The established taxi cartels would like to make the public think that it is highly risky to engage the services of shared ride apps like Uber but is it really as bad as they say it is. Considering the appalling state the Australian Taxi industry is in with high fares, cabs that smell, foreign drivers that do not know where they are going and solo female travellers at risk of being assaulted by rouge cab drivers it really should not surprise the authorities that alternative services such as Uber are thriving.
The first time I used UberX was in Brisbane to get to the Airport from a nearby suburb. Once I requested the Uber ride I instantly got the estimated fare, time, a map of where the driver was with contact information and photo which was all provided on the Uber App. The car that arrived was a modern clean Honda Civic and the one thing that struck me about the driver was he was very personable with good communication skills. The driver told me he was a former taxi driver and that Uber in Brisbane is booming and as we passed by a holding bay for taxis near the airport he pointed out the broken taxi business model where hundreds of drivers have to wait for hours to pick up a fare from the airport.
The second time I used Uber was in Los Angeles where ride sharing apps are the norm. When you flick open the Uber app here you are not only greeted with the standard UberX service but their high end options such as Uber Black and Uber Lux along with other cheaper car pooling options that link you with other riders. Since I have never used Uber Black I decided to test it out for a 30 minute trip downtown. Again the car turned up within minutes and the colour of the Chevy SUV was black with leather seats and very clean. The driver was of a beefy African-American appearance dressed in a suit and while not as chatty as Australian Uber drivers delivered a smooth safe ride.
The third time I used Uber was back in Brisbane. The driver this time turned up in a modern clean Hyundai Excel and was a former police officer with good communication and driving skills. He was telling me the great thing about Uber was he can decide when to work and most of his clientele were women who dread having to use traditional taxis. He told me most of the people that use Uber were younger people with a few older people once they got their head around how the technology works. The great thing about Uber is there is no physical exchange of money so the drivers don’t have to worry about not being paid and as a rider you just jump out at the destination without having to fumble around with cash with your receipt emailed and final fare texted to you.
The bottom line is after you use Uber you will hate having to catch a traditional taxi and the general consensus amongst all the people I interacted with was ride sharing whether it be Uber or something else is here to stay. Governments may attempt to ban it but when you look at the big money behind ride sharing it is a fight they are going to lose with the dinosaur taxi industry facing extinction.
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