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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday December 20 2017, @05:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-it-walks-like-a-duck dept.

After a period of consideration, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided that Uber is a transport service, just like any other taxi company. There is lot to say about Uber's use of untrained, non-professional drivers and other abusive practices.


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:20PM (6 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:20PM (#612512)

    Many cities are restricting cab numbers as an incentive to push people to public transport, have less cars adding traffic around hot spots all day long, and to avoid cabs literally fighting each other over the customers.

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  • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:28PM (4 children)

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:28PM (#612518)

    > Many cities are restricting cab numbers as an incentive to push people to public transport

    Um, taxis _are_ public transport.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:39PM (3 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:39PM (#612524) Journal

      Nitpicking. Chosen to ignore "have less cars adding traffic", haven't you?
      Let me put forward the "mass transit" substitute for "public transport", a substitute which encompasses "less traffic".

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:04AM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:04AM (#612651) Journal
        Really, taxis should still count as a positive since one taxi can take the place of numerous personal vehicles. And they have the advantage that they are point to point.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:29AM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:29AM (#612661) Journal

          Really, taxis should still count as a positive since one taxi can take the place of numerous personal vehicles.

          True.

          And they have the advantage that they are point to point.

          Not very much of an advantage in Europe, believe me. You'd be hardly pressed to find "middle of nowhere" places there.

          The metropolitan areas are packed with mass transit (and murder at rush hours), the "rural areas" are very much like the suburbs I'm seeing in Australian "greater city" areas (except for the mountains): average distance between two neighborhooding villages in the 10-15km range. With at least hourly buses or microbuses between them.
          You simply don't go shopping using your car: take a stroll for your daily groceries (if you don't grab them on your way from office), 20 mins walk max, 2-5 kilos at max - why buy more if the shops are nearby and you buy everything you need fresh?

          You need to be quite pressed to use a car to solve your problems, even more so that the population density favor good communication (internet) infrastructure.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:59AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 21 2017, @01:59AM (#612675) Journal

            Not very much of an advantage in Europe, believe me. You'd be hardly pressed to find "middle of nowhere" places there.

            Most auto transportation in the US is not to and from middle of nowhere. Not every pair of places in Europe have mass transit routes running directly between arbitrary locations. The problem is that it's easy for a massive number of cars to overload a road. When that doesn't happen, cars work fine.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:38AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @08:38AM (#612734)

    Maybe in the US.

    Over here in Denmark, taxis are for the rich, the rest of us get to buy our own cars (with 180% taxes). When Uber arrived, we finally had an alternative to drunk driving, but that didn't last long, everyone - taxi companies, politicians, etc - were fighting to have them prosecuted before the Christmas party season. I suspect drunk driving fines is an important source of income on top of the 180% taxes on cars.