# Driving For Hire: Über, Lyft & Taxi Documentary



## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

the video is over an hour long, that said whether you're a driver or a rider it's a must watch.


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## Million Miler (May 2, 2015)

Sez it's private...


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Million Miler said:


> Sez it's private...


Bummer. It was pretty good.


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## Casuale Haberdasher (Dec 7, 2014)

Beur said:


> the video is over an hour long, that said whether you're a driver or a rider it's a must watch.


POST # 1 /Beur : After 3 minutes of
"This is Private" I'm
Wondering if this is a Randy Shears
"Uberman" Production? I'm near my
Data Limit. Could you provide Cliff's
Notes? Any YouTube can claim "must
watch" but an Hour's Worth? Of what?


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## toi (Sep 8, 2014)




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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Thanks for reposting a good link toi


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Casuale Haberdasher said:


> POST # 1 /Beur : After 3 minutes of
> "This is Private" I'm
> Wondering if this is a Randy Shears
> "Uberman" Production? I'm near my
> ...


It was actually very fair and balanced toward taxi, Lyft and uber drivers. Not so much in favor of uber or Lyft.


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## Million Miler (May 2, 2015)

The film maker John Han is a taxi driver….must have dug deep into his tip jar to afford to make that film. You don't think he may have had some financial help do you? Just an observation...


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Million Miler said:


> The film maker John Han is a taxi driver&#8230;.must have dug deep into his tip jar to afford to make that film. You don't think he may have had some financial help do you? Just an observation...


Oh I don't doubt he had some financial help. I was surprised he was nice toward the ride share drivers, but not the companies. I thought for a taxi driver he was fair and balanced.


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## Million Miler (May 2, 2015)

This whole deal is reminiscent of the battles that occurred after the trucking industry was deregulated after 1980. We had an outdated and inefficient system to deliver goods and it had to be changed if the country was to expand and modernize. The 'haves' (the old line regulated carriers and the Teamsters) fought every change. The single owner operators and small companies (have nots) just wanted to be able to compete in an open system.

Government got involved and went way further than most of us figured they would at the time… it's been a blessing for the economy but was a ***** for the old line companies and the Teamsters.


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## Tim In Cleveland (Jul 28, 2014)

In California, $50,000 of coverage is provided when the app is on but the driver is waiting to be matched. I sure haven't heard that before. They haven't extended that to Ohio that I know of.

Breeze rents cars to rideshare drivers. They make you pay a $250 membership fee PLUS $200 a week and $.15 per mile whenever you exceed 2500 miles. Even if you have passed your background check and are working for a rideshare company, they will do another one. That seems an invasion of privacy, and they make you pay for it. I don't think $900 a month is much of an alternative to burning up my own car. Leasing for Uber seems to suck no matter how you do it.


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## Million Miler (May 2, 2015)

Tim In Cleveland said:


> In California, $50,000 of coverage is provided when the app is on but the driver is waiting to be matched. I sure haven't heard that before. They haven't extended that to Ohio that I know of.
> 
> Breeze rents cars to rideshare drivers. They make you pay a $250 membership fee PLUS $200 a week and $.15 per mile whenever you exceed 2500 miles. Even if you have passed your background check and are working for a rideshare company, they will do another one. That seems an invasion of privacy, and they make you pay for it. I don't think $900 a month is much of an alternative to burning up my own car. Leasing for Uber seems to suck no matter how you do it.


Sounds like it&#8230;. I don't know how anyone could think that's a good deal. But the trucking companies lease late model trucks everyday with $700-900 weekly payments and pay $1.00 per mile or less to the lease operator&#8230; more bad mojo there.


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## Other Dude In The Car (Nov 2, 2014)

Beur said:


> the video is over an hour long, that said whether you're a driver or a rider it's a must watch.


