[throwaway50702]

Why would anyone want to call a "real" taxi without any driver rating system?

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Reply to the comment below because I can't post no more:

That "simple stuff" never worked in any EU city I ever visited. It just helped the gangsters keep their business.

The real simple stuff that works is an app with rating system and pre-calculated prices.

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Reply to the second comment below:

Well I mostly travel around central and eastern Europe - Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria... - never had a good experience with a "real" taxi before Uber anywhere in these countries. Not even "okay" experience, it was always very bad, barely tolerable.

[gambiting]

>>Why would anyone want to call a "real" taxi without any driver rating system?

I don't understand how the rating system helps in any way shape or form though. The worst rides in my life in any taxi, period, were all from 5-star rated Uber drivers. Most recent one in a small English town where the guy was literally doing 60mph on 30mph streets, braking hard and going into corners so the tyres would squeal - I literally had to tell him to slow down and he said "no it's fine don't worry about it". I checked and the guy had 3000 completed rides and something like 4.8/5 rating. I reported him through support but I will never know if anything was done.

>>never had a good experience with a "real" taxi before Uber anywhere in these countries

I'm from Poland and I never had issues with "real" taxis here, in Krakow, Warsaw and other places - you have to watch out for fake taxis which can operate outside of regulations, but the proper licenced taxis are absolutely fine.

[cameldrv]

4.8 is not a good Uber rating these days. Giving anything less than 5 stars requires you to justify your rating now. 4.8 means roughly 1 in 5 passengers were annoyed enough to go through this.

[gambiting]

And yet he is(or was) still on the road, so I'm not sure how the rating helped. Or maybe more specifically - if you saw a 4.8 rated driver was coming to get you, would you cancel the booking?

[cameldrv]

I probably wouldn't cancel the booking, but I've come to expect that with a 4.8 driver, there's a pretty good chance that something won't be satisfactory. Uber doesn't kick the driver off until their rating gets below 4.6, but Uber also won't let drivers drive for their premium tiers without at least a 4.85.

As an example, last week I had a 4.8 driver drive to the wrong pickup location, then I called them to explain, they said they were coming, and then they started the ride without me in the car and started driving towards my destination. Naturally I had to fight with Uber to refund the $10 cancellation fee.

The drivers that are reliable and you can count on to not pull stuff like this are all 4.95+.

[gambiting]

Well, if that's true then that's insane. Why even have a scoring system out of 5 if all meaningful scoring happens in the last 0.2 of the value.

[throwaway50702]

Was that before or after Uber completely changed the market?

[gambiting]

What was? The anecdote I said? That was a month ago. Or the Polish experience? That was all before Uber even existed here. I used to take taxis a lot in Warsaw in 2010-2013 and don't recall having any issues.

[jwestbury]

> That "simple stuff" never worked in any EU city I ever visited. It just helped the gangsters keep their business.

Odd, as I've never once had a bad experience with a London black cab.

[pixxel]

It’s called a carriage license or similar. Simple stuff, really.

[contravariant]

It's somewhat ironic to place a comment like this on a throwaway account.