Uber

[MoValley John]

The taxi industry had no involvement in the KS bill.

Yeah, but that doesn't excuse the long term crooked efforts of the taxi industry. This is an interesting article on one of the taxi tycoons in New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...eans_taxi.html While how taxi permits are issued varies from state to state, city to city, all too often, the power is centralized between a few individuals in any medium sized city. Like this guy from New Orleans, the holders of cab permits seem a little bit shady.

https://www.baycitizen.org/news/transportation/taxi-owner-fights-city-probe-allegations/

http://laist.com/2005/02/09/taxi_revisted.php


A LOT of Russian mob allegations.

[MoValley John]

The taxi industry had no involvement in the KS bill.

Yeah, but that doesn't excuse the long term crooked efforts of the taxi industry. This is an interesting article on one of the taxi tycoons in New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...eans_taxi.html While how taxi permits are issued varies from state to state, city to city, all too often, the power is centralized between a few individuals in any medium sized city. Like this guy from New Orleans, the holders of cab permits seem a little bit shady.

https://www.baycitizen.org/news/transportation/taxi-owner-fights-city-probe-allegations/

http://laist.com/2005/02/09/taxi_revisted.php

[shocker3]

Something I'd like answered, and can't find an answer to it, is why did SB 117 start out as a health insurance bill, and then morph into this ride sharing bill with no mention of health insurance?

The insurace committee did a "gut and go." This is a common practice for bills that are introduced late in the session to help speed them thru the process. The contents of the original SB 117 were deleted and were replaced by the contents of the uber bill. This allowed the uber bill to bypass the Senate insurance committee and the full Senate and sent the bill straight to conference committee (a committee of 3 house members and 3 senators who work out the differences in bills passed by both bodies).

[shocker3]

Yeah, but that doesn't excuse the long term crooked efforts of the taxi industry. This is an interesting article on one of the taxi tycoons in New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...eans_taxi.html While how taxi permits are issued varies from state to state, city to city, all too often, the power is centralized between a few individuals in any medium sized city. Like this guy from New Orleans, the holders of cab permits seem a little bit shady.

https://www.baycitizen.org/news/transportation/taxi-owner-fights-city-probe-allegations/

http://laist.com/2005/02/09/taxi_revisted.php


A LOT of Russian mob allegations.

I think that is one of the reasons they came to the legislature. They were trying to avoid the power that the taxi industry might have over local city councils.

[shocker3]

The way it was explained to me was just that Uber can be in Kansas all they want, but they were unhappy with something about how Kansas drew up the insurance requirements or that Kansas wouldnt write it in a way that gave them as much of a cakewalk and foothold as they would want. It's not at all that they were "legislated out of Kansas" or "blocked." It was that reasonable requirements were placed on them and they didn't want them.

It might be more accurate to say Uber walked away from the negotiation when it didn't go exactly how they wanted. Kansas isn't as ridiculouus as it is being made to sound. Maybe I'm wrong. I didn't read it myself, but that's how it was explained to me.

I think you describe it pretty well. Uber came to the legislature with a bill they said would provide comprehensive regulation of their industry. They said that the bill was needed to provide regulatory certainty for both riders and drivers. Their bill included a lot of detailed regulation and record keeping. For example it prohibits drivers fron taking cash and from making any deals with riders that aren't done thru the company's app. (Imo, Over regulation by the State but it is what uber requested).

At the public hearing, many insurance companies opposed the bill and the bankers and credit unions expressed concerns about the bill. The house insurance committee amended the bill to address those concerns. The rest of the provisions of the bill are still the same provisions as requested by uber. I do not believe that the insurance requirements and background checks changes are unreasonable. In fact, the final bill passed with overwhelming "tri-partisan" support.

Uber threw a fit because the bill wasn't 100% the way they wrote it. Hopefully uber will come back to the negotiating table or someone else like lyft will come to Kansas. Unfortunately I think some of the regulations in the underlying bill that was written by uber are there to try to keep competitors out.

[shocka khan]

What on earth.