Hi, thanks for posting my video here. My name's John Han and I made this video, and yes, I'm a cab driver in SF. I thought I was going to make a 30 minute video but it turned into 85 minutes. I read through people's comments here. There was no outside funding for this documentary. I filmed this entirely with a Canon 70D DSLR, an affordable lens, a cheap shotgun mic, a kind of expensive lavalier mic, and sometimes an old HDV camcorder. A friend of mine who is a former Uber Black driver but now drives taxicab used his Canon 60D DSLR and a Canon Powershot to shoot the still photos and did a good chunk of videos of UberX and Lyft shots. As we are photo and video enthusiasts, we already had the gear. As we are cab drivers, we just rented a cab and shot the scenes from the moving car perspective. This was a labor of love that spanned roughly 10 months to create. It was also co-produced with a former UberX/Lyft driver.

We didn't have to spend much money really as this was shot entirely in San Francisco where we live. It was a matter of time and effort. To give you a perspective of what little it cost us financially, the protests occurred outside of Uber's headquarters in SF which is a 10 minute walk from my apartment. The Chris Dolan law firm (attorney interviewed in the documentary who is representing Sophia Liu's family), ironically, is located across the street from Uber's headquarter. Again, a 10 minute walk from my apartment. The Uber and Lyft drivers were interviewed at a TNC hangout spot about a 5 minute drive from my home. Those drivers were all randomly selected. We went to the "Groove" hangout spot and started talking to the first TNC drivers we saw. There was no careful selecting or screening of interviewees or anything like that.

I used to use UberTaxi when it first came out here. But I got sick of how different the passengers behaved and how superficial it felt to me. I gave Uber back their phone long ago once they announced they'd be taking $10/week. I had a 4.8 rating. I'm happier with the local taxi app we have here called Flywheel. Passengers are way cool, and I have a 4.9 rating.

I don't know what business I have posting to a TNC forum but thanks for those of you who checked out my video.

Regards,

John Han


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## Beur (Apr 14, 2015)

Other Dude In The Car - John I enjoyed the documentary - thanks for taking the time to make it and share it with the public.


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## Million Miler (May 2, 2015)

Thanks for clearing up the details. I figured you were on someone else's dime, living la vida loca, impressing the girls and such.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Other Dude In The Car - Jon I thought he film was very well made and especially liked the background and history into the regulation of TNC. But to me the film really seemed to vilify the CAPUC, not that they do not deserve a little bit of it, but if I remember my history correct the PUC only stepped in to regulate when none of the cities were taking any actions (short of cease and desist letters) around the startups.

So when you went on about how they did not care about wheel chair accessible vehicles it was kind of hollow because the PUC has never cared about accessible vehicles. Because on a state level of transportation regulation it is not an issue. It is a local issue if a city wants accessible vehicles. And most require it with metro buses and taxis (city regulated services). But the PUC has nothing to do with those they have traditionally dealt with charter buses and limos and accessibility is not an issue because there is an entire industry called Para Transit that serves that market. Of course they could not help Uber and Lyft customers with this service because Uber and Lyft have cut their prices so low . If you think livery insurance is high you should see the rates for transporting people in wheelchairs!

Short of that I think it was a very informative and balanced piece.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

Tim In Cleveland said:


> In California, $50,000 of coverage is provided when the app is on but the driver is waiting to be matched. I sure haven't heard that before. They haven't extended that to Ohio that I know of.


Trust me Tim, even the people in California have not heard about it because none of the TNC's want to advertise it! They do not want drivers turning in claims for accidents while they had the app on with no passenger. As long as the never mention it drivers will keep going to their personal insurance and "not mentioning " what they were doing at the time of the accident. They were required by the PUC to have this coverage in November of 2014 and since then not one official announcement from any of the TNC's about this coverage existing for the drivers. I am wondering in July 2015 when AB2293 coverage starts will they even mention it then? I think not. There is no PR value in protecting the interests of the drivers.


