Taxi Driver Online

Paris taxi drivers block streets in Uber protest

French taxi drivers have taken to the streets of the capital to protest against UberPOP, which uses unlicenced drivers in private cars to undercut existing taxis

French taxi drivers on Monday brought chaos to roads ringing Paris in a “go slow” or “escargot protest” against the spread of Uber’s popular smartphone taxi service, which turns anyone into a minicab chauffeur.

UberPOP is different from their other, more expensive, services – such as Uber X, which requires that drivers have a permit. UberPOP uses non-professional drivers using their own cars to take on passengers at cut-price rates, and has 160,000 users in France, according to the company.

Drivers of existing Parisian taxis called the protest after a commercial court ruled on Friday that a new law making it harder for Uber drivers to operate could not be enforced until the government had published full details of the restrictions.

“This is a fight against Uber in general,” said Ibrahima Sylla, president of Taxis de France. “We’ve had enough and can’t take it anymore. To authorise UberPOP means driving 57,000 French taxi drivers off the road – that’s 57,000 families. It’s out of the question.”

Speaking to Le Parisien, one driver said: “We are up against unfair competition. We are dealing with people who pay virtually no charges, they don’t pay taxes. We don’t get any of these favours.”

With the protests hitting headlines on Monday morning, the French government assured the striking cabbies that a ban on UberPOP would be enforced in the New Year – despite last Friday’s court ruling.

“The law will come into force on January 1 and will punish with a two-year prison term and 300,000-euro fine anyone organising a system pairing up customers with people who are neither taxis nor VTCs, or Voitures de Tourisme avec Chauffeur (tourist car hire services),” said Pierre-Henry Brandet, spokesman for the interior ministry.

He added that the timing for the legislation had been “scrupulously respected” and that French courts had “already recognised the illegal nature of the UberPOP service by convicting this company for deception in October.”

San Francisco-based Uber is was founded in 2009 and says that today it represents $40 billion and operates in 250 cities in 50 countries.

However, it has become the target of a string of lawsuits around the world for unfair competition, sparking sometimes violent protests over drivers who require little more than a licence to operate.

New Delhi last week banned Uber from operating in the Indian capital after a passenger accused one of its drivers of rape.

Thailand, the Netherlands and Spain have ruled it illegal and Denmark and Norway have filed complaints against the company. Brussels also announced on Friday that it plans to file a complaint banning its service.

In January, however, French taxi drivers carried out a much bigger “go-slow” operation in Paris.

This time, the main taxi unions steered clear of the action, saying they did not want to “disturb people in the run-up to Christmas”.

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... otest.html

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Have Uber not realised their future lies with a licensed trade, be that taxis, PH or buses?

All the money they have you would assume there is a brain cell or two somewhere.

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IDFIMH