Skip to main content

Tampa taxi on a hot afternoon and Uber white drivers

The early morning street business in Tampa is very slow. The locals that would have called us in the morning to go to the airport are not calling. I have every reason to believe they have gone to Uber. These ride-share companies have made it seem cool to do so. Somehow, riding in a taxi is not so cool. Because of that, I have to work into the hot afternoon to try and keep up. Something has to give.

They are not saving money by calling Uber. In fact, they may even be hit with a surge charge during peak hours which the morning rush is considered. They are not getting a safer ride. Our cabs are routinely checked out mechanical and the scheduled maintenance is performed. Is there any guarantee that the Uber car has been treated in such fashion? Has the background of the Uber driver been checked out? No. You say you can use a credit card with Uber. You can with me. Ive got a credit card machine in the back of the taxi and it will print you out a receipt. There is no perceived advantage you can state that we don't have. What about their app? What about it? we have an excellent app.


Our app allows you book your cab. Locate it with a real time map. You can track its progress as it moves toward your location. We will even text you when the cab is arriving and when it has arrived. It will tell you to go outside, your cab is here.

So why do you use Uber? There is only one reason. YOU CAN ORDER UP A WHITE DRIVER.

That, I guess, is their main advantage.

Comments

  1. I'm a 59 y.o. Tampa native and, to be honest, this area has the crappiest cab service in the country. I've used lyft a few times and it's always been better, faster to respond and cheaper.. They rarely use surge pricing and, when they do, it's limited to 200% of regular pricing. Prices are given in advance, so no surprises. And, unlike what Yellow cab did, no Uber or Lyft driver has declared bankruptcy to avoid paying for an injury they caused. Are United and Yellow cabbies required to carry $1M in liability? Uber and Lift drivers do, and it's PRIMARY insurance. No gruff drivers, no filthy, stinking, beat up junkers with 300,000 miles on them that are allowed on the road without inspections just because they're under 10 years old. And no 45 minute wait times. If surge pricing is too high for you, you can cancel the request and wait an hour or so for a cab. Face it, taxicabs will go the way of the buggy whip. What will you cry about when the driverless cars are approved? Adapt or die. Don't worry. There are still a lot of old people who don't use smartphones. But when they're gone, you're gone. I hope you're nearing retirement age. As for your contention about using uber to choose a white driver, that's pretty ironic considering the no-so-subtle racism in your entry about Glo bottle club.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Popular Posts Last 30 days

What happened to Tommy Duncan and Sticks of Fire blog?

The image below is a 2005 TBT article I still have about the Tampa blogger scene. The big boy was Tommy Duncan. He stopped blogging around 2008, and was never seen again. Here is what Creative Loafing said about that era: "The 40-something blogger founded the most-often-cited independent Tampa Bay news blog, Sticks of Fire, in Feb. 2004, and the site, without much financial assistance from advertising, is still going strong today with a stable of more than a dozen regular contributors. In 2005, Duncan was featured in a tbt* story about the young lions of the local Internet. Today, about half of them have fallen by the wayside or (in the case of famous sexy blogger Rachel Moran) moved to New Jersey. Duncan keeps on posting. The local digital scene has grown, but he's not sure it has improved in quality."

The city of Tampa

If JFK was visiting Tampa, he would see this on the side of a building on Florida ave. How cool would that be? Graffiti art can be good sometimes.

Angel The Rescued Kitten

I have a new and wonderful friend. Her name is Angel. George found her on his way home at 3 in the morning running around on the elevated span of highway 19 in Clearwater. He pulled over and pulled out of a storm drain. He took her home and knocked on my door. He has two cats and wanted me to keep her overnight until he could find a neighbor to take her. I fell in love with her. She is now my best friend and keeps me company for I live alone. It's not fair that so much cuteness can be crammed into such a little thing.

Sleeping with the enemy

I sort of stick out in this sea of pink I always seem to get on TV. This is Tim Fasano (in the yellow shirt with camera) sitting in the room full of Lyft and Uber drivers. Did you ever feel really alone? These rideshare people are operating an illegal business that is cutting into my livelyhood, and I wanted the Hillsborough County Commission to know it. The Lyft drivers are a bunch of punks and  kids who have never worked a day in their lives. They will get whats coming to them. How do you spell douchebags? You will see me in the video shown on the local news.

