[ObeyTheNumbers]

Ottawa taxi driver says Uber's arrival destroyed his retirement plan

An Ottawa taxi driver says he lost a fortune and had his retirement dreams dashed after Uber and Lyft rolled into the capital.

ottawa.ctvnews.ca

The City should buy the medallion back.

It was their racket to begin with, things have changed, now that it's over they should buy them back and discontinue the practice.

The guy worked hard, he deserves his retirement.

 

[Michael - Cleveland]

It's a bit of a 'sticky wicket' now isn't it?

"I started thinking maybe it would be a good investment if I buy a plate,” he says. “In that time, it used to be $50,000.” For Mezher, that was a significant sum of money, on top of the cost of a vehicle and all the required equipment. But the expectation was for the value of the city-issued and controlled taxi license plate to grow. It did grow, to hundreds of thousands of dollars."

He made an investment. He made a good living from the investment AND that investment grew in value rather nicely. (In other words - high dividends and asset appreciation)

He failed to divest of the investment as its value fell (it didn't go from "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to zero overnight. Just as purchasing the investment was a choice, so to was the decision not to sell the asset while it still had value. That's his responsibility. No one ever guaranteed him that the value of his investment would increase and no one ever guaranteed him that the value would not fall.

So let's be clear here: He paid $50,000 for the right to drive a taxi and for 13 years he made a living (?? $75,000-$100,000/yr ??) from that $50,000 investment. (Avg of $3,850/yr with a $75,000-$100,000 return on investment).

He did not lose a dime.
He just didn't earn as much on his investment as he expected.

- welcome to the world of investment.

If he had invested $50,000 in a house in 2005 and the neighborhood was rezoned and went to hell and in 2020 the property was nearly worthless, would he be asking the previous owner or the realtor for a refund?

 

[U phoria]

Had he been smart and sold it in 2014 he would have cashed in, he probably could’ve moved over to uber and made a ton back then or retire.

it’s no different than owning a stock that tanked nothing is guaranteed

The medallion system itself was a scam

 

[Stevie The magic Unicorn]

I actually second the medallion buyback plan.

If the cities want to profit off taxi medallions they should pay up when they are made worthless by the state/local government.

I'm not saying that the government shouldn't be able to tax businesses I'm saying that they shouldn't be screw businesses over.

If I had a "medallion" to operate a hot dog truck and they started allowing people to operate Hot dog carts without a medallion that's bullshit.

Taxi and uber are so fundamentally similar they should have made uber get medallions or whatever in the first place.


And saying that there's a difference between uberX and taxi in any fundamental way is bullshit.

Well taxis have marginally more freedom to pick up customers but the level of service and type of service provided is identical.

And tons and tons of drivers pickup off app and break the law.. so that's really an argument that theres no real difference IMHO.

 

[coolblk]

I too had retirement plans when i start driving for uber until they sucker new drivers into making $2.90 an hour, now i have to reposition myself for a hostile when i retire

 

[ObeyTheNumbers]

As many as I can tell, Uber went above local towns and cities and petitioned on the big government level.

Governments have been trying to get people to rideshare/car pool for decades because it reduces gridlock during rush hour periods.

Now drivers are given two destinations trips per day and one vehicle can take 4-6 passengers to and from work as they all pretty much get off work at the same time.

The trip is covered by commercial insurance so the driver is protected from liability and the riders can split the fare. The driver gets paid and their travel costs are covered.

It works like this, everyone piles in, the driver turns on their app, one of the passengers orders the Uber, it picks the closest qualified driver, the one right there and off they go.

I keep telling you all Uber is rideshare, it's the public at large that morphed it into a taxi service. 😁

Rideshare would have been the norm long ago, until people started suing each other over accidents, requiring expensive commercial insurance which at that time could only be put on the vehicle.

With the advent of technology, rideshare insurance is on the trip instead, making it less expensive, why an Uber is not a taxi.

Gone is the old crooked ways and in with the new crooked way.

Big Brother moved in in the name of national security.

And just recently China started their own government run transportation app because Didi Global wasn't playing ball enough with the government, so they shut them down for 18 months and started their own.

See what's going on here?

It's all about information, control and tracking everyone and everything by their smartphone, the mark of the beast.

Just one step away from requiring us to use our phones to buy and sell.