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## Txchick (Nov 25, 2014)

Other Dude In The Car said:


> Hi, thanks for posting my video here. My name's John Han and I made this video, and yes, I'm a cab driver in SF. I thought I was going to make a 30 minute video but it turned into 85 minutes. I read through people's comments here. There was no outside funding for this documentary. I filmed this entirely with a Canon 70D DSLR, an affordable lens, a cheap shotgun mic, a kind of expensive lavalier mic, and sometimes an old HDV camcorder. A friend of mine who is a former Uber Black driver but now drives taxicab used his Canon 60D DSLR and a Canon Powershot to shoot the still photos and did a good chunk of videos of UberX and Lyft shots. As we are photo and video enthusiasts, we already had the gear. As we are cab drivers, we just rented a cab and shot the scenes from the moving car perspective. This was a labor of love that spanned roughly 10 months to create. It was also co-produced with a former UberX/Lyft driver.
> 
> We didn't have to spend much money really as this was shot entirely in San Francisco where we live. It was a matter of time and effort. To give you a perspective of what little it cost us financially, the protests occurred outside of Uber's headquarters in SF which is a 10 minute walk from my apartment. The Chris Dolan law firm (attorney interviewed in the documentary who is representing Sophia Liu's family), ironically, is located across the street from Uber's headquarter. Again, a 10 minute walk from my apartment. The Uber and Lyft drivers were interviewed at a TNC hangout spot about a 5 minute drive from my home. Those drivers were all randomly selected. We went to the "Groove" hangout spot and started talking to the first TNC drivers we saw. There was no careful selecting or screening of interviewees or anything like that.
> 
> ...


I enjoyed learning about the early years of cab driving. Thank you for your time & effort making this documentary.


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## Fuzzyelvis (Dec 7, 2014)

Other Dude In The Car said:


> Hi, thanks for posting my video here. My name's John Han and I made this video, and yes, I'm a cab driver in SF. I thought I was going to make a 30 minute video but it turned into 85 minutes. I read through people's comments here. There was no outside funding for this documentary. I filmed this entirely with a Canon 70D DSLR, an affordable lens, a cheap shotgun mic, a kind of expensive lavalier mic, and sometimes an old HDV camcorder. A friend of mine who is a former Uber Black driver but now drives taxicab used his Canon 60D DSLR and a Canon Powershot to shoot the still photos and did a good chunk of videos of UberX and Lyft shots. As we are photo and video enthusiasts, we already had the gear. As we are cab drivers, we just rented a cab and shot the scenes from the moving car perspective. This was a labor of love that spanned roughly 10 months to create. It was also co-produced with a former UberX/Lyft driver.
> 
> We didn't have to spend much money really as this was shot entirely in San Francisco where we live. It was a matter of time and effort. To give you a perspective of what little it cost us financially, the protests occurred outside of Uber's headquarters in SF which is a 10 minute walk from my apartment. The Chris Dolan law firm (attorney interviewed in the documentary who is representing Sophia Liu's family), ironically, is located across the street from Uber's headquarter. Again, a 10 minute walk from my apartment. The Uber and Lyft drivers were interviewed at a TNC hangout spot about a 5 minute drive from my home. Those drivers were all randomly selected. We went to the "Groove" hangout spot and started talking to the first TNC drivers we saw. There was no careful selecting or screening of interviewees or anything like that.
> 
> ...


I think I speak for most of us when I say you are welcome to post here anytime. We seem to have a lot of ex drivers and many cab drivers besides those who may double dip and of course those who are doing TNC exclusively. (And some, like myself who have other driving related jobs--in my case pizza delivery as well as Uber).


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## UberXking (Oct 14, 2014)

Couldn't the rideshare companies have a WAV platform and charge what or near the Taxi rate?
What do Taxi companies charge for handicap service with a van that has a lift?


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## Other Dude In The Car (Nov 2, 2014)

UberXking said:


> Couldn't the rideshare companies have a WAV platform and charge what or near the Taxi rate?
> What do Taxi companies charge for handicap service with a van that has a lift?


