Uber Taking Country By Storm; Everywhere Except For Here!
While most people consider New York to be a progressive state, many of the rules and regulations imposed by Albany’s notoriously big government seem downright archaic by 21st Century standards.
Take the state’s byzantine laws regarding taxicabs. Passed back when John Montana’s taxi monopoly in Buffalo made him look more like a genius businessman than the organized crime kingpin he was, the laws were clearly designed to discourage competition.
Today, those regulations are being used to prevent the high tech car service company, Uber, from operating in much of the state. While the service is available in New York City, it operates there differently than it does in the rest of the country.
Founded in San Francisco in 2009Uber uses a patented smartphone app to connect people who need transportation with drivers who use their private vehicles to pick up passengers and get paid for it.
No cash changes hands. The rider’s credit card is automatically charged for the cost of the ride, which is estimated prior to being picked up, and transacted when the destination is reached.
The service is currently available in 27 states,over 60 countries and 405 cities around the world. Uber has surged in popularity among riders as an alternative to taxis, while participating drivers have said they like the flexibility of working as much or as little as they want.
In Los Angeles, where the service has become wildly popular, the cost of an Uber ride is about half that of riding in a medallion taxi.
But in New York, the legality of Uber has been challenged by the state and local governments and taxi companies, who allege that its use of drivers who are not licensed to drive taxicabs is unsafe and illegal.
State law still does not permit non-taxis from picking up passengers for payment. Uber operates in New York City, but only as a commercial livery taxi, with full-time drivers that obtain city licenses and spend approximately $5,000 each to buy commercial insurance.
The company is currently lobbying lawmakers in Albany to relax the state regulations.
According to a recent article in the Washington Post, Uber provides employment for more than 160,000 drivers in the U.S., who earn anywhere from $10 to $15 on average an hour for their work, depending on location.
“As Uber has grown into a tech giant valued by investors at more than $5 billion, it has become something of an economic Rorschach test. Some see in it the hopeful future of work in a digital age, where anyone with a car can be his own boss, choosing hours and determining income with a flexibility that makes other pursuits — like raising children or going back to school — more feasible,” the Post reported.
High tech?
“Good paying jobs”?
Not in Niagara Falls or Buffalo, where clinging to a failed past seems to be the main goal of the political class.
