Life Behind the Wheel

[vt]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

Lawyer Eric Turkewitz writing online for the New York Personal Injury Law Blog, Dec. 23:
I hadn’t given much thought to Google ’s self-drive cars until they unveiled a prototype yesterday. They call this vehicle “the first real build of our self-driving vehicle prototype.”
And it occurs to me that these drivable computers will result in both many lawsuits regarding them, and simultaneously eviscerate a significant portion of the personal injury bar.
First off, some of these cars will crash and people will get injured. And you can bet your last dollar that there will be lawsuits and some class actions regarding that, with many fingers pointed Google’s way. . . .
[But the] issue of lawsuits regarding the cars will, I think, be vastly overwhelmed by a huge reduction in collisions that result from the most common forms of human error. Each year about 30,000 people will die in the U.S. from car crashes, and about two million are injured, and that is after considering a significant drop in fatalities from safer cars and seat belts over the prior decades.
Aside from the role that alcohol plays in being a cause of collisions (not accidents), many are the result of a simple failure to stop in time that results in a rear-ending, or sideswipes from changing lanes without looking, or hitting the unseen pedestrian.
The last generation’s distractions of radio-tuning, cigarette lighting, and screaming back-seat kids has now been supplemented with email, texts, phone talk and GPS devices. . . .
With human error crashes reduced by software that automatically stops or slows the car, the number of broken bodies and cars will be reduced. The number of deaths will be reduced. Your insurance premiums will be (theoretically) reduced.
And that [means] the need for my services as a personal injury attorney will be reduced.

[GRG55]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

After due considerations, the conclusions are:

Effective employment of current technology

User friendly convenience

A distressed economy that provides enough 'independent contractors'

That absorb the bulk of the overhead

= functional Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, etc.

The "independent contractors" apparently have cleaner, nicer cars than the official hired help, despite their distressed economy stigma. That should tell us something about where this is headed, regardless of when the economy recovers.

My guess (and only a guess!) is convenience, cleanliness, prompter response, and so forth will ultimately command a premium fare over the status quo.

[don]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

My guess (and only a guess!) is convenience, cleanliness, prompter response, and so forth will ultimately command a premium fare over the status quo.

I think you're getting close to what will come down to the traditional corporate transportation and lodging business model versus Silicon Valley's. The rubber will meet the road for the latter when the 'offshore' overhead* is resolved.

* No vehicle fleet. no chain of lodgings, no insurance, self-regulated. These absent costs go a long way towards profitability. As they're chipped away will profitability remain?

[jk]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

all this will change after the inevitable collisions/slips and falls produce the inevitable lawsuits and the homeowner's and personal automobile insurers deny coverage for commercial use. the injured will then sue not only the "hosts" and drivers personally, and put them into personal bankruptcy, but also sue uber/lyft/air b'n'b for intermediating the service/rental that led to the injury. these last will be very interesting legal battles, and will occupy many expensive lawyers for years of litigation.

[santafe2]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

Maybe Uber is the Visicalc of our time?

Or maybe it's the Apple II of our time...or maybe the Apple Computer of our time. If they get this business right, this will be just the first iteration of a modern logistics company that will go to war with taxi companies first and with Amazon and many others later on. If they learn to move people efficiently and cheaply, they will learn to move stuff around cities just as efficiently. If you've already got drivers delivering people, it's not a big leap to begin delivering anything that fits in a vehicle. Google is an Uber investor, how does the self driving Google vehicle fit into Uber's plans to lower the cost of moving a person from one place to another in a city?

[santafe2]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

all this will change after the inevitable collisions/slips and falls produce the inevitable lawsuits and the homeowner's and personal automobile insurers deny coverage for commercial use. the injured will then sue not only the "hosts" and drivers personally, and put them into personal bankruptcy, but also sue uber/lyft/air b'n'b for intermediating the service/rental that led to the injury. these last will be very interesting legal battles, and will occupy many expensive lawyers for years of litigation.

Uber is becoming a finance company as well as a logistics company. They will be financing vehicles for their drivers at uber low rates as long as those drivers meet their commitments to the company during the finance period. Can Uber commercial insurance be far behind? Won't Uber drivers be required to get a commercial drivers license? All of this will evolve over time and some bad things will happen to some Uber drivers and passengers along the way but this change is too big to be stopped. You can track the ticker, TAXI, to see a reasonable proxy for the value of a NYC taxi medallion. It hasn't been a good year to invest in one.

