[smsm42]

Is there any evidence Uber is actually less safe? I mean beyond the fact that a man blessed by state aegis checks taxi's breaks while regular plebeian mechanics do the same for Uber, what is the evidence Uber is sidestepping completely sane rules and not just red tape made to look like sane rules?

Not anecdotes like "Uber driver did X" - I'm sure for each such anecdote one can find "taxi driver did X" but real data on the scale of Germany - or any other scale like this?

[jacquesm]

Well, Uber will never have an accident. It will always be some guy who happened to have a friend on board. That's the beauty of it, you are offering a professional service but the moment there is any kind of trouble you can fall back on being a private individual driving his car.

[veidr]

Yep! Or, say, "some guy" who just happened to be driving his personal car when he decided take a drunk female passenger from a nightclub to, instead of home, say maybe a motel room...

https://www.google.co.jp/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=uber+...

[Cthulhu_]

this; afaik Uber takes no responsibility for the drivers themselves, they just offer a service to link freelance drivers to people in need of a ride.

As for the service quality etc, with Uber I guess people will have to have experienced a poor driver and leave a poor rating. I think it's a matter of time before people with crappy cars start driving for Uber, get into accidents or create generally unpleasant experiences for some users, and drop Uber's reputation downwards.

[icebraining]

this; afaik Uber takes no responsibility for the drivers themselves

Not exactly true, they provide insurance for when drivers are between rides: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2454988,00.asp

[jacquesm]

Super, someone should contact this family then:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide...

[Padding]

What exactly is the issue here? How is this different from her being struck by any other car/driver?

I'm not sure what the laws in the US are like, but in Germany that would already be covered by the mandatory insurance every car needs to have, before being allowed onto the streets.

[DanBC]

Commercial drivers need commercial insurance.

In Germany the driver would have regular insurance, unless they're working for a cab company when they'd have commercial insurance.

The US situation is a bit more complicated because of liability - is the driver liable? Or the driver's employers?

[Xylakant]

One of the problems with UberPop is that people use their regular private insurance that does not cover commercial activities. I'm a bit uncertain on what the result would be - I think the victim would still get paid, but the insurance would recover the costs from the insurance owner. Still, that's not legal.

[icebraining]

It is covered by the driver's insurance. According to the victim's attorney, they offered $15000.

[icebraining]

I'm not aware of any insurance policy that pays retroactively.

[jacquesm]

Yes, silly family to cross the street in front of an uber car between rides before they got insured for that. They should have known better.

[zobzu]

actually every time you dont leave a good feedback, uber will contact you back to clear it up and contact the driver (will not say who left the feedback) and ensure this was legitimate or otherwise reimburse your trip (on top of making sure the driver's star score is severely affected)

if you're a customer with 4-5 stars rating you'll get 4-5 stars drivers, always, all the time.

This makes the probability of bad services very low (and in fact null in my experience so far - i'm pretty sure they select 5 stars by default for your 5 first ever rides too)

[smsm42]

You realize you are avoiding the question. It would be very easy to assemble such statistics as Uber drivers are clearly identified and any court could easily request data about all Uber driving requests (anonymized if there are privacy concerns) and correlate them with reports of traffic incidents. I suspect, however, that there is no such data, and nobody even ever cared about gathering such data - local cartels screamed to local politicians for help, and politicians obliged by protecting the cartel from competition. All talks about "safety" is just as smokescreen as nobody actually did any safety studies and has any data. Otherwise we'd seen that data plastered everywhere, taxi cartels wouldn't miss that chance if they had it.

[jacquesm]

> You realize you are avoiding the question.

No, you're entirely missing my point. Uber does not exist as such, it is just an app. It does not have drivers on its payroll, it does not have a fleet of cars, it does not have - nor does it likely want - to collect accident statistics.

And as for that cartel, there is as far as I can see no such thing. All there is are a bunch of laws that Uber could choose to honour but has chosen not to.

If they comply with those rules and they are still banned then you could argue about cartels and such, until then that is premature.

[smsm42]

It may not collect the statistics - but people claiming it is unsafe should. Note that none of the Uber drivers is actually required to stop driving - they still can drive as much as they wish, however unsafe and dangerous they are. The only thing they can't do is to earn money. Is the money the thing that makes them unsafe?

>>> If they comply with those rules and they are still banned then you could argue about cartels and such, until then that is premature.

Sorry, that makes no sense. That's like saying "we're not banning blogging, we just require every blog would have an editor, a corrector, a staff of minimum five reporters, an HR department, a building and a printed paper copy, since the newspapers do it just fine, so we're just for responsible reporting". Of course the regulations protect the cartels - that's why these regulations exist in the first place, and saying "we just require them to follow regulations" is completely disingenuous - because following regulations is possible only by becoming part of the cartel.