The Taxi Truman Show

I may have found the escape hatch Regulated Taxi driving is now dead. Uber has taken over. The current situation is no longer tenable for drivers who face an old model of cab leasing, and can no longer continue paying a Pre-Uber lease. Today was the tipping point. This time of year we should be very busy...EXTREMLY BUSY. We are not. It is dead as a doornail with drivers at the airport waiting up to 5 hours to a ride. It should be off the hook. It is for Uber. They pay no fee to the airport, yet they are allowed to operate. I made a good living for years. Transportation was regulated in Hillsborough County. This insured uniformity or rates, insurance, and accountability. But no more. The HCPTC has now allowed a gypsy cab company take over. Uber has not only taken some or part of our business - they have taken it all. This is because they are low balling the market in an attempt to establish a monopoly. They are well on their way to doing that with the compl...

Houston UBER DRIVER ARRESTED for rape

Duncan Burton served 14 years for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, according to court records and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. He was convicted by a jury in Houston and served time in Beaumont, Louisiana and Georgia before being released in 2012, according to the federal prison agency. Although sentenced originally to 18 years, he had earned nearly three years of good conduct time and had about two years of jail time. Burton, 57, was arrested Wednesday and charged with one count of sexual assault, a second-degree felony. If convicted, Burton faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. He remains in the Harris County Jail without bail. Uber spokeswoman Debbee Hancock said Monday that  Burton passed the company's background checks. She could not immediately be reached Tuesday to respond to the disclosure of Burton's drug conviction. Someone with a negotiated drug conviction on his or her record would not be eligible for a city-issued permit, ...

What Lyft and Uber will take from the Tampa taxi business

A lyft car at the Iconic sign on Florida ave downtown Tampa I have been a hack in Tampa Florida since 1995. Unlike the estimated 50% of Americans that hate their jobs, I have never had a day when I did not feel like going to work. Certainly, the last few years  have not been fun because the economy fell apart like a three dollar watch. However, economies are like tides and this one is on the rebound, at a snail's pace. I would like to thank Mr. Obama for that but that would not be fair. The economy is recovering despite any fiscal policy of his. That being said - there are challenges. My job is inherently difficult. We face strange and deranged people street level on a daily basis. Taxi companies in Tampa (which are regulated) must serve the general population. We have no choice. Short fares, drunk fares, people going to buy drugs (they don't tell you that) we must pick up. Don't get me wrong, there are business people, beautiful women, great trippers, and long haul...

Dana Young is a Liar or very confused about Uber

A very bad person with no honor or integrity I attended a meeting at the hockey arena downtown which was attended by all the Tampa Bay area state senators and representatives. In attendance was one Dana Young (R). When it was her time to speak, so told a story about a young women that was being raped. While the college student was being sexually assaulted, the student hit the Uber app on her phone and the police now knew the GPS coordinates of her location. What MS. Young did not disclose was that it happened on the UCLA campus and that it was an UBER DRIVER THAT WAS RAPING HER! "As students prepare to return to college, one thing female students cannot go without is caution. Assaults, especially sexual assaults, are a haunting part of daily life for so many students. Uber has made that nightmare even more of a reality . We tell our students that getting a driver when they’ve had too much to drink is the responsible course of action — it’...

Hillsborough County bans Uber today as taxi company

The HCPT and Hillsborough County public commission today affirmed Uber is an illegal taxi company and bared them from operating in the Tampa area. This is wonderful news to longtime drivers like me. An Uber attorney asked Hillsborough County to make new rules to fit the trendy ridesharing movement pioneered by his company and Lyft, but was told flatly on Wednesday that Uber is an illegal taxi service. The county's Public Transportation Commission unanimously affirmed that an appointed officer had enough evidence to fine Uber, based in San Francisco, for providing hiring and public taxi services without proper licensing. Uber attorney Drew Sorrell held to the company's argument that it isn't in transportation. As a technology company, it doesn't need to follow transportation regulations as they are written. "There's a perfectly good way to do this, and that is to write the rules so that they fit," said Sorrell, of the Lowndes Drosdick Doster Kantor...

What the future holds for taxi driving in Tampa

The transportation future of Tampa is not as uncertain as some think. The local government agencies seemed determined to allow illegal operations to undermine the taxi industry. Why should I give a shit? I got nothing to lose. On any given day I can just turn in the keys and walk away. You know what will happen? The sun will rise the next day and it will be beautiful in Tampa Bay. Other then time, I have nothing invested. In fact, I could even become an Uber or Lyft driver and clean up. Why not? The HCPTC does not seem able or willing to stop the unlicensed operations. So much for getting their marching orders from the taxi overlords. The taxi owners are the ones at risk. Why are they not using the courts to sue for cease and desist orders? I mean the drivers could employ Jimmy Hoffa like tactics and pull Uber drivers out of their cars and beat the shit out of them. I would really like to see that happen to those Lyft people who were at the county commissioner meeting. For the f...