
Anti-Uber Taxi Protest Blocks Access to Paris’s Roissy Airport - chezmo
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-24/paris-uber-protests-set-to-gum-up-traffic-as-taxis-start-strike
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antimagic
I feel that every time this issue gets discussed, it needs to have some
background information provided, because quite frankly, taxi drivers in France
suck.

From my own personal experience, I have had the following incidents: 1) a taxi
driver that took me the long way round from a train station to my home.
Thinking I was a tourist, because of my accent, he basically tried to take me
for a ride thinking I wouldn't notice. That lifted the bill by 50% compared to
the usual price.

2) A taxi driver in Marseille that wouldn't finish the trip until I gave him
my phone number. My choice was to either get out in the middle of one of the
roughest neighbourhoods of Marseille and try and find another taxi, or hand
over my phone number (which he _verified_ by calling me on it before
continuing) - I had to change my phone number after that one.

3) Countless occassions of having taxis refusing to take me as a customer
because I wanted to go to a part of the city they didn't want to go to. One
particular occassion struck me as bad - I had the car door open and one foot
off the ground when he realised where I wanted to go and took off. Considering
I was a lone 35-yr old woman at the time, dressed in a business suit, he
obviously wasn't worrying about his safety.

4) I have a friend who actually works in the Boers (mentioned in the article).
When I'm out with him, he won't let me get into a taxi until he's checked the
guy's (most taxi drivers are men, and on the rare occassion I've had a female
driver, they have been nothing but professional - make of that what you will)
papers _and_ flashed his badge to keep the driver on his best behaviour).

5) If I move my grievances out to people one removed from me (ie people I
personally know), you can add in a guy getting physically hauled out of a taxi
and beaten by the driver because the driver didn't want to go where he wanted,
another guy getting hit by a taxi when walking across a pedestrian crossing,
only to have the taxi driver get out of his vehicule, abuse and kick said
friend for slowing him down, and then driving off, and a taxi that took off
with a friend's luggage in the boot, which he never got back.

So yeah, I have about zero sympathy for French taxi drivers - the sooner
they're run out of business, the better. Their latest behaviour has just
confirmed for me that I won't ever be using one again if I can avoid it.

~~~
andmarios
In Greece we have a solution for this, as old as Uber but that works with the
taxi drivers instead against them.

Taxibeat is an app you can use to call taxis from your smartphone. You may
choose which taxi you want from the list of nearby drivers. For every driver
you see his/her name, plates number, car, reviews, whether he permits pets,
speaks foreign languages, has wifi, permits smoking, can help people with
disabilities etc. Also you can pay with paypal or credit card.

When you take a ride, taxibeat's driver app essentially monitors the ride.

What's interesting is that since the taxi drivers that choose to work with
taxibeat know what a smartphone is, know about reviews etc, they are in
general very professional and I never had any issues with them, in contrast
with the rest. Of course that they are accountable to a company that takes
seriously its name, also helps.

The idea went so well that now we have a competitor too, taxiplon, which also
works with phone calls.

~~~
xgbi
This. I don't understand how the French Taxi lobbies cannot try and copy
Uber's app for themselves. If I was a taxi I would LONG for a way to simplify
the user's experience.

Uber's app is just the missing link. I don't understand how you still have to
order a taxi with a phone call in 2015.

~~~
palmer_eldritch
They probably don't want to have to deal with customer reviews. For most
drivers, user's experience is pretty low on their priority list.

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lucaspiller
The other week I was in LA on business and I took a taxi to my hotel. If taxis
in Paris are anything like there, no wonder Uber is so popular...

The hotel was about 5 miles from LAX. First the taxi driver suggested I might
be able to take a shuttle bus (I had just landed after a 16 hour flight and
didn't want to figure out and wait however long for that) and after persuasion
agreed to take me. He had no idea where the household-name hotel was, so I had
to give him directions from Google Maps. For that 10 minute trip I paid $25 +
tip.

On the way back I took UberX, the driver was a lot friendlier and even helped
to find which terminal I needed as I had no idea. Total price $6.50. I gave
him a five stars and $10 tip as he was great.