It is what it is. I research certain topics from time to time. The whole Uber thing is pretty amazing. I don't really have the cycles to go into it (and most people wouldn't care to read all the gory details), but there has been a HatfieldMcCoy feud going on between supporters and detractors of Uber in the bay area. People with axes to grind feeding stories to the media on both sides.

[shocka khan]

Yeah, but that doesn't excuse the long term crooked efforts of the taxi industry. This is an interesting article on one of the taxi tycoons in New Orleans. http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...eans_taxi.html While how taxi permits are issued varies from state to state, city to city, all too often, the power is centralized between a few individuals in any medium sized city. Like this guy from New Orleans, the holders of cab permits seem a little bit shady.

https://www.baycitizen.org/news/transportation/taxi-owner-fights-city-probe-allegations/

http://laist.com/2005/02/09/taxi_revisted.php


A LOT of Russian mob allegations.

Good information, but someone could make the same claim regarding insurance. Regulating insurance state by state is somewhat the same as regulating the taxi industry from city to city. There will be people who prefer local control and others who think centralized (federal in the case of insurance, state in the case of taxis) control is better. I can see the arguments on both sides.

And you're right about Buffet, I read what he's doing to the mobile home industry and he is truly a snake. I don't see the Koch's getting into dingy industries like mobile home sales, manufacturing and financing.

My point in making the comparison is that Uber seriously needs an outside consultant to help them understand how to set up a compliance and governance framework. Perhaps I should use another example, like Exxon/Mobil or Ford as opposed to Berkshire Hathaway.

[shocka khan]

I think you describe it pretty well. Uber came to the legislature with a bill they said would provide comprehensive regulation of their industry. They said that the bill was needed to provide regulatory certainty for both riders and drivers. Their bill included a lot of detailed regulation and record keeping. For example it prohibits drivers fron taking cash and from making any deals with riders that aren't done thru the company's app. (Imo, Over regulation by the State but it is what uber requested).

At the public hearing, many insurance companies opposed the bill and the bankers and credit unions expressed concerns about the bill. The house insurance committee amended the bill to address those concerns. The rest of the provisions of the bill are still the same provisions as requested by uber. I do not believe that the insurance requirements and background checks changes are unreasonable. In fact, the final bill passed with overwhelming "tri-partisan" support.

Uber threw a fit because the bill wasn't 100% the way they wrote it. Hopefully uber will come back to the negotiating table or someone else like lyft will come to Kansas. Unfortunately I think some of the regulations in the underlying bill that was written by uber are there to try to keep competitors out.

And that last part is exactly my point. Good points have been made about crooks in the cab industry (I really enjoyed the Russian Mob articles, the Russian mob is pretty interesting), but why allow a 'new', larger, better financed crook to do the same thing? And we already know how they conduct themselves in the market, so we know how they will treat their drivers and respond to new competitors once they become dominant in the market.

[MoValley John]

Good information, but someone could make the same claim regarding insurance. Regulating insurance state by state is somewhat the same as regulating the taxi industry from city to city. There will be people who prefer local control and others who think centralized (federal in the case of insurance, state in the case of taxis) control is better. I can see the arguments on both sides.

And you're right about Buffet, I read what he's doing to the mobile home industry and he is truly a snake. I don't see the Koch's getting into dingy industries like mobile home sales, manufacturing and financing.

My point in making the comparison is that Uber seriously needs an outside consultant to help them understand how to set up a compliance and governance framework. Perhaps I should use another example, like Exxon/Mobil or Ford as opposed to Berkshire Hathaway.

How about Trader Joe's/ Aldi for honest, well run companies?

[shocka khan]

As an aside, I will give you a cab story that happened in your city of Houston. In January, my wife attended a trauma nurse conference in Houston. The 10 minute cab ride from the asirport was $75. That wasn't the bad part. The bad part was the undisclosed $35 charge. The cabbie cherged our credit card as a debitcard. The cab company charges a $35 atm fee for all debit card transactions. It was an effing credit card! Upon finding the hidden an undisclosed charge, I called the cab company. They told me if I didn't like it, I should complain to the Texas Department of Transportation. I did. They told me I must file a cvomplaint in person. In other words, the cab companies have the Texas DOT bought off and they stiff every out of state traveller they can.

