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French taxi drivers are the latest to protest the entry of Uber into their protected market. Their protests feature vandalism and blocking roads. From the AP story:
French taxi drivers pulled out the throttle in an all-out confrontation with the ultra-cheap Uber car service Thursday, smashing livery cars, setting tires ablaze and blocking traffic during a nationwide strike that caught tourists and celebrities alike in the mayhem.
[...] Taxi drivers justified their rage, saying Uber's lowest-cost service UberPop was ruining their livihoods.[sic]
[...] Anger seethed across France, with riot police chasing strikers from Paris' ring road, where protesters torched tires and swarmed onto exit ramps during rush hour on the busy artery that leads to Charles de Gaulle airport. In Toulouse in the southwest, angry taxi drivers dumped flour onto UberPop cars, tires were burned in Nantes in the west, and in Lyon, in the southeast, roads were blocked.
Compare this to Uber protests in London.
Vive le monopole!
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Monday June 29 2015, @07:47AM
In the UK Uber drivers are registered minicab drivers, which means
1) The driver pays a fee (£95 - £207 a year, increasing with car age in Manchester) to the council
2) The car gets a more thorough MOT as part of this (and othe older the car the more tests, hence the increase in price)
3) The driver pays a fee - £144 for the first year, which covers a basic competency test and checks for things like insurance. Renewal costs less.
4) They're no different from your local minicab firm. Apart from the service is far better and the drivers earn more money (at least the ones I talk to). The drivers operate their own car, just like they do at local minicab firms.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wantkitteh on Monday June 29 2015, @08:37AM
Also, 5) The mandatory motor vehicle insurance policy required by law for every vehicle on the road has to specifically cover commercial use, not just private.
I should also point out that point 3 also includes criminal record checks, but if your locality doesn't require points 2, 3 and 5 by law to operate as a cab driver of any kind, they are negligent in ensuring a basic level of passenger safety.