[jacquesm]

You keep using the word 'cartel', taxi companies in Germany are not normally considered to be a cartel, merely a professional association. Just like there is no hotel cartel against AirBnb there is no taxi cartel against Uber.

Those are simply industries that have become regulated to some degree over time and now newcomers have decided that these regulations do not apply to them because they can get away with it, leaving their operators (drivers, airbnb hosts) to deal with the consequences.

That trick works, to some extent and in countries where there really are cartels in the hotel business and taxi services I welcome such developments. Millions of $ for a medallion are ridiculous, and rules solely created to keep competitors out are so too.

But the German taxi situation is not accurately described in that way.

[pgeorgi]

> But the German taxi situation is not accurately described in that way.

In fact PBefG §13(5) explicitly states that new applicants for taxi licenses are to be taken into account.

[Tomte]

My main argument is insurance.

It doesn't matter whether Uber rides are more dangerous or not. If something happens, the victim is left in the rain when it was an Uber ride.

"Private ride-sharing" is insured. "Uber ride-sharing" isn't.

And that's not because of old laws or lobbyism. That's because of all the standard insurance contracts that state clearly that they don't cover businesses, only private driving.

[Xylakant]

> It would be very easy to assemble such statistics as Uber drivers are clearly identified and any court could easily request data

Let me explain a little about the german law system (IANAL, so take it with a grain of salt). This is a preliminary injunction granted by request of a competitor. So what happens is that the court decides on the base of written arguments from the side requesting (this case roughly the union of german cab companies) and a "Schutzschrift" (written counter) from the accused (Uber). The court does not request anything. Uber could have provided such statistics if it wanted to, but since they have no bearing on this case I doubt it would have helped. The cited violations are all from the Personenbeförderungsgesetz and the court has preliminary decided that UberPop constitutes an illegal and unlicensed Taxi service. This is not about safety, it's about blatantly breaking a federal law.

Uber can appeal and the case will go to a regular court hearing where more arguments can be exchanged. Until then, the injunction can be enforced which is a severe blow for UberPop.

Now we can argue whether or not those regulations are sensible, but that's not for you, me or Uber to decide, it's a thing that gets decided in the Bundestag. Or Uber could restructure its service to comply with the law, but then it would not be as financially interesting as before.

[darklajid]

The previous 'Uber in Germany' discussions were about insurance coverage, something that most (all?) Uber drivers would lack supposedly.

So yes, there's evidence that Uber is less safe. Not in the 'drivers are reckless' or 'vehicles are crashing a lot' sense, but in the 'someone covers your .. behind' sense.

[madeofpalk]

So Uber themselves cover insurance for drivers and their passengers. Is that not enough?

[darklajid]

No.

See the excellent answer here [1]. Next up on that list for me would be the 'license'. I have a license that allows me to drive every (street legal) truck, up to 40t. I'm also allowed to drive busses (they fall under the same category), IF they're mostly empty (I think up to 8 people are okay) and it's not a commercial ride (i.e. 8 friends, not 8 paying passengers).

If I want to do something like that, I need an additional license. Like every cab driver does. This isn't something that Uber can cover. The might be able to require their users to have this license (and prove it), but .. that's part of what the court is trying to say here, for all I understand.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8256398

[jacquesm]

8 is correct, the actual rule is '9 including the driver', so you're spot on.

[madeofpalk]

I understand the requirement for drivers to be licensed for what they're doing (accepting fares, just like how UberBlack drivers are required to be licensed hire car operators), but that's not what I was talking about.

[darklajid]

In that case I'm confused. What _are_ you talking about?

This thread is about the reasons why Uber isn't legal and needs to start following the law. One requirement for that is the insurance, one completely different requirement is the license for commercial transport for each driver that .. well .. operates a cab. Whatever the company is called.

(Deep within my soul I really dislike this 'Hah, your laws are outdated and wrong, we will liberate you' type of services from abroad and I snicker every time German media talks about 'Uber' - a term that is usually connected to the German language, to über - being fined for being utterly careless (or reckless) about their operation in Germany. It's quite ironic in my little world)

[madeofpalk]

I was replying to your comment where you said, paraphrased "Uber is unsafe because most, if not all, Uber drivers aren't insured.

And then I said 'Uber provides insurance. Is this not enough?'

[CaptainZapp]

Do they?

And if they do, what exactly is insured and how high is the coverage?

Can you point out to a credible source for this assertion of yours (which I find hard to believe), which is not an Uber blog entry, or some astroturfing organization?

[icebraining]

They have published the insurance certificate:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/234793785/Certificate-of-Liability...

[jacquesm]

Good luck using that in Germany.

[icebraining]

Oh, fair enough. As far as I can tell, they haven't published anything on that regard.

[PinguTS]

Example: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide...

Such an accident may could happen, but then according to the German requirements it would be properly insured.