~~~
mvanvoorden
Why would you even tip a taxi driver who needs to be persuaded to take you and
needs your (Google maps) directions?

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nicolas_t
Uber being available in Paris was one of the greatest thing to happen for
tourists and residents alike. I agree with the general sentiment, Taxis in
France are some of the worst taxis I've used. I've had a lot of bad
experiences. And lest you think it's due to racism or because they thought I
was a tourist (not that this would excuse their behaviour one iota), I'm
French and I was born in Paris.

I can understand the financial hardship brought by Uber and the frustration
with the license prices but as a group, they have not endeared themselves to
me and none of my friends have generally positive experiences with them.

It's high time a service like Uber which penalises drivers for bad experience
exists.

~~~
Mimu
It is worth knowing that even though the licenses are limited, the
gouvernement gave them all for free, it is the taxis themselves that created
some kind of mafia bullshit selling it back 200k euros.

Also not very a response but Uber is kinda of fucking every laws aswell so
even though the service is better and cheaper, so is my Nike made by children,
it does not mean we need to make children work again for peanuts.

~~~
simias
Yeah, I'm basically on the same page as you. I can't say I really enjoy using
taxis in Paris (although I don't have any nightmare stories like other people
in this thread, mostly minor annoyances like refusing to take credit cards and
some general rudeness).

On the other hand having services like uber breaking regulations might end up
making taxis less safe and with a worse quality of service down the line as
prices keep plunging due to the heavy unregulated competition.

I think the right move would be to open the market while still heavily
regulating them but I don't know how the government can convince the taxi
drivers to accept that since it would mean losing their super expensive
license. I suppose the government could buy the licenses itself but that would
be heinously expensive (and as a tax payer I can't say I would really like
that).

I really wish the government wouldn't have allowed for this license market to
exist in the first place, it was obviously going to create a cartel.

~~~
ork
The taxis unions threaten the government with strikes and airport blockades
every time the topic of opening the licenses comes to the table. The mafia is
strong.

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piokoch
Uber seems the problem everywhere Taxi market is highly regulated. Uber
operates also in Warsaw, this was a news for a day or two, but later nothing
really happened.

In Poland Taxi market is almost non-regulated. Taxi driver must pass medical
examination, both physical and mental health is checked, plus there are a few
other reasonable requirements.

As a result of this, in Warsaw there are more then 20 Taxi corporations, plus
Uber, plus independent taxi drivers.

The interesting thing is that prices vary quite a lot, since corporations are
not competing over prices only. Some corporations have fancy cars, some
corporations are more available during high traffic hours.

Taxis offer also side services - if you run out of alcohol during party, the
taxi driver can get one for you in 10 min. You have a car, went to bar, drunk
to much to drive - no problem, taxi will arrive with another driver, who will
drive your car home.

I understand that governments are regulating explosives production, but why
the hell they mess with something so simple as driving people from place A to
B is beyond my imagination.

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ovi256
As someone quipped on Twitter, "soon enough postmen will block access to
office buildings nationwide to protest the widespread use of email".

~~~
walshemj
You may joke I know that a few years ago the CWU (Postal Union) in the UK used
to mail floppy disks with paper work to branches rather than send emails.

------
sunseb
Courtney Love Cobain :

"they've ambushed our car and are holding our driver hostage. they're beating
the cars with metal bats. this is France?? I'm safer in Baghdad"

[https://twitter.com/Courtney/status/614022179978502146](https://twitter.com/Courtney/status/614022179978502146)

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timonoko
Is it my impression only that Taxis in Paris are so shitty that anything is
über, even ones with rusty Lada and 15 minutes of training?