There's a few problems with TNCs being able to provide wheelchair service. 1) TNCs don't want to own any vehicles. TNCs have also been unsuccessful in finding people who have their own wheelchair accessible ramp vehicles and would want to use them as a TNC vehicle. So, TNCs have no wheelchair vehicles available. 2) The other option would be for TNCs to subsidize existing fleets that have wheelchair ramp vehicles, such as a taxi fleet or other paratransit vehicles like we have in SF. Both Lyft and some taxi fleets are open to this idea in general but nothing has been worked out.

That is the very core of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The ADA says that people with disabilities (i.e., in this case wheelchair passengers), are entitled to equal access to public services for the same price. You cannot charge everybody else one price, but then charge wheelchair customers a higher price for the same service. You also cannot make the service available to everyone except to wheelchair passengers. Both examples are discrimination and violates the ADA. One of the main defenses TNCs use against ADA law, is that they're not transportation firms... they're tech firms. If that were the case, they would not be subject to ADA law.

This was almost included in the documentary, in which I did street interviews asking random people if they thought Uber/Lyft were transportation companies or just an app. The overwhelming majority said transportation companies. I left this part out simply for time's sake... to make the film shorter.

Uber used to have a WAV platform in SF but charged a minimum of $25. This is price discrimination, since everyone else in SF can access Uber services in which an entire trip can cost a fraction of that price. With TNCs subsidizing taxis, for example, the complication may be that in SF, taxis charge exactly the same meter rate for wheelchair services as any other ride. Lyft, for example, would have to make a Lyft ride available for Lyft's price, and not a taxi price. So, if a taximeter was higher than Lyft's price for a given ride, Lyft would have to subsidize the difference so that taxi driver is still earning a taximeter rate and not a lower Lyft pay scale. Taxi companies would probably also demand that TNCs subsidize portions of the wheelchair operations and maintenance costs. Then there would be issues such as how long would it take for Lyft to compensate the taxi driver, and so on.

A third option, yet, would be to have TNCs own their own fleets for this specific purpose only, in order to accommodate these riders with special needs. As you saw in the film, Lyft said this was out of the question. And, the CPUC director said that wheelchair ridership would not be considered a priority, hinting strongly that the CPUC would not make Lyft or Uber own their own fleets.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

UberXking said:


> Couldn't the rideshare companies have a WAV platform and charge what or near the Taxi rate?
> What do Taxi companies charge for handicap service with a van that has a lift?


They charge the same as a standard Taxi. That's the hard part. Every Taxi company loses money on those vans but the cities requires them. The taxi companies agreed to run them of course because the city regulated the number of cabs on the street (cap) so the other 95% of the fleet could be profitable and make up for the 5% that was not. The main thing was service was available for all citizens. Well not all the time if it was a Friday or Saturday night then there was a general taxi shortage because of the regulations cap on taxis.

So now TNC's have eliminated the shortage problem as there are always way more cars than needed now. But as soon as the taxis go out of business transportation for the handicapped will go away or the cities will have to subsidies it somehow. Taxpayers never had to subsidies it before because the partnerships with he taxi services covered the cost to the cities residents.

In fact if cities want on demand non surging transportation for thier citizens they may just have to start subsidizing cabs in general.


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## UberXking (Oct 14, 2014)

Other Dude In The Car said:


> There's a few problems with TNCs being able to provide wheelchair service. 1) TNCs don't want to own any vehicles. TNCs have also been unsuccessful in finding people who have their own wheelchair accessible ramp vehicles and would want to use them as a TNC vehicle. So, TNCs have no wheelchair vehicles available. 2) The other option would be for TNCs to subsidize existing fleets that have wheelchair ramp vehicles, such as a taxi fleet or other paratransit vehicles like we have in SF. Both Lyft and some taxi fleets are open to this idea in general but nothing has been worked out.
> 
> That is the very core of the Americans With Disabilities Act. The ADA says that people with disabilities (i.e., in this case wheelchair passengers), are entitled to equal access to public services for the same price. You cannot charge everybody else one price, but then charge wheelchair customers a higher price for the same service. You also cannot make the service available to everyone except to wheelchair passengers. Both examples are discrimination and violates the ADA. One of the main defenses TNCs use against ADA law, is that they're not transportation firms... they're tech firms. If that were the case, they would not be subject to ADA law.
> 
> ...


