Summon-a-car startup Uber remains legal in Washington, DC (for now)

At the NYT, Brian X. Chen reports that Uber, the nifty internet service that uses a "clever algorithm to summon a car quickly with a smartphone app" was nearly banned by politicians in the Washington, DC.

After six months, the company has finally won a battle with the city, which had been trying to deem its service illegal. The City Council of the District of Columbia on Tuesday afternoon passed a legislative amendment that formally legalized sedans like the ones that Uber’s car-service partners use. The bill will permit Uber to do business without regulation until the end of the year, when the legislation will need to be revisited.

That’s a sharp turn of events from Monday, when the City Council discussed a legislative amendment that would have fixed the prices of fares for sedans so that they would be five times the minimum cost of cabs.

More: Uber, Maker of Summon-a-Car App, Wins in Washington - NYTimes.com.

Co-founder and CEO Travis Kalanick wrote a letter to the DC City Council here, arguing his company's case.

• [catherinecc]

  Corruption is freedom!

• [JProffitt71]

  Christ what a bunch of legislating assholes.

  Edit: Clarified!

  • [Over the River]

    I do hope you are talking about the City Council. Because you are then 100% correct.

• [Brea Plum]

  So, D.C., how’s that “free market” thing working out for ya?

  • [Over the River]

    The city council is like reeds in the wind. They are hard-core one minute and limp the next. The taxi cab industry in the city is corrupt, cabs are crap, and they don’t take kindly to someone stepping on their turf. Uber is loved by everyone who uses it. More people will use it in spite of the council’s efforts to clean up the industry.  

• [bjohndook]

  “Uber had broken rules by trying to be both a limousine service and a cab service.”

  I once overheard two botanists arguing over a Damned Thing that had blasphemously sprouted in a college yard. One claimed that the Damned Thing was a tree and the other claimed that it was a shrub. They each had good scholary arguments, and they were still debating when I left them. The world is forever spawning Damned Things.

• [AlexG55]

  In America private hire services are more expensive than taxis? As someone used to Britain/London, I find that weird.

  Here, we have taxis and minicabs. Taxis have to meet much stricter standards on both the vehicle and the driver (most famously the Conditions of Fitness and the Knowledge for London black cabs), but are allowed to pick up passengers who hail them on the street. A minicab can be pretty much any safe car with a licensed driver, but can only pick people up if pre-booked.

• [Geordie Korper]

  Everybody loves Uber so it seems to get ignored that that they are basically trying to use public opinion to keep themselves exempt from the requirements that taxicabs have while not complying with the requirements for the “sedan for hire” exemption. To completely over simplify sedan for hire use a fixed pre-negotiated rate and taxicabs use distance/time. Uber wants to use distance/time but call themselves a sedan for hire. Since DC has an open taxicab system unlike the medallion system used by some other cities I find their arguments unconvincing. Which isn’t to say that the DC Taxicab commission isn’t corrupt and self-serving however fixing that makes more sense to me than allowing Uber to continue to bend the laws.

  • [JProffitt71]

    It would seem to me, from this perspective, that the laws are arbitrary and counterproductive. Their only purpose seems to be to act as a competition deterrent, and indeed it seems they are being aggressively enforced that way (what public purpose does raising one services minimum price possibly serve?).

    • [donovan acree]

       Well put. I can’t understand why any city needs to be involved in conveyance prices for businesses not owned by the city.

• [Theranthrope]

  I live in Las Vegas..
  A while back, I was working part-time in a convenience store in North Las Vegas, miles from The LV Strip or Downtown LV, on graveyard shift. This particular store happened to be next to the City of North Las Vegas’s municipal airport, as it’s a municipal airport, it’s mostly for small private and charter aircraft… as opposed to the big airport: McCarran International, which is usually the one tourists actually want.

  The thing is… working at that particular store was an adventure …in getting lost folks back to the Las Vegas Strip and/or McCarran Airport …because they happened to type “Las” + “Vegas” + “Airport” into their GPS map device without checking WHICH airport they were supposed to be going to. It wasn’t too bad, for me anyway, as the store was slow and not particularly dangerous at night and chatting with tourists from all over the U.S. and various nations the world, along with me occasionally dispensing some esoteric locals’-only lore, was a interesting way to kill time during an otherwise boring shift in an otherwise boring store.

  Now to the point of this post; while dealing with tourists was easy, dealing with Las Vegas cabdrivers, who are supposed to be “local”, mind you, was a different story…. 

  These idiots would blow into town, minds full of tales full of fat tips bestowed by lucky gamblers and (illegal) kick-backs from stripclubs and “massage” parlors, thinking; “…all you have to know is The Strip and the airport, don’t worry about the rest” with none of that street-memorization and “knowing where the hell you’re going”-crap like in Chicago, or NY, or DC, needed. 
  No downsides; win/win, right?

  …predictably, some would get lost and somehow end up at my store, miles from anyplace they want to be. While the tourists were generally nice and appreciative (even the non-english speakers from a variety of nations …actually, the non-english speakers were -especially- appreciative), contrasting against the cab drivers, who were class-A assholes. Every. Last. One.

  I remember one guy in particular, an exceptionally arrogant bastard of a cab driver trying to find his way back to The Strip, with his fare sitting in the car with the meter running the entire time (talk about “long-hauling”), while the following dialog took place:

  Me: “… just head south on Decatur, turn left when you get to Sahara ave, keep going till you hit Las Vegas Blvd south and turn right and you’re THERE”

  Him: “Well I don’t know where south is.”

  Me: “Um… dude, you don’t have to, *points south* go this way on this street and keep going until you hit Sahara, then turn left.”

  Him: “I don’t where Sahara is. Do you know a faster way?”

  Me: “Yes I do, but Vegas is weirdly laid out and I’m not the one who’s lost. So, I’m giving you the simplest and most direct way. I know several others, but this way is the least-fuck-up-able.” 

  Him: *getting agitated* “I don’t know any of the streets here, so what’s the fastest way!” 

  Me: “You’re the one who’s lost. I’m telling you the way that you’re the least likely to get you lost AGAIN.”

  Him: “What is the fastest way!”

  Me: *points towards the -unmistakable- Stupak’s Tower and lights of The Strip*  ”Head towards those lights.”

  Him: “I don’t know what those lights are!”

  Me: “You’re a LAS VEGAS cab driver! You work for a local cab company! You LIVE here!”

  Me: *facepalm*

  Me: ….

  Me: “Get the fuck out of my store.”

  • [Over the River]

    Great story, thanks. I guess it true what they say about Las Vegas “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas”. The people riding around in this guy’s cab never leave the city; they end up “staying in Vegas”.

    • [Theranthrope]

      Actually, the direction he left, which was the  -opposite- of the way I told him to go, that cab driver (and his fare) might’ve ended up in Tonapah. 

      • [Tom]

        I’ve spent a night in Tonopah. If you mean to be in Vegas, Tonopah is most assuredly going to be a letdown.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        I take a different approach to obnoxious directions-askers.
        Them – “Say, can you tell me how to get to the freeway to LA from here?”
        Me – “Sure, just drive straight forward and take a right at the next corner.”
        Them – “Right? I’m pretty sure it’s left.”
        Me – “Oh, my mistake. You should definitely take a left.”
        Me as they drive away – “Enjoy your trip to Phoenix.”