Taxi vs. Uber: Why I will never choose to take a cab again

So last night I was at a friend’s place in my hometown, and I’d had a few beers so I needed to find a ride home. As I usually would, I opened up the Uber app on my phone, with the intention of ordering one. However, I saw that fares were increased due to surge (increased demand), so my ride would be $17.80 instead of something closer to $11 or $12. I figured it would be cheaper to call a cab, so I found the number for a local taxi service and proceeded to wait about eight minutes for my call to be answered. Not a big deal, but it had been a while since I waited on hold to speak with anyone. Plus, it was late and my friend needed to go to bed so he could get up for work the next morning. Anyways, once the line was answered I asked for a taxi to my friend’s address, and they said it would be about fifteen minutes.

FIFTEEN MINUTES?!

Wow. Okay. Sure. Not that I should be complaining — it’s a privilege to be able to afford taxis, but I almost never have to wait that long for an Uber.

I start waiting for my cab, and after about four minutes it shows up. So their fifteen minute prediction is off by a decent chunk. I get in the cab, and the driver is a friendly, older lady. I explain to her that usually I would call an Uber, but that there was surge pricing this evening. She tries to act polite but is clearly annoyed that I (and my entire generation, she notes,) prefer Uber. I tell her that it’s really easy to order an Uber from my phone, and that’s just a behaviour everyone has adopted. She tells me that first of all, she’s sorry that the timing was off, their IT systems are having problems, and that there are three reasons why I should be taking cabs over Ubers. I ask what they are.

1. Insurance — Uber only has $1 million worth of insurance for each vehicle, and her company has $5 million
2. Legal stuff — apparently her boyfriend was given an Uber license without having had a real driver’s license for fifteen years, and Ubers are therefore sketchy (why she wanted to get her boyfriend an Uber license, knowing that he didn’t have a driver’s license, I’m not sure)
3. Ubers don’t have to pay a license fee, they’re really not legit, the city calls it entrepreneurship but it’s crap and Ubers steal valuables when you leave them in the Uber

Okay, I didn’t say any of this to her but let me address each of these points.

First off, yes, if I were to get in an accident and got hurt, I would want my treatment to be paid for — who wouldn’t? That being said, I don’t really care, and I think I speak for a majority of the population when I say this (though I could be wrong — you decide how you feel and start taking cabs if you truly do care). I have never been in an accident while in an Uber or a taxi. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but when weighing the potential of getting hurt and not being covered fully against the convenience of taking an Uber, I’m going to take an Uber.

Second, okay, sure, maybe Uber makes it really easy to drive without a license (I’ve never applied to be an Uber driver, so I don’t know about the application process). But when I think about it in my head, surely they ask you to provide a copy of their driver’s license. What my cab driver said to me was that her boyfriend was able to get a temporary Uber license, meaning that part of his application still needed to be approved. I doubt he would have gotten full approval to drive without a real driver’s license. But again, maybe I’m wrong.

Finally, if there is high demand for something (Uber), usually you give it to people. I think my hometown allows Uber to operate there because it creates jobs and provides citizens with a great transportation alternative. Uber allows people to make money off of an asset (their vehicle) that doesn’t get used for most of the day. There are no advertisements on my Instagram feed asking me if I qualify to drive a taxi, but there are ads asking if I qualify for Uber and inviting me to learn more. And as for getting items stolen, I would say that yes, sometimes things you leave in an Uber do get stolen, but more often than not you can report the lost item through the app and it gets returned to you. Even if I did lose something and didn’t get it back, I’d probably still take the Uber knowing that I’d have a different driver and high quality service.

One could say that any of my counterarguments here are weak, but truthfully my reason for using Uber comes down to the fact that I have adopted using Uber as a habit because I genuinely like it better than taking taxis. What’s more, the reasons listed above literally never cross my mind unless someone like my taxi driver tells me them, and I still really don’t care.