/QUOTE]
I can't believe that a person confined to a motorized 300 lb.wheelchair has EVER been able to get reliable Taxi service in San Francisco. I imagine if I lived for example at 25th and Geary and wanted to have dinner at 6:00 on Valencia and called for a cab at 4:00 p.m. I'd be late for my reservation and after dinner very uncomfortable waiting for a cab on an extremely busy sidewalk. The whole event would probably take 6 hours and I'd doubt if I'd put myself and friends through it again. 
Assuming I'm wrong and the Taxi industry gives black car service to the handicapped because it's the right thing to do. Ab UberX vehicle can not accommodate a wheelchair I would argue that a properly equipped van would at the minimum be on the XL platform and for the communities best interest be on the SUV platform since Uber doesn't have tip on the app.


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## Walkersm (Apr 15, 2014)

UberXking said:


> UberX vehicle can not accommodate a wheelchair I would argue that a properly equipped van would at the minimum be on the XL platform and for the communities best interest be on the SUV platform since Uber doesn't have tip on the app.


See but what a city would say to that is if a single able bodied person can get a car for .90 cents a mile so should a single handicapped person. And the cab companies have been able to deliver on that promise in many large cities. Private companies that provide handicapped transportation cant even get close to taxi cab rates much less lower TNC rates.


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## UberXking (Oct 14, 2014)

from what customers in San Francisco tell me is that an abled body person can't get a cab west of Divisadero which is about half the city. My post above states how I feel the handicapped are treated based on what I now after being in this industry for a year.


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## Other Dude In The Car (Nov 2, 2014)

UberXking said:


> from what customers in San Francisco tell me is that an abled body person can't get a cab west of Divisadero which is about half the city. My post above states how I feel the handicapped are treated based on what I now after being in this industry for a year.


This is precisely the point. The wheelchair rider in the film said he sometimes must wait 2 hours for a ramp taxi to show up. He says he can't rely on taxis to show up in a reasonable time. But this is exactly what many able bodied riders say too, especially if they live in the outer districts like the wheelchair rider in the film. Uber/Lyft are offering a reliable alternative to the taxi service gap, but only to able bodied riders. Wheelchair riders are not being being given the same chance to take advantage of the same alternative ride-service to remedy the shortage of taxi service. This is discrimination under ADA law.


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## UberXking (Oct 14, 2014)

Other Dude In The Car said:


> This is precisely the point. The wheelchair rider in the film said he sometimes must wait 2 hours for a ramp taxi to show up. He says he can't rely on taxis to show up in a reasonable time. But this is exactly what many able bodied riders say too, especially if they live in the outer districts like the wheelchair rider in the film. Uber/Lyft are offering a reliable alternative to the taxi service gap, but only to able bodied riders. Wheelchair riders are not being being given the same chance to take advantage of the same alternative ride-service to remedy the shortage of taxi service. This is discrimination under ADA law.


So Uber and others need to provide the same crappie unreliable service within two hours to make it fair for the handicapped?


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## Other Dude In The Car (Nov 2, 2014)

UberXking said:


> So Uber and others need to provide the same crappie unreliable service within two hours to make it fair for the handicapped?


Well I guess here we go with the haters and sarcastic replies from people who can't, or won't put 2 + 2 together. The "crappie unreliable service" is being improved by app based hailing from services like Uber/Lyft. But only for able bodied people. People in wheelchairs are not able to equally benefit from the improvements in service being made possible by app based hailing. This is discrimination. Because a specific group of riders is being excluded from the more reliable services of Uber/Lyft.


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