a new carservice. Also, accident/citation records are available to insurance companies and others, even for non-commercial drivers.
You missed his point. By regulating cabs, we can easily make the penalties for breaking the cab rules strong enough to deter bad actors. Uber can't.
We can make the penalties for any real problems that arise as strong as needed... when they arise. Expulsion from Uber/etc might be enough. If it isn't, it doesn't require traditional licensing/regulation to increase the penalties for specific actions.
1. The fundamental difference about Uber (that I think is implicit to proponents but gets lost in the actual discussion), is that you're using a well-known public-facing party to request the service in the first place. This has wide ranging benefits for consumer protection (not that it solves everything, but most taxi regulations exist because you've traditionally had to trust the first guy that drives by in a yellow car, or an informally run dispatch station). Specifically in relation to your point, Uber has a strong incentive to make sure drivers are licensed (and if not, their business insurance sure does).
2. Maybe two years ago, I was in the car when my friend got pulled over for driving "without" a license (MA RMV SOP is to suspend licenses without notifying). He passed a clearly visible state trooper (going under speed limit, ofc) stopped two lanes over. Five miles later, he's being pulled over because the trooper had run his plate and saw that the vehicle was owned by someone with a suspended license. Whether it's technology or simply an overabundance of cops, those quaint days of enforcement directed only at drivers that stick out are pretty much over.
Uber's drivers are, I believe, 1099 contractors. If an Uber driver operates unsafely, the driver and Uber simply sever the relationship, and the driver goes somewhere else.
I'm not sure I buy the story about being pulled over for a suspended license, for a bunch of reasons:
* Over the last 10 years, I've driven more on suspended licenses than valid ones (I'm a very safe driver but I suck at getting my plate sticker updated and suck even worse at actually paying the resulting tickets). I've never been pulled over for having a suspended license, or even heard of someone being pulled over for that.†
* The police in Illinois and, I assume, most other states have strict rules about when they can pull people over (the "primary" and "secondary" offenses). If your car is compliant and you aren't committing a moving violation and you're wearing your seatbelt, what grounds does an officer have to pull you over? Consider that cars are often driven by people other than their owners.
* There are too many valid reasons you can be pulled over. Tail light out. Sticker's a month out of date. Improper lane change. "Not wearing seat belt".
Are you sure you're not confusing "suspended license" with "suspended tags"? Driving on suspended tags will get you pulled over quickly. Illinois will suspend your plates for things like toll violations.
I stand by my assertion: if you're a good driver, and your car is compliant, you're probably pretty safe driving on a suspended license. There is a pretty low probability of getting a relatively stiff ticket, and that's about it. Make sure your plates are good.
† I get pulled over, mind you. Just not for having a suspended license.
But the customer remains with Uber. And it's not like taxi drivers drive safe - I rarely take taxis, yet I once had a taxi driver who simply went through a red light after I casually remarked "this light is always red".
Really, you don't "buy" the story? Well it happened, in point of fact. Maybe telling you that said friend works at that binary analysis company in Burlington will provide enough of a connection to let you be convinced that I'm not just making up stories on the Internet for kicks?
This was at night, simple driving with no other cars around. I'm pretty sure the cop actually said that his probable cause was that the owner of the car was unlicensed. We switched places at the cop's direction (after he checked my license) and I drove the car for the rest of the trip.
The cop could have simply been done stopping, caught up to us (their standard speed is 110mph), and lingered next to us to idly run the plates. But at the time it really felt like the plate must have been automatically captured as we drove by.
I very very much doubt you'd just make something up. I'm just saying there are alternate explanations that make more sense. Happy to be wrong; still stand by my analysis. :)
The attention could have been due to racial profiling, but that would require the cop to have seen the driver in the dark at 60mph - still requiring deliberate effort in the first place. The cop could have just been passing us, which gets him closer but requires assessment from the rear to notice the in-progress DWB. But also the way he came up really didn't read as a dwell-and-pass. What are other alternate explanations?
Furthermore it's not really a matter of IF cop cars have automated license plate scanners, it's a matter of WHEN. And then if the law allows a presumption that the owner is driving, which is perhaps the only thing saving you from even more tickets in IL. :)
Alternate explanation: the cop was going to pull you over anyways, for whatever reason ("improper lane change" is a synonym for "I need to write someone a ticket now"), and, once he did so, he ran the plates like the police always do when they pull someone over... and poof! there's his ticket to write.