Now, back to my ride. I explain to my driver that I hear what she’s saying, but that I have another question. I explain that I work in artificial intelligence, and that when a self-driving car gets in an accident and is at fault, it learns from its mistake and teaches all of the other self-driving cars it’s connected to how not to make that mistake. This means that self-driving cars will win in the long run because they will be definitively safer than cars with humans at the wheel (not to mention that self-driving cars don’t could also be cheaper for consumers because the driver doesn’t need to be paid). She tells me that’s very interesting, but that she doesn’t see self-driving cars happening for five to ten years. Then she changes her mind and says, “Actually I think it’ll be about fifty years before that happens. And I’ll be gone by then”.

Okay. Wait, seriously? I take a moment to remind myself that I am in a privileged position here because I’m able to study this stuff and she’s just trying to make a living. I also remind myself that a lot of people are blissfully ignorant about new developments in technology or simply don’t care or have the time / know-how to learn about them. I decide not to say anything to her about this and move on to some other topic. But let’s take a minute here to note that, yes, there are Ubers that drive themselves. They already exist, and operate in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A company acquired by Google’s parent (Alphabet) has self-driving cars on multiple Google campuses that drive people around every day. They are working to bring this technology to the public. Teslas are semi-autonomous and I’m fully certain that they will soon be completely autonomous. You can already summon your Tesla to you from a parking lot. And finally, semi-trucks that drive themselves are being developed and yes, have already successfully completed long-range trips of several hundred miles. And my driver is sitting here telling me that it’s going to take fifty years before this goes mainstream.

Jeez. I’m not trying to be rude, but this lady is really in the dark here, isn’t she? And I suppose a lot of people must also be. Anyways, self driving is the future. If it isn’t already, it’s going to be far safer. And once self-driving cars are coordinated on a network, they’ll be able to drive two feet apart at way faster speeds, because there’s no human error and every vehicle is coordinated. The efficiency of roadways will increase drastically.

Once again, back to my ride. We get to my house, and I look at the meter. $18. Wow. Okay. As I noted before, it would have cost me $17.80 for an Uber. Plus I feel obligated to pay the driver a tip, which isn’t the norm in an Uber — say about this what you will. I say thanks to my driver and get out, and start to walk inside, but the driver opens her window and says, “Wait, you forgot your stuff in the back”. I say thanks, grab my bag, and head inside.

So what’s to be taken from this?

Well, I think it’s important to remember that my driver is still a human being, and despite being annoyed she was pretty nice to me. She was defensive because she was talking about her occupation, something that is deeply important to her, and if taken away, would make her life harder. She’s willing to believe whatever it takes to protect her belief that her job will not be taken away before she retires. And I guess the other thing is that people don’t always see what’s coming, even if a privileged few can. I sometimes make the mistake of assuming other people should know things that I know simply because they seem second nature to me.

To conclude, I’ll highlight the major reasons why I believe in and use Uber:

1. It’s convenient to have one application in every city I travel to that gets me access to an on-demand car. If an app exists to access any cab the same way, nobody has made me care enough to start using it.
2. I can see exactly where my car is as it drives to me and plan accordingly, knowing exactly when it will arrive. I also have a fairly accurate idea of what the fare will cost me before I get in.
3. My driver doesn’t sit there and get frustrated about why they don’t like taxis, they often make a strong effort to have a genuine conversation with me, because they are incentivized to get a high review from me. This review system also helps Uber ensure that their drivers are trustworthy. Drivers literally get fired from Uber if their ranking goes below a certain threshold (3.8 maybe? A driver told me once.)
4. The cars are usually newer and in better condition than taxis. Even if the price of an Uber is higher than a cab (it usually hasn’t been for me), I can justify the price because of the better experience.
5. This doesn’t make Uber better, but I have become trained to open the Uber app and order a car when I need to get a ride somewhere. It’s similar to how we have the habit of opening Facebook when we are bored. So unless cab companies come up with something that’s more habit-forming, whenever I have the option, I’m sticking with Uber.

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