Initially, Uber wasn’t vetting its drivers in Canada, relative to the vetting and training taxi drivers go through.
My friend’s brother and dad were taxi drivers and I didn’t like seeing the way Uber was killing their business. My beef is more with airport taxis and airport limos, which are 2 different companies than the 5 or 6 major taxi companies on the streets in Toronto.
I followed a few legal cases where Uber drivers assaulted female passengers.
It seemed the case law in Canada was suggesting that a hurt passenger in Canada would have a better chance at suing a taxi driver/ taxi company in the case of a personal injury, compared to suing an Uber driver.
I’ve always had really nice bus drivers on the GOBys route to the airport.
The airport train costs 1/5th of the cost of an airport taxi and the staff are courteous.
My cousin who is a piece of work worked for the head office in San Francisco and I didn’t want to help her business.
I also don’t do AirBnB , Walmart or Dave’s Hot Chicken.
Don’t want to veer too far off-topic, but my two cents….
Lately, taxi drivers (especially the ones in queues, like at Union Station) refuse my fare because I’m not going far enough for their liking. You know exactly how things are going to play out when the driver rolls down his window, you ask “are you free?”, and the driver’s response is, “where are you going?”. [A columnist for Postmedia (whom I otherwise generally despise) wrote a good piece recently about the drivers at the Budweiser Stage queue refusing fares or offering customers a flat-rate off-meter ride.] I have reported such illegal behaviour to bylaw enforcement (via the City of Toronto’s 311) but I fear the problem is getting worse.
Uber is rapacious (“surge pricing” = rip-off) and their corporate ethics are dubious (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_involving_Uber). I use the app when no other option seems feasible. Drivers I have dealt with are nice but rely too heavily on Google Maps.
The TTC is a nightmare and a travesty because of: a) diversions, replacement buses, bunching, short turns; and b) the failure of governments at all levels to adequately acknowledge and address the escalating housing and mental health crises in the city.
I walk a ton, too. I most recently hailed a Beck cab on College St because I missed a streetcar, and I didn’t want to be late for a reservation at Dova. I was pleasantly surprised by the driver.
Over the years, I have had a couple drivers that tried to take me the long way home when I’ve gotten into a cab at Union Station. I wouldn’t be surprised if the drivers who wait at the taxi stands might have a different outlook than some drivers who don’t choose to wait at the taxi stands, and pick people up on the street. I have had a couple drivers not want to take me to my destination, usually because they want a bigger fare.
If I need to call a cab to pick me up at home, I call Maple Leaf, one of the smaller companies. I’ve had better luck with them.
2 Likes
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
44
I was at a convention center in Dallas area and asked the concierge to hail a cab for a DFW airport ride. I’d been at that hotel/convention center before. A cab to airport would normally have been about $50 from there. What showed up was a very nice Cadillac Escalade, was an Uber instead of a regulated cabbie, and cost over $150 for that same ride, pre-tip.
I had another shot running from lower Atlanta to ATL. Again, something that should have cost about $35 by cab was over $100 by Uber.
I mean, the company paid for these, so no skin off my nose in the end, but I’m not going to go out of my way to cause them extra costs when I don’t have to do so.
These were both a few years ago, and maybe nowadays Uber/Lyft are more regulated. But then it seemed like the wild wild West. All I asked the hotel guys was for a cabbie, and I got rip-off artists instead.
I agree. And the driver gets maybe 40% of that fare.
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
47
I’m sure you can now. This was 2013-ish (not sure) - so I should have mentioned it was some time ago.
I did a quick search and it seems the app trailed the auto service by a couple of years. It should have been available during that ~ 2013 timeframe, but it was not a requirement to use it.
I didn’t have a smart phone at the time, which was why I relied on concierge service for the hail. I’m what you might call a late adopter. I only got a smart phone (kicking/screaming) when the major carriers started making it tough to find plans for “talk/text” only type phones, and with a family of 6, I didn’t want to strike out on my own.
But what goes comes back again and now for several years you can get cheap plans for cheap flip phones. Too late to go back, though… horses and barn doors and what not.
I remember when people were screwed by Uber market surges around 2013. Especially on New Year’s Eve and Halloween.
I remember deciding to walk the 5 km/ 3 miles home rather than pay around $50 Cdn for an Uber around 1:30 am on New Year’s Day 2016. Taxis used to be impossible to find on NYE before Uber. After walking for 5 minutes, an empty cab drove by, which I hailed, and the ride home cost me $15, as it should.
Uber took over this college town. The two cab services simply couldn’t keep up with demand overall, but particularly the “weekend” partying days Thur-Sun. It’s a shame the cabs were put out of business, but if you don’t have enough drivers I guess that’s what happens.
Drivers also get just a tiny percentage of that surge pricing. The average base pay for a short tip is $4.85. We’re practically swimming in money
I stayed in Beaver Creek , Colorado for a week in 2016. Most people drive to the resort. My 5 friends and I had paid around $2800 Cdn each for the trip, including airfare, accommodations and ski lift tickets, and didn’t have access to a car. There were no cab companies, no restaurants within walking distance of th r condo, and 1Uber driver.
We were paying him around $25 each way to drive us from the grocery store that was 2 miles away. We would take a free shuttle to the edge of the condo village, cross the regional road, walk about a mile to the store , so we would only have to organize the taxi for the trip back to the condo with groceries.
I can see Uber working better in some regions than others.
I love NYC taxis, so I’m not tempted by an app based ride when I visit NYC.
If I ever go back to that part of Colorado, I will stay in Vail, within walking distance of a lift.
