Friday, January 6, 2017

More Uber: Is this weird, or what?

I just finished reading a story from MailOnline about a young woman who is suing an Uber cab driver who was driving an uninsured Uber cab that was owned by someone else altogether. Apparently, he ran a red light, was t-boned, and the victim's spine was severed.

You can read about it all here.

There are a couple of interesting things about this article.

"She was opposed to drinking and driving and figured it was unsafe to walk at around 1 am, so they called an Uber, thinking it was the responsible thing to do."

How did this impressionable young woman get the idea that jumping into a complete stranger's car was the responsible thing to do? After a hundred years of parents warning their kids never to get into cars with strangers, WHO TOLD HER THIS WAS NOW OK?

Do the politicians who have been kissing Uber's butt by pretending to believe that Uber is not in the taxi business because people use their cellphones to call Uber cabs, share any of the responsibility for this young woman's predicament?

Why isn't she suing them?

After hearing decades of pretentious BULLSHIT from the politicians about why it was so necessary to apply the heavy hand of regulation, often spitefully, (See Jaspal Gill Case.) upon the existing taxi industry, only to watch them do an abrupt about-face when Uber cab started operating in their jurisdictions demonstrates exactly how committed to safety they really are.

It was all just for show.

The advent of Uber has shown us, with stunning clarity, how easily that commitment to "safety" has been discarded to facilitate Uber's "business model."

In other words, when it comes to political integrity, though they will proclaim it whenever it suits their policy needs, safety is CLEARLY NOT their main priority.

The City of Toronto, for example, has closed its Vehicle Inspection Office because of Uber. I'm not sure if Toronto required a Safety Standards Certificate in addition to a vehicle inspection but, for years people in the Hamilton industry grumbled about the idiotic requirement that taxi owners be required to have their vehicles inspected by city employees in addition to providing a Safety Standards Certificate.

In the interests of safety, both had to be done. There was no debate.

Until Ubernacht.

Then, at least in Toronto, "meh, who needs it?" It remains to be seen whether Hamilton follows suit. I feel sorry for the poor guy down at Hamilton's taxi inspection office. Either he will lose his job, or he will see his workload increase from 447 taxis to... how many? 1,000? 2,000? Then again, maybe the new bylaw will simply exempt Uber cabs, keeping playing field tilted.

And now that Uber is here, taxi "schools" are suddenly being questioned or abolished by many of the same politicians who imposed them in the first place.

How does a simple non-Uber cab driver like myself account for this sudden realignment of the principles of so many "principled" politicians?

A paradigm shift?

Nope. It's Uber.

Another sad dimension to this story is that this young woman, likely, will no longer be able to get around in an Uber cab. From now on she will have to rely upon an accessible taxi.

But the part that really shouted out to me when I read the report was this part,

"DeLeon was charged for causing the accident, which resulted in serious bodily injury.

Yusufzai, who had a criminal history that involved a gambling den and drug possession, was not charged even though he ran a red light, the Dallas News reported." (italics: mine)

The Uber guy who caused the accident by running a red light was not charged? The other guy was charged? This world makes less sense every day.

That's like charging a guy for hitting someone's fist with his face.

Does Uber's corrupting influence reach right into police departments?


These days, a lot of my passengers ask me this question:

"Is Uber affecting you guys at all?"

I tell them, "No. But we have been severely affected."

What DOES affect us is a corrupt political system that does not believe in treating people equally.

It's really quite simple.

We had a set of rules that applied to the taxi business in this city.

Then when Uber showed up, the politicians decided to change all the rules to accommodate them, and they really didn't give a fuck about who got hurt in the process.

2 comments:

  1. did you copy Anthony on this? btw I'd like to hear your take on the rumoured release of 18 wheelchair plates and 3 regular forthcoming

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I copied Anthony. And 21 more plates into this market? It would be a disaster, so they probably will do it.

      Delete

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