Posts by BenWilson
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
When they used to attempt compliance, Uber required drivers to set up as private hire services. Anyone set up like this is currently not being stopped, if they have all the compliances in place barring one. The only rule violation under those circumstances is the Operating Licensing Land Transport Rule about metering. This is the one rule that has been tested in court and the case did not result in a conviction. It is my understanding that CVIU have no will to enforce this at all. Enforcing it would amount to the “standing in the way of innovation” that NZTA frequently states that it does not want to do that.
So yes, Ubers are like taxis. They are going for the same market of customers for the same purpose. But there are also many ways in which they are totally not like a taxi. The inability to take street hails and sit in taxi stands is the main one. The inability to take most forms of payment, including cash, is another biggie.
Hope this helps.
It might help me understand just how obtuse NZTA are being, for sure. I’ll seek clarification of the answers before presuming a lack of good faith, although at this point it’s really looking that way. That said, I’m not surprised. If the answer is as bad as it looks at face value then it’s a sorry tale indeed, and efforts to tar-pit anyone trying to find out the true situation would be a normal human response. It’s stink that I have to use such a channel, but I guess that’s what happens when a bureaucratic organization has something to hide. They hide it in the way they know best, behind a wall of tedious finicky detail and lengthy mandatory waits.
ETA: Fortunately time is not pressing on me. I'll just keep at it, and documenting the process as it goes. It's one of those stories that just gets more embarrassing the longer it takes to get them to admit to it. It would be actually less painful for them to just tear off the sticking plaster and say outright what the trouble with enforcement is, why all the efforts to date involving large numbers of bureaucrats and enforcement officers have essentially achieved nothing. All this twisting on the hook is really a bit silly.
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For example when an OIA asking about fines for not displaying PSLs comes back with an obtuse statement that
We have interpreted this to mean "display a driver ID card".
You have to conclude they're messing with you.
Seriously. I shit you not. They are trying to pretend not to know what I mean by displaying a PSL. This is NZTA. The people who issue the PSL. The people who have repeatedly told Uber drivers that they must display a PSL. When I ask them the question about how many people have been caught for not displaying a PSL, they are trying to pull this shit on me, pretending not to know what a PSL even is.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
Hello, has everyone gone on holiday LOL
Well, I did, sorry about that. But whilst away, my OIA request came back about enforcement on Uber drivers and whether they are paying all the fines. I'll have to read it more carefully, but my first impression is that they really don't want to be answering my questions. Gut feeling is that the reason for that is that the lack of consequences under the law has been so embarrassingly complete as to require me to take it to the Ombudsman to really get to the bottom of it.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
I guess Uber will handle it in there normal way by just ignoring the regulation like all the others. LOL
I'd guess you are right. It's not possible for me to get the answer to that. One driver has an email chain containing dozens of to and fros without getting any serious answers to the question of whether Uber pays GST. They also don't give drivers any useful information about whether they should, leaving it entirely up to you to work out. Definitely they do not give GST receipts for trips. In fact, I request a full receipt after every trip via the website and they claim not to provide this service in NZ any more.
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Nate Silver expects a gain for Clinton, but in his typically statistically caveated and nuanced way.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to Sacha,
That was my take also. Airports would seem to have a different view of the matter, Wellington in particular, seems concerned about the health and safety angle. But that is probably because pickup/dropoffs there are on private property. I'm not sure if AT owns any of these bus terminals.
In theory it's not a bad idea to solve the "last 3 km" problem that public transport faces, by having passengers delivered there in private vehicles that don't have to park. In practice there is simply no way that Uber has scale to make any kind of dent in the problem of getting people to buses, with the hundreds of thousands of people who commute daily. There are a couple of thousand Uber vehicles, tops, in Auckland. Rush hour is reliably terrible for Uber, both riders and drivers. Riders because Uber prices always surge at rush hour, due to the inability of drivers to get to their riders. And slow rides to a destination are much more expensive than fast ones because of the per minute charge. Bad for drivers because you get a lot of cancellations when access is difficult due to traffic conditions, and the payment structure is geared towards most of your money coming from the per-km charges. Sitting in a traffic jam with an angry passenger who is actually trying to save money by using a bus isn't a driver's idea of fun either.
I hope AT conducts some passenger surveys to find how many people are using Ubers to get to buses, and how much that cost them. It will give solid information back about whether it's making any kind of dent. I'd have thought that this idea is in direct competition to their own services, that the best way to get large numbers of passengers to a bus terminal would be in buses.
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Interesting idea. I guess AT isn't bugged by the whole non-compliance thing, presumably bus drivers etc are still required to have P-Endorsements, even if Uber isn't. Presumably buses still have COFs and their drivers log their hours. Presumably their organization does actually know what's in the Land Transport Act. Presumably they've put thought into the potential ramifications of partnering with an organization that isn't following any of the rules.
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Hard News: Trump's Dummkopfs, in reply to nzlemming,
Watching the YouTube stream and wondering what that chat window really adds...a scrolling window of abuse, basically.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to goforit,
I keep my eyes and ears open and see if its just isolated or a trend.
I'm willing to bet it's a trend. It has been everywhere else in the world. Like I've said many times, this company has only invented an app with some servers, not some kind of amazing game changing rocket science. They're extremely vulnerable to competition.
It will be rather ironic if they try to aggressively protect their monopoly after their entire rhetorical spin for years being about busting up monopolies. How are you going to punish drivers for working for someone else? Fire them?
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to linger,
This is at variance to what the drivers are themselves told when they sign up, though. The line I was given was that "no Uber driver has ever paid a fine". Hopefully, in the next few days, I'll know whether that is actually true.