From $1m to $200k in 5 years.

[subtona]

"Another Taxi Driver in Debt Takes His Life. That’s 5 in 5 Months."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/05/2...ion%2Fnyregion

[Blansky]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

Based on your location, I imagine that there were plenty of "darns" and "hecks" uttered! 🇨🇦

Go “F” yourself.

After you.

No, after you.

[Sperry]

Wow, I should have bought a medallion instead of a biotech portfolio!

[rdmlondon]

Uber in London sucks. We already had a two tier cab system, black cabs and mini cabs (private hire). Uber are using the mini cab licence to operate in the on demand taxi market.

The transport officials in charge have bent over backwards to give Uber all they want despite having a terrific black cab service. They hired Rachel Whetstone, who was a godparent to the then prime minister David Cameron's deceased son, and they never looked back ($$$$ ££££).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...r-Cameron.html

Play by the rules you get stiffed. Have connections and plenty of cash for 'lobbying' you get whatever you want. They have broke all the rules and regulations others had to and have to abide by and were basically given a free pass.

As a corporation Uber paying nothing into the UK, preferring to route their payments via Holland to avoid UK VAT. On a driver level, they are fighting the drivers so as not to provide a minimum wage or any other benefits.

This means the UK taxpayer has to subsidise the cheap rides by the way of tax credits/housing benefit to the drivers. Aapparently they only charge 40% of the cost they need to, hence the billions of cash burn attracting customers with cheaper rides.

There is no extra cost to Uber of having more drivers. The more the better for pickup times and they only have to download the already made app. Hence traffic congestion and pollution is through the roof. So you now have a situation where no one, either Taxi driver or Uber driver, is earning a decent living in the Taxi marketplace.

If Uber are so great how come they a losing billions? The top positions are vacant, it is a toxic company.

And driverless cars? It is like the flying cars story they bring out in the press whenever the get bad press for a driver rape or sexual assault. That is way, way off.

I always thought of England as a fair country but over the last few years have seen things that can only be explained away by money & corruption. It has really opened my eyes.

[Carrera911]

I think one of the biggest problems behind the medallion idea is that you take hard working people that do not know a lot about investments and you tie them up to an investment they do not totally understand. In their minds they bought a business that will put food on their table for life as long as they keep working hard.
These people bought these investments using loan money when the scope was that no competition is going to be introduced.
I feel like the city or whoever commissions these medallions did them wrong.

I can also tell you that in Israel, where these medallions are also declining in value (but not so drastically), the transportation minister is blocking Uber from entering the market.

[uscmatt99]

Uber and Lyft offer several options taxi companies would not provide.

You have an idea of the price of your ride when you book it, regardless of the route taken or time elapsed.
You have the ability to rate a driver, and see the ratings of drivers who will pick you up. This weeds out the bad ones, and provides an incentive to be better than the other guy/lady.
You can book a ride explicitly for you and know just about when your ride will arrive.

Taxis on the other hand....

You have only a vague idea of what the final fare will be, and the driver has the opportunity to take advantage of the passenger(s).
You have no recourse at all after a bad experience, which has happened to me several times with taxis, never yet with Uber/Lyft.
You may be standing on a corner forever waiting for a taxi to happen to drive past you without passengers.

Taxi companies thought that they could weather the storm rather than adapt to the demands of their customers, because they never had to give a crap. Too bad! I do feel for the drivers in this entire industry as they are paid poorly for what is a generally risky job. However, for those who purchased a medallion with the hopes of retiring after selling it, it was unfortunately a poor investment. The only way you get bailed out of poor investments in the US is when the company is deemed too big to fail.

Ironically, my worst taxi experience was in Paris on the way to CDG with my wife just a month or two ago. The driver seemed like a nice guy when we boarded, all polite, but drove like a maniac. Swerving, cutting people off, muttering under his breath about everyone else being a bad driver, etc. Then he ran a red light, and almost clipped a pedestrian of color crossing the street. The pedestrian made some sort of F-off gesture at the driver, which I would have done too. Our driver says "pardon moi" and stops the cab in the middle of the road, opens the back of the vehicle, and takes out a friggin' bat and starts running the guy down!!! The pedestrian wisely retreats. Gets back in the car and goes on a tirade about immigrants. Thank the baby Jesus it's hard to get a bang-bang stick there. My wife and I are looking at each other in horror, and next moment we are blasting off towards the airport. The guy actually reversed down an on-ramp and weaved in towards an elevator, then escorted us to an ATM to get paid in cash because guess what, he didn't accept credit cards. From visitors leaving the Euro-zone that day, who no longer had Euros left, but were told we could pay with a credit card.

Guess we will be taking Uber/Lyft next time

[Carrera911]

In Israel they have adapted to the situation by offering a similar app that gives you a route, an estimated cost and a driver rating. It's call "Gett Taxi".

