Taxi Wars Episode II: The Uber Menace
Last Wednesday we've reported on a series of protest actions against an American black car service, Uber. London taxi drivers have blocked the traffic because Transport for London had previously turned down their claim to impose certain sanctions on the company. Surprisingly or not, the protest have found a response from the British government at the launch of London's first ever Tech Week. Boris Johnson expressed his sympathy towards 'the common' taxi companies but added that the government is helpless to ban Uber at the moment.
The question under consideration is whether Uber can use its smartphone app to calculate the price of a ride based on time and distance. Basically, this is what taxi meters do, thus Uber infringes the integral right of cabbies to be the only taxi meter users in the city. But this is only on the technical side, legally there is no consensus on the issue.
The situation proves once more that governments cannot keep up to the pace with which new technologies bite into the service market. Hopefully, the politicians will manage to tread a fine line between taxi companies and Uber, as the whole thing starts to smell like another flamewar.
Source: The Guardian
