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Republican Governor Charlie Baker signed the nickel fee into law this month as part of a sweeping package of regulations for the industry.
Ride services are not enthusiastic about the fee. "I don't think we should be in the business of subsidizing potential competitors," said Kirill Evdakov, the chief executive of Fasten, a ride service that launched in Boston last year and also operates in Austin, Texas.
Some taxi owners wanted the law to go further, perhaps banning the start-up competitors unless they meet the requirements taxis do, such as regular vehicle inspection by the police.
"They've been breaking the laws that are on the books, that we've been following for many years," said Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association.
The law levies a 20-cent fee in all, with 5 cents for taxis, 10 cents going to cities and towns and the final 5 cents designated for a state transportation fund.
The fee may raise millions of dollars a year because Lyft and Uber alone have a combined 2.5 million rides per month in Massachusetts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Monday August 22 2016, @08:05PM
You don't get that choice. Part of living in a civilized society is that you give up certain rights and freedoms in order to have some security.
We don't get to murder our rivals or steal their women without consequence anymore either. A detail that I wish people like you would consider. Requiring safety inspections is a reasonable step as it's unreasonable to expect everybody to know enough about cars and to perform their own personal inspection of all the relevant bits every time they want to take a cab ride. And no court anywhere in the world can order somebody back to life that was killed due to somebody elses incompetence.
How inexpensive is it when the cabbie runs somebody over because he isn't a good driver, destroys somebody elses car and hasn't got the insurance to pay for it?
You want freedom to pay less because you're either an extremely self-centered individual or you lack the ability to think the consequences through. regulations didn't invent themselves they were created because people got sick of being poisoned by unsafe foods and losing limbs to unsafe machines.
If you want that freedom, perhaps you should move to some failed state where a small bribe can get you around the regulatory issues. I doubt very much that you'd like it, but that's seems to be what you're wanting.
(Score: 3, Informative) by migz on Monday August 22 2016, @08:25PM
How curious. You believe it is fair for you to tell me how to live my life and that you know better than me, and everybody else what their needs are. We can sleep safe at night knowing that nanny Francis is absolving us of our desire to
Curious. I have not advocated neither murder, nor slavery, nor theft. I merely want to choose whether to use a regulated taxi or not.
Unlike you I have lived in a country with a regulated taxi industry, where the regulated taxis are unsafe, indeed they resort to murder and violence to protect their turf. Don't for a moment imagine that the reassurance stamp of government is worth a damn.
I want freedom to pay less, because the costs are insanely inflated by the government and the state sponsored taxi cronies who are protected from competition.
Why do you believe your argument as to why you believe regulation is a good thing, if valid, is extensible to the taxi industry?
Why do I need to go to a failed state to bribe my way around regulatory issues? Do you believe your state is immune to bribery? From where I sit a heavily regulated taxi industry looks just like bribery. I pay the government a large sum, to create regulations, that protect me from competition.
I would prefer not to have freedom to choose if I wish to participate in the regulations, without the threat of violence from the state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:55PM
I want freedom to pay less...
And fuck everything and everyone else, amirite? It's all about my pocketbook/wallet/account. Fuck anything else!
Goodness, you're one jolly fellah
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Francis on Monday August 22 2016, @10:38PM
I'm sorry, but you're full of shit here.
You don't have the freedom to pay less, as I've already outlined we have these regulations because the lack of regulation led to all sorts of unsafe situations. If you're seriously looking to save money, buy yourself the cheapest car you can find and don't bother to maintain it. I'm sure before too long you'll have the price below what you would be paying for a cab anyways. Somebody I know is selling a used stick shift car for $500. It wouldn't take that many trips for it to pay for itself.
My state isn't immune to bribery, but there's no evidence to support the belief that this is the result of bribery and not a response to what happens when you have unlicensed cabs operating. This has existed since well before the era of legalized bribery started and exists for a good reason. Just look at other countries where the unlicensed cabs run the range from perfectly safe, albeit cheap, to run by kidnappers looking to turn a buck on ransom.
BTW, what you're advocating for here is more or less analogous to theft at the least and slavery at the worst. Regulations are one of the things that stops the race to the bottom where cabbies are under enormous pressure to charge less than the cost of providing the service in order to get people to agree to use them.
I've rarely found cabs to be affordable, but they are necessary to fill in gaps that mass transit leaves and the regulations are part of what allows them to continue to operate.
Uber could have gotten the rules changed by going through the normal process, but instead opted to pretend that the law didn't apply to them and in the process abused the hell out of the drivers. I take it you didn't notice the class action suit against them that just finished up over the way they classified the employees.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by NotSanguine on Monday August 22 2016, @10:57PM
I would prefer not to have freedom to choose if I wish to participate in the regulations, without the threat of violence from the state.
Because gub'mint thugs are going to beat you down, seize your house and throw you in jail or shoot you dead in the street if you don't use "traditional" taxis?
Do you even read what you write? Because you certainly don't *think* before you do.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by migz on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:51AM
The threats are against the competition not the customers. How do you believe the government will enforce these laws? Through arrest and seizing assets. They might not be mine, but they are the property of the drivers.
Btw. In the country I used to live in the thugs did beat people down, seize peoples property, shoot and people in the street if they did not use "traditional" taxis, not only the competition, but customers too. They didn't need the government to do their dirty work, and the government did nothing to protect us. Why should they? They were illegals anyway? Right?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:26AM
So you're doing a complete 180 and backing off your statement that
I would prefer not to have freedom to choose if I wish to participate in the regulations, without the threat of violence from the state.
