New Yorkers Win Right to Stop Having to Wave Desperately for Cabs

There's a win this week for consumers of taxi services in New York City. A judge has ruled companies can move forward with creating mobile apps to allow people to hail a cab with a touch of a button.

The New York Post reports:

A plan allowing taxi riders to hail yellow cabs with their smartphones got a green light yesterday.

A Manhattan judge knocked down a lawsuit against the "e-hail" program, lifting a temporary hold placed on the plan last month.

Now the Taxi & Limousine Commission can review several apps that would flag down cabs with just the push of a button. Those that are approved could be used across the city.

An interesting twist on this case: Previous protection rackets have cast taxi companies as the bad guys, trying to block companies like Uber from entering their marketplace and creating incredibly expensive entry barriers to avoid new competition. In this case, though, livery companies (as in limos and other forms of paid transport) were trying to block the taxi companies from competing with them for customers, according to the Post.

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Comments

[Pro Libertate]

Whoa. How will cabbies be able to ignore the frantic waving of minorities, then?

[Episiarch]

Pretty much all smartphones now have cameras on both sides. The T&LC; can just make sure that only apps that take a picture of the person hailing the cab can be used.

It's not perfect, but it's a start.

[Pro Libertate]

You're right, of course. Discriminatory cabbing remains unaffected.

[HazelMeade]

Naturally customers that block the picture taking mechanism or don't provide a photo will be ignored.

[HazelMeade]

All the app has to do is allow an *option* of taking a photo of yourself really.
It could just grab your profile photo from facebook.

[AlmightyJB]

My profile pics would be a topless young lass then.

[HazelMeade]

Ultimately I think blacks just need to start tipping.

Cab drivers avoid people that don't tip well. Duh.

[Agammamon]

Its disgusting that now that the taxi commssion gets to *pick* the app the cabbies will use is seen as a win.

[Scott S.]

A tiny little win is still a win.

[Paul.]

Even in a sea of losses?

[HazelMeade]

It's a depressing signal that we are on the other side of the line where everything not explicitly permitted is assumed to be forbidden.

[My Dog Bites Better Than Yours]

How the app different from just calling the phone and saying 'pick me up at this address"?

[Hugh Akston]

Presumably the app alerts the cab driver in whatever language he actually speaks.

[Episiarch]

"Voice options: press one for Louis De Palma. Press two for Nardo. Press three for Rieger. Press for for Latka. Press five for English."

[Pro Libertate]

Wait, Louie sees my face? I dunno.

[MikeP]

New Yorkers Win Right to Stop Having to Wave Desperately for Cabs

Finally New Yorkers will be able to hail a cab without spilling their giant sodas!

[#HOLO YOLO]

If you don't want to wave desperately for cabs, then move to Somalia, libertard!

[Sevo]

"In this case, though, livery companies (as in limos and other forms of paid transport) were trying to block the taxi companies from competing with them for customers, according to the Post."

Rent seeking is quickly learned.

[#HOLO YOLO]

So there was a bit of discussion on OWH Jr. in the PM links. So this is in his Wikipedia entry (emphasis mine):

During his tenure on the Supreme Court, to which he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt, he supported efforts for economic regulation and advocated broad freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

What the fucking fuck?

[Hugh Akston]

Three generations of imbecilic Wikipedia editors is enough.

[Episiarch]

This is how you discuss OWH.

[Pro Libertate]

Holmes does have some good opinions.

[Irish]

FUCK OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES!

It needs to be said, every time his name is uttered. It needs to be repeated, like a magic spell, lest Holmes return and destroy us all.

[NFP]

On a slightly different New York note, I just signed up for ZipCar and found out that there's a separate 6% sales tax for car rentals on top of the regular 8% sales tax. That pretty much killed any shot of me using their service often. Pretty unbelievable that's a real "sales" tax when there's no transfer of ownership.

[PapayaSF]

When you rent a car in Canada, there's an additional "tire management fee" of several dollars per day.

[jesse.in.mb]

A lot of cities tax travel related things. It makes sense because their constituents don't have to pay it. I was in Salt Lake City recently and the tax on the rooms and on the car were outrageous.

[l0b0t]

We also have an 18.5% tax on parking spaces in lots and garages (in addition to our lovely 8.95% sales tax).

[HazelMeade]

It's depressing that something like this is even subject to approval.
It's a fucking phone app. We now have city commissions that have the power to decide whether you get to use a phone app.
This is the fucking level of retarded regulation we have. That the right to use a fucking phone app is subject to political review by a bunch of dickheads representing the established business interests before it's even introduced to the market.

[AlmightyJB]

Yeah, I was pretty amazed that such a thing wasn't already being utilized in NY.

[#HOLO YOLO]

That the right to use a fucking phone app

There's no right to use a phone app written in the constitution.

/Tulpa

[Incredulous]

Yeah, it's fucking insane. The only reason I wasn't a libertarian for many years was sheer ignorance of all the mind numbingly fascist shit that goes on in this supposedly free country.

Now almost every day I get to read reason and learn some new crazy bullshit about our fascist government.

I still remember learning about crazy fucked up liquor regulations in Michigan many years ago. I went into a very large store called Merchant of Vino and couldn't find any Schnapps. I asked why the fuck a store called Merchant of Vino didn't have any hard liquor. It's a huge Vino store, for fuck's sake. A clerk pointed to a small liquor store literally 99 yards away and then informed me that state law forbid two stores from selling hard liquor within 100 yards of each other. WTF?? What a fucking stupid fascist law. How could the state prevent somebody from selling a legal substance due to such a fucked up law. And why??? The store was able to sell every other type of alcohol - wine, beer, you name it. Of course, I was just starting to learn about all the fucked up fascist laws in this country. Later, I learned how governments extort huge amounts of money from anybody who wishes to sell liquor. And on and on.

[WomSom]

Sounds liek a plan to me dude.

http://www.GotzPrivacy.tk

[Alice Bowie]

So I once hailed a livery car in the Bronx (as I did thousands of times).

This time, two minutes later, we are pulled over by detectives of the TLC (Taxi Limo Commission).

They gave my driver a ticket for picking up someone from the street. I didn't even know that this was illegal in the Bronx.

I asked the cop, he said it was illegal. I asked what was I suppose to do. NO JOKE...He told me to "Hail another one, I can only give one ticket at a time."