Still the only way to "protect" taxi's was through preventative legislation for competition.

[rdmlondon]

Yes in London we have Gett and MyTaxi, where you can order a black cab via an app.

The first one Hailo (which was bought by MyTaxi) was even before Uber. But Uber got the US investment bankers money (which they've been taking ever since lol) and then the marketing, subsidised rides and 'lobbying' took off.

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by Carrera911

In Israel they have adapted to the situation by offering a similar app that gives you a route, an estimated cost and a driver rating. It's call "Gett Taxi".

Still the only way to "protect" taxi's was through preventative legislation for competition.

We had Gett in NYC for a while but then they bowed out.

[Syed117]

Evolve or die. The world is changing.

Why the hell would I want to get into a disgusting yellow cab here in the city and then have to explain where I'm going when I can get into a relatively new car without having to give an address or make a payment.

Yellow cabs are part of a dying industry that needs to go.

Now if would only get rid of the scam that are car dealerships and go to direct sales.

Just to clarify, I'm speaking just to the actual service and the yellow cab system as a whole.

[DeeTee]

Uber broke a trillion laws and raised billions before anyone could point the finger. Once you have billions and your competition only has millions.......

[DeeTee]

Originally Posted by Syed117

Evolve or die. The world is changing.

Why the hell would I want to get into a disgusting yellow cab here in the city and then have to explain where I'm going when I can get into a relatively new car without having to give an address or make a payment.

Yellow cabs are part of a dying industry that needs to go.

Now if would only get rid of the scam that are car dealerships and go to direct sales.

Just to clarify, I'm speaking just to the actual service and the yellow cab system as a whole.

Tesla is trying to break the dealership mold, but they are not a force in the car industry the same way Uber/Lyft is in livery industry.

[TheVTCGuy]

Originally Posted by Syed117

Evolve or die. The world is changing.

Why the hell would I want to get into a disgusting yellow cab here in the city and then have to explain where I'm going when I can get into a relatively new car without having to give an address or make a payment.

Yellow cabs are part of a dying industry that needs to go.

Just to clarify, I'm speaking just to the actual service and the yellow cab system as a whole.

This

I am sure there are polite, hard-working cab drivers that take pride in their vehicle and their responsibilities and have been a pleasure for their customers. Due to extensive travel in my position(s) I had to take cabs for many years, I am still looking for the first time I find one of those drivers. The OP is correct, the cars were disgusting, I waited far past the estimated arrival times, sometimes to a car that never arrived. The drivers were rude, sketchy individuals that frankly, sometimes scared me. Last time I TRIED to take one, I was outside of a hotel in NYC with my bags. I was moving to another hotel. A cab drives up and the Dhead driver asks if I am going to the airport. I tell him, no, I was going to such and such a hotel. Dhead drives off almost taking my hand with him in the door handle. I photographed the back of the cab with the license and number etc. And called the company to complain; a lot of good that did. The guy said he wrote everything down and I could talk with the supervisor the next day. When I called again there was no supervisor by that name and the guy I spoke with before had given me a fake name as well. Really? If you expect me to have any sympathy for an organization like that losing business and hopefully disappearing sorry, but it is not happening.

[Fredrik]

Here in Sweden taxis were deregulated in the late 80s. The law just says that if you drive people for profit you need a taxi drivers license, proper insurance for the car and some sort of meter unless you only have a fixed price. You get taxi plates for the car too.

The taxi companies here all have apps for booking, you can have an account and get billed every month, and fixed prices for trips has been available since the 90s. They all take card payments and they might not even take cash to minimize the robbery risk.

Oh, Uber here is just another taxi company, but since they only operate with fixed prices they are exempt of needing a meter, but then they are also not allowed to pick up passengers directly on the street. They have taxi number plates, their drivers have taxi licenses and the cars are properly insured.

The ride sharing argument is moot here, the law is very clear.

So deregulation of the classic limited taxi business works, but you need regulation in the form of clear and simple laws.

[imperio]

Originally Posted by Etschell

at first i thought this was going to be about a hublot collector.

[imperio]

Originally Posted by Wesley Crusher

I prefer Lyft over Uber, but both are leaps and bounds ahead of taxi cabs.

When I was in NYC last year, I found out about Juno, which is like Lyft/Uber, but only for NYC. Apparently the drivers get a bigger cut from Juno than Lyft/Uber so I decided to use Juno everywhere.

One night, coming out of Babbo, I was pretty loaded and I somehow managed to request a car to pick me up via Juno. I got a popup on my phone saying that my "ride" was going to be upgraded at no additional cost. With Juno, drivers of more expensive cars can choose to pick up riders who have selected cheaper rides... I guess if business is slow. That's a really smart idea!

A Senegalese guy pulled up in a new Escalade and took me to my place. He was a great guy... Had an awesome convo. I still think about that ride from time to time lol.

I gotta say, this sounds like the start of a love story