And you're also saying that there is no threat of violence against you from the state over this.
Is that correct? I just want to make sure I understand what you're trying to say.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @08:34PM
We don't get to murder our rivals or steal their women without consequence anymore either.
Murdering someone would directly infringe upon their rights. This is totally different from infringing upon people's rights to decrease the probability of some bad event happening.
As for 'stealing' women, you don't own women and they can make their own choices. Unless you meant taking them captive against their will, it doesn't make any sense.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday August 22 2016, @10:41PM
It's a related problem. We gave up a number of rights as part of the social contract. There's not much difference between banning murder and banning practices that are likely to result in death. Dead is dead and whether it's negligence or malice only matters for punishment; the deceased is equally dead either way.
And yes, that's exactly what I meant by stealing women, that's another right that we gave up as a matter of civility. It was a way of handling society that was deeply problematic for everybody involved.
People try to play this sort of thing off as a case of having done the homework and assessed the risk, but without the regulations in place there's no way of knowing what the risk even is. One unlicensed cab might be fine whereas another might be driven by a rapist and another by a team of kidnappers. That's not exactly unheard of in parts of the world where unlicensed taxis are common. more likely is a cabbie that uses a broken meter or none at all and insists upon being paid several times as much as what the fare is worth.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2016, @12:58AM
You don't get that choice. Part of living in a civilized society is that you give up certain rights and freedoms in order to have some security.
This is the usual blather to put down someone doesn't like some part of "civilized society". Let's consider what Francis had to say [soylentnews.org] about this in the past:
He's [Bernie Sander] completely right about this. In the current environment the system is more about either gambling or breaking the law. The system has decayed to the point where the only option for getting rich is fixing the system in your favor and hoping that you have enough lawyers to get away with it. That's not a functioning system and people are going to be rioting in the street calling for a revolution if it continues into the future.
When it's something Francis wants, it's "You don't get that choice." When it's something Francis doesn't want, it's "rioting in the street calling for a revolution". The thing is here, Uber/Lynx/etc is the peaceful revolution throwing down taxi cartels, a violation of the social contract.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday August 23 2016, @01:53AM
You act like those statements aren't internally consistent.
This kind of ignorance is why I routinely call you out. It's not just that you're ignorant, it's that you work so hard to be ignorant.
As for the statements, there is a line where the social contract no longer holds up and that line tends to be after the soap boxes, jury boxes and ballot boxes have already failed and the only box left for use is the ammo box. Uber et al., could have gone about this the right way and went to the legislature for a proper legislative fix and proposed a means of adhering to the same standards that the cab companies had. But, they chose to break the law.
They're undercutting the cab companies by cutting corners like on things like insurance and not wanting to have the same regulatory oversight that the cab companies are. That's unfair competition and it's not something that's going to lead to improved safety or improved service. It's a cost cutting that comes with externalities that Uber doesn't feel like paying for.
This kind of behavior is the same sort of lawless behavior that's likely to drive a revolution in the future if it's not addressed. Why should I, or any other citizen have to follow the law if moneyed interests don't? The social contract depends upon consistent enforcement of the law, especially with regards to safety and fraud.
This kind of bullshit is why nobody has any respect for you khallow. You've got the time to look up what I said trying to find an inconsistency, but you're too lazy to actually bother to read what I've posted and understand. I feel very sorry for your miserable life, if you've got the time to go googling for things I've said because you're butthurt at being called out.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:26AM
You act like those statements aren't internally consistent.
It's because they aren't consistent, internally or otherwise. You can keep doing your cognitive dissonance thing, but I'll point out for any other readers out there that the "social contract" and "revolution" were both advocated by the same people who resorted hypocritically to the social contract when they wanted to preserve the status quo and revolution when they did not.
This kind of ignorance is why I routinely call you out.
Feel free to do that. But you better up your game.
As for the statements, there is a line where the social contract no longer holds up and that line tends to be after the soap boxes, jury boxes and ballot boxes have already failed and the only box left for use is the ammo box. Uber et al., could have gone about this the right way and went to the legislature for a proper legislative fix and proposed a means of adhering to the same standards that the cab companies had. But, they chose to break the law.
They're undercutting the cab companies by cutting corners like on things like insurance and not wanting to have the same regulatory oversight that the cab companies are. That's unfair competition and it's not something that's going to lead to improved safety or improved service. It's a cost cutting that comes with externalities that Uber doesn't feel like paying for.
And they're getting massive business because nobody else wants to pay for those "externalities" either. As to your concerns, these are already dealt with. Commercial vehicle insurance is already required by insurers. The regulatory oversight adds negative value (since it is the primary tool for enforcing the expensive and unreliable taxi cartels). And the competition is "unfair"? I'd rather double down on it and get rid of the taxi cartels altogether. While these ridership services might not be safer (that remains to be seen), they are definitely better service as has already been mentioned here, being cheaper, faster, more reliable, and with far better transparency for the customer.
This kind of behavior is the same sort of lawless behavior that's likely to drive a revolution in the future if it's not addressed. Why should I, or any other citizen have to follow the law if moneyed interests don't? The social contract depends upon consistent enforcement of the law, especially with regards to safety and fraud.
It should be a warning sign to all of us when companies can be massively profitable by avoidance of what should be small bits of regulation. It means the laws are deeply flawed and onerous, and there is a deep societal need which is not being addressed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2016, @02:44AM
I modded you insightful solely for this line here :
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2016, @03:03AM