Better get right or get left. 😆

 

[Stevie The magic Unicorn]

Carpooling is a myth.

It's a fantastic idea, but on the same note so is soviet style communism.

Carpooling was put out as an idea to save the environment in a world that is hopelessly dependant on the automobile.

On a theoretical level it's great. Ride with someone going to the same place as you at the same time.

In practice it sucks. You have to leave 5 minutes earlier for every additional passenger in your car assuming that going out of your way to pick them up only takes 5 minutes.

So let's assume I have a commute from my house to the taxi shop. That's a 35-45 minute drive without the carpooling at the time I go.

Let's add 3 people to it and let's assume that I go 5 minutes out of my way and they are toes to the curb. It's now a 50-60 minute drive in a perfect world. Now let's assume that 1 guy is toes to the curb, one guy takes 5 minutes and one guy makes us sit and wait 15. This is closer to reality...

So now it's a 70-80 minute drive and I have to leave 45 minutes earlier to make sure I make it to work at the same time I did before and adding extra wiggle room.

But i might get a few bucks from my coworkers for driving them right?

Yeah.. I can hope.

Now let's look at the drive home, the traffic is worse and I can't stop at publix along the way. So add 15-20 minutes more onto my drive home. BUT... What if someone gets held up 20-30 minutes because that's reality.

So now we have to add 35-40 minutes on my drive home to.

So I currently leave home at 7:30 PM, I'd have to push that departure from home up 45 minutes earlier. Meaning i'd have to leave at 6:45. And instead of getting home around 10:00 am I'm instead getting home by 11:00. Plus I can't stop at the bank and publix on my way home.


So the net change of carpooling would be..

Leaving home 7:30 PM
Return by 10:00 am

TO

Leaving at 6:45 PM
Returning by 11:00 AM

 

[ANT 7]

The state should not subsidize this in any way.

There is not a person where I live, that has not been screwed over by a driver in the the taxi monopoly in their lives.

You did it to yourself pal, suck it up.

 

[Stevie The magic Unicorn]

The state should not subsidize this in any way.

There is not a person where I live, that has not been screwed over by a driver in the the taxi monopoly in their lives.

You did it to yourself pal, suck it up.

I don't have a taxi medallion... I was giving my opinion.

I much prefer a system where you pay a marginal annual fee for the government permit to operate as a taxi rather than paying for a medallion in an auction. In the last 13 years i've held a personal taxi license/permit for 5 of them. I spent less than $2,000 total for the permits.


If you could get a city license for under $500 a year it completely changes your perspective on it.

Personally I think the medallion system is stupid, but the problem is that to do away with it they'll have to shell out a shit load of money.


Let's look at another situation. Let's say someone financed the medallion using only the medallion as colalteral. Pre-uber this makes sense. Post uber it's very possible for that loan to be completely upside down.


If they eliminated medallions over night that would be the city ****ing over not just the drivers but all the banks who financed the medallions and have no way to recoup their money. So the destabilisation of the banks that have leveraged loans on the medallions is a disaster.


The medallions are a century old insitution that needs fixed. Unfortunatly it's too screwed up to fix without throwing a big pile of money at it. Given the cities that have medallions have made millions upon millions of dollars off of them over the years it's rather self serving to just screw everyone they profited off over to get rid of them.



And in terms of "getting screwed over by a driver in the taxi monopoly"

I have this to say...

Find me an uber customer who never paid surgep pricing or waited to order a ride because of surge pricing.

Surge pricing is just screwing customers over because it's busy, except instead of drivers pulling a number out of their ass it's the computer doing it.


I myself honestly charge customers using a meter, or using meter rates. (I have the right to charge in advance for any reason. I also kick people out if I ask for payment/down payment up front and they can't pay) There's no reason to screw customers over when the rates are set to a fair level.


Course I only have my word on it. But my word that I don't screw customers over is a little easier to believe than your word that you never take surge pings now isn't it?

The only thing uber did that was new and original was figure out new ways to screw the drivers. The apps were in around before uber popped into existence.

But what do I know?

The first app based fares I took were from Curb. The cab company I drove for on NYE had an app live before uber came to town.

 

[ANT 7]

I was talking about the news link.

 

[ObeyTheNumbers]

The local government should buy the medallion back at market price which is likely the best the bloke could ask for being he didn't pay attention to the market and Uber.