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Choosing Uber over taxis

Ever taken a taxi in a city that you have never been before and wondered if the cab driver was taking you on a longer than necessary route?

Have you ever taken a taxi in a city that you have never been before and wondered if the cab driver was taking you on a longer than necessary route?

I don’t know about you, but I’m always suspicious this is happening, especially when you clearly don’t speak the language very well and the cab driver asks you which route you would rather take (how about taking the shortest and fastest route?).

Of course there are great cab drivers out there, but generally speaking the taxi industry has become notorious for bad service all over the world.

As a customer, I can speak for myself and say that I’ve had many unfortunate experiences over the years - including being yelled at for taking a short ride; being charged for extra bags and later finding out this wasn’t a thing (I was really young and didn’t know better); drivers taking an excessive amount of time to give me the change hoping I will give up waiting and leave; being taken on longer than necessary routes; and one time a taxi driver even stopped to buy cigarettes in the middle of my ride (true story). Not to mention, cab drivers can sometimes make you feel unsafe, depending on which country you are.

With such bad service, it is no surprise that Uber has become widely popular. Founded in 2009, the company has been rapidly expanding, being currently available in 68 countries. The way it works is that consumers with smartphones submit a trip request, which is then routed to Uber drivers who use their own cars.

Uber is not only cheaper and offers a much better service than taxis; it is also much safer.

When your request is accepted by a driver, the app will display the driver’s name, photo, vehicle make, model, and plate number. Both passengers and drivers are rated after each trip on a scale from one to five - if Uber drivers get an average of less than 4.2, they are called in for a meeting with Uber management and could be cut out of the service.

If something bad happens during the ride, the local management gets an alert on their phone immediately - this ensures that drivers keep their cars clean, behave properly and don’t take longer than necessary routes.

Uber also offers a safe form of payment, since users can pay directly via their smartphones.

Even though everyone seems to enjoy the app, the legality of Uber has been challenged all over the world by governments and taxi companies alleging that its use of drivers who are not licensed to drive taxicabs is unsafe and illegal.

It doesn’t matter if it is Europe, North America or South America - Uber has faced some form of opposition. We’ve all seen images of cab drivers angrily protesting, and in some cases even being physically aggressive towards Uber drivers.

Protesting against Uber is unreasonable, and the same logic could not be applied to other industries. We didn’t see typewriter manufacturers protesting against the use of the computer, or the print media protesting against the Internet.

When faced with competition, industries adapt, change or improve their services. Therefore protesting against the competition is lazy at best.

The truth is that the taxi industry had this coming after years of delivering bad service.

Governments shouldn’t be able to decide which services people can or cannot use, or overly protect an industry that has done so little to improve the quality of their service over the years.