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tempodox
When a taxi driver feels justified in beating up a customer rather than
servicing them, you know you're dealing with just another Mafia. Being exposed
to market forces is certainly not comfortable but the sorry state of taxi
services shows how economic sectors degrade when you shield them from market
forces. They even forget how to act in the interest of self-preservation.

------
MrPatan
Good news everybody!

The taxi geniuses even beat up an uber _customer_ for daring to use uber
instead of being content with NOT using a taxi, as thee taxis were on strike!
Well done!

If this was a joke, I wouldn't believe it! Comedy gold!

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VeejayRampay
France, where we'll protest anything that challenges the status quo.

~~~
Shivetya
How is that different from anywhere else where an industry is governed if not
protected by government regulation? At one time regulation was meant to give
some sense of guarantee of safe and reliable service, now it has become a
method to prevent competition.

The number of industries in the United States which are regulated is
staggering, I can only imagine the same is true elsewhere. Regulating
industries is a good idea but not if it prevents competition. Regulation is
meant to protect the consumer, not the business from competition and the need
to maintain if not improve service.

~~~
VeejayRampay
There is really something special about France (and I would reckon some other
former superpowers of the past). Because we used to be great and we're not
anymore, slowly drifting into world oblivion, there is a quite toxic tendency
to cling to that past in the form of excessive conservatism. In that mindset,
any change is perceived as an additional step away from that past greatness
which is an integral and important part of the "collective consciousness". As
such, anything that changes the status quo frightens that part of us thinking
that we're still a dominant world power. That is why we still push the French
language hard (dubbing movies, forcing a 50% ratio of French music on the
radio, having a national academy to enforce the purity of our language), why
we've been beefing with the English and the American on many topics. That
issue is systemic and is extremely detrimental in our collective progress to a
better future.

This is the precise root of what has been described as the inherent French
melancholia. And this is why Uber is a problem here, even though most French
people would recognize it's a great service that actually brings something
much needed to the table.

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cocoflunchy
Apparently they're attacking Uber/Uber like cars they find on their way:
[https://twitter.com/imnotalone/status/613961119766609920](https://twitter.com/imnotalone/status/613961119766609920)

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bsaul
What i don't get is that ultimately, forcing all taxi drivers to work through
systems like uber, could prove better for everyone in the long run, including
the state. No more fraud ( how many times did the drivers forced you to pay in
cash), so more taxes collected and easier monitoring of the overall taxi
profession.

Having centralized live tracking of every aspect of the taxi service actually
make things _easier_ to regulate, not harder.

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peterjancelis
I have been cheated by taxi drivers in every city where I lived for more than
a few weeks. I am 100% in support of Uber.

~~~
collyw
Why, does Uber have some sort of guarantee that you are not getting ripped
off? How do they address the problem? (I am genuinely asking, not trying to
post a rhetorical question)

~~~
proexploit
Actually yes. You're emailed a receipt with a map that includes the route you
took. If you have any complaints, you can email them and they'll usually
adjust your rate.

(I don't know if that's a formal guarantee but it's my experience)

~~~
collyw
And if the gps "isn't working"? I can see it could be easily gamed.

~~~
ngoede
This dispatch app IS the gps. If it doesn't work they don't get jobs/paid.

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raverbashing
It seems I was lucky in France, no majorly bad taxi drivers

Or, you know, just get the bus, it's cheaper (not always possible, I know)

But yeah, it seems they just began digging their own grave.

Meanwhile in "technology driven" Germany Uber has been banned

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Shivetya
According to another article it appears the taxi drivers use of violence and
road blocks has worked, the France Interior minister has banned UberPop from
use in the city and enforced by the police.

The verge article stated that costs for licenses can be nearly quarter
million. How is that even remotely reasonable to anyone?

~~~
dvdcxn
I don't think it's going out on a limb to say there is obviously some under
the table collusion going on here.

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sneak
Well, that tactic ought to end well for the taxi drivers.