There are 2 airports in Houston, IAH and Hobby.

If you flew into IAH the city your fare depends on the zone you are traveling to. The city put a big circle around the airport and filled it in with rings, each ring being a zone and the rate to that zone is fixed. I'm 4 miles north of the MedCenter and the fare for my zone is $55 or so. I've checked the meter when traveling and the rate is considerably more expensive than the fixed rate. Actual mileage from my house to the airport is 23.5 miles. Depending on where you were staying, you were more than 10 minutes from the airport (provided you flew into IAH, which is our largest airport).

Hobby rates will be the normal $X fixed rate and a fee based on distance (such as $X per 1/10 of a mile).

I don't know which airport you flew into, so I'm going to assume it was IAH and I'm going to tell you that IAH is probably 30 miles from the MedCenter.

I am also thinking the extra charge for an ATM card was borderline criminal, but you have to watch the cabbies (and the cab companies) here.

By the way, I had known you were coming in, I could have gotten you a nice, clean professional limousine service that a latin guy runs. He charges me $60 (about the same as a cab) and I find the experience much better. He would not have charged you the extra $25.

[shocka khan]

How about Trader Joe's/ Aldi for honest, well run companies?

Trader Joe's for sure, don't know much about Aldi, but they are European, they are probably a little more transparent.

[jdshock]

Trader Joe's for sure, don't know much about Aldi, but they are European, they are probably a little more transparent.

They're the same company

[_kai_]

I really don't have the cycles to discuss this further, I have done a lot of research into this and my experience is that people who like Uber are almost like anti-vaxers.

I'm not against innovation in the transportation industry, I have a problem with Uber.
* - Uber has governance problems. They're in trouble in China, India, have had scrapes in Kansas and Texas. I haven't heard that about Lyft.
* - Uber's employees seem to have conduct problems on a limited scale. That indicates issues in their hiring process. Yes, it's hard to get good people, but some people try harder than others. Uber falls in that group that does not try too hard. Again, I haven't heard of that with Lyft.
* - Uber seems to want to do things to compete that indicate they're more like an Enron and less like Berkshire Hathaway. Usually that kind of behavior sets off alarm bells relative to whether there is fraud going on. I don't see that with Lyft.
* - Uber engages in predatory pricing. A drunk was picked up by an Uber cab and transported from downtown to a hotel in West Indianapolis. He was a victim of Uber's 'surge pricing' and was charged $1200. Resulting media outcry forced Uber to back off. Again, I have not seen that with Lyft.

I believe that the taxi industry is over-regulated and the cab franchises are actively working against Uber. That does not surprise me. I'm sure the cab industry pushes regulations that don't accomplish much to protect themselves from the Ubers of the world. Government should not be used as a barrier to entry into an industry, unless that industry has been deemed as a critical industry. I don't believe the cab industry is critical.

I believe in innovations and regulation that protects the publc. I hope Lyft will succeed because Uber needs competition to keep them honest. I'm thinking that some of the taxi industry will survive and they will also compete.

I don't know why you're calling me chief. It could be that it is a term of endearment for you? I'm not a chief, unless that's a term you use to describe your friends.

You use the term "seem" a lot. Typically when research is done, facts are found, and "seem" is thrown out of the vocabulary.

You seem like the one who comes off like an anti-vaxxer.

[MoValley John]

They're the same company

Double

Face

Palm

[Play Angry]

You use the term "seem" a lot. Typically when research is done, facts are found, and "seem" is thrown out of the vocabulary.

You seem like the one who comes off like an anti-vaxxer.

I dunno man, people who are against Uber seem an awful lot like Heaven's Gaters. I don't have the cycles to go into it (and most people wouldn't care to read the gory details), but trust me that I have done a lot of research on this.