It’s But a Coincidence That These Rules Break Our Competition

December 3rd, 2012

U.S. city taxi regulators are doing their best to work with Uber while protecting customers:

Taxi regulators from 15 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington and Chicago, were on the committee that drafted the guidelines on new rules. One rule would forbid luxury car services from using a GPS device as a meter for calculating fares based on time and distance, which is the method that Uber uses.

Another rule would forbid any driver from accepting an electronic hail through a smartphone while driving. And one says limousines may not accept a request for a ride that is made less than 30 minutes in advance, which would impede Uber’s primary business model of connecting luxury car drivers with passengers immediately.

And by “doing their best to work with Uber,” I mean doing their best to make inane rules that make it almost impossible for companies like Uber to do business. Because, customer safety.