[jk]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

Uber is becoming a finance company as well as a logistics company. They will be financing vehicles for their drivers at uber low rates as long as those drivers meet their commitments to the company during the finance period. Can Uber commercial insurance be far behind? Won't Uber drivers be required to get a commercial drivers license? All of this will evolve over time and some bad things will happen to some Uber drivers and passengers along the way but this change is too big to be stopped. You can track the ticker, TAXI, to see a reasonable proxy for the value of a NYC taxi medallion. It hasn't been a good year to invest in one.

what you say makes sense. they'll have to spend more money on background checks for drivers, but will earn money financing vehicles and selling their own commercial insurance policies. [alternately, after a few drivers are driven into bankruptcy, they will offer insurance built into an enlarged corporate cut of each fare.]

uber from the consumer side fits into a further evolved stratification narrative: huge money has private vehicles to meet them as they deplane from the corporate or fully private jet; big money has private chaffeurs; medium money has uber; medium-low money has public taxis or their private vehicles; little money take the bus or subway.

[don]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

this change is too big to be stopped

As the profit margin is squeezed would anyone be surprised if dynamic braking kicks in? Maybe the company store approach will mitigate the squeeze.

As real-world overhead is forced on Uber, will the proles be squeezed a little tighter? I've been told full-time employees are expected to "live Uber."

How long can the inefficiencies in corporate transportation and lodging support the returns, as they're being addressed, in part learning from and mimicking Uber and Airbnb? Chicago taxis are going to a Uber app. Ditto NY.

Schadenfreude. Often a short-lived pleasure . . . .

[don]

Re: Life Behind the Wheel

What’s Up Next in New York?

Airbnb and Rent Regulation Will Be Hot Topics

Airbnb Showdown

In New York it is illegal for anyone to rent out a room in an apartment in a multifamily building for less than 30 days if a tenant is not present. Yet almost weekly, someone writes to Ask Real Estate seeking advice on how to skirt the rules. What if I swap apartments? What if nothing is in writing?

A reckoning could come next year as the state and city attempt a crackdown on renegade hoteliers while the online company Airbnb lobbies for a change to the law. “You are going to see an increased push to regulate this,” said Samuel J. Himmelstein, a lawyer who represents tenants.

Condos and co-ops have been laying down the law, writing warning memos and fining wayward residents. For renters, breaking the rules could jeopardize a lease. Condos are tightening security, asking doormen to scrutinize visitors and requiring residents to sign authorization forms for guests. The practice has also raised insurance concerns.

“What happens if one of these Airbnb guests starts a fire?” asked Phyllis H. Weisberg, chairwoman of the Cooperative and Condominium Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association. “Who’s paying for that?”

Nevertheless, as New Yorkers grow accustomed to a sharing economy, buildings might ultimately have to embrace it.

“Airbnb is here to stay,” Mr. Gottsegen , the president of Halstead Management Company, said. “Instead of fighting it, we should wrap our arms around it and make it better.”

Resolution on the horizon?

Co-ops and Condos

From maintenance to flip taxes, condo and co-op owners often complain of boards bleeding them dry. Unfortunately, the cost of running a building will not get any cheaper anytime soon.

Over the next few years, large residential buildings will have to comply with Local Law 87, which requires them to audit energy usage and keep systems running at peak efficiency. Residential buildings are the city’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 37 percent of the total. “The one hot-button topic is energy. How do buildings become more energy efficient?” said Dan Wurtzel, the president of FirstService Residential New York, which manages more than 500 properties. “If a third of your operating budget is related to energy and you can now reduce that cost, you can take pressure off the need for a maintenance increase.”

Complying with the law may prove challenging, even if improvements ultimately reduce long-term costs. In addition, 2015 is the deadline for buildings to convert from No. 6 heating oil to No. 4 oil, which is less polluting.

“Who’s going to pay for that?” said Marc J. Luxemburg, the president of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums. “This has a real-world cost for many buildings.”

[don]

New Year's Eve Throwdown

New Year’s Eve is a night of parties, revelry and drinks. That makes it a prime business opportunity for taxicabs and app-based ride competitors such as Uber and Lyft.

In this increasingly competitive segment of the transportation industry, both startups and stalwarts are launching marketing blitzes leading up to a holiday when demand for rides can exceed the supply of drivers.

Uber and Lyft will charge passengers much higher rates than usual to attract more drivers to meet the heavy demand.

Cab companies, which have seen customers and drivers flee to the app-based ride companies, are girding for battle on New Year’s Eve with special promotions to underscore that their prices never rise. (In fact, they cannot because they are regulated.)

“There’s a massive PR war going on right now, and New Year’s Eve is a really important time,” said Jan Dawson, chief analyst of consulting firm Jackdaw Research. “That’s why cab companies are mounting their own PR offensive. It’s an opportunity to try to put a dent in Uber’s big night.”

Flywheel, which provides an app for users to summon taxicabs with their smartphones, will offer a flat $10 rate for all Flywheel-summoned cab rides within San Francisco from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 3 a.m. Thursday. The same price will apply in Seattle and Flywheel’s new markets of San Diego and Sacramento.

That promotion will cost Flywheel a pretty penny. The startup will pay cabbies double what the metered rates would have been — so in effect, they receive surge pricing, without passengers having to pay it. While Flywheel doesn’t have the massive war chest of Uber, which has raised about $3 billion, it has a respectable $30 million in venture backing, including a recent $12 million round.

“I’m happy (to spend) a lot of money because it will get a lot of people using taxis and Flywheel,” Mathur said, likening the struggling cabbies to “Return of the Jedi” underdogs. Almost 90 percent of San Francisco cabs now use Flywheel, he said.

“The taxi industry needs to rapidly retool and face the realities of the smartphone,” Mathur said.

San Francisco’s Luxor Cabs has an even better deal: Free rides (up to a $35 value) within San Francisco from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., sponsored by a personal-injury law firm. They are available for people leaving a bar or restaurant to go to a residence and must be summoned by calling Luxor’s dispatch at (415) 282-4141; not through street hails or apps.

“Transparent, predictable pricing is one of the things that distinguishes us from the new ride services, who charge pretty much whatever they want,” said Charles Rathbone, Luxor assistant manager.

Uber held a press briefing on Monday to explain its position that its surge pricing — which it calls dynamic pricing — isn’t a form of gouging. It instead solves the perennial problem of balancing supply and demand.

Lyft ordinarily caps its “Prime Time” maximum at three times normal rates; on New Year’s Eve, the limit will be five times normal, it said.

Uber e-mailed drivers and said “some” would make $70 or $80 an hour on the big night. But not all ride-service drivers agree that surge pricing benefits them.

“Passengers always ask me if I clean up when surge pricing comes in, but a lot of times I end up getting stuck in gridlock,” said Peter Ashlock, who drives for Uber and Lyft in San Francisco. “You don’t make any money while you’re sitting in traffic.”

In keeping with its warm-and-friendly image, Lyft’s promotion centers on the fact that co-founder and President John Zimmer will take to the wheel as a Lyft driver on New Year’s Eve, with his mother as co-pilot.

[don]

Cali's Commercial Gambit

In a potentially major threat to UberX, Lyft and Sidecar, the California Department of Motor Vehicles said drivers for the services must obtain commercial license plates.

“Any passenger vehicle used or maintained for the transportation of persons for hire, compensation or profit is a commercial vehicle,” the DMV wrote in an advisory dated Jan. 5. “Even occasional use of a vehicle in this manner requires the vehicle to be registered commercially.”

The ride-hailed companies, which are regulated by the state Public Utilities Commission, arrange paid rides via smartphone apps by “citizen drivers” who use their own cars. The PUC defines them as entities providing pre-arranged transportation via an online platform “to connect passengers with drivers using a personal vehicle.”

The companies and their trade groups vigorously denounced the DMV’s memo, which would erect huge roadblocks to their thousands of drivers. Commercial registration costs more than personal registration, entails an array of paperwork and in-person DMV appointment, and likely would necessitate carrying commercial insurance, which is much more expensive than personal auto insurance.

“Requiring Lyft drivers, including those who drive just a few hours a week, to get commercial plates would essentially treat peer-to-peer transportation the same as a taxi, undermining the thoughtful work done by the CPUC to craft new rules for ridesharing in California,” Lyft said in a statement.

The DMV said an increasing number of questions from dealers and customers prompted the memo, which clarified an existing state law that dates from 1935.

However, it’s not clear whether the DMV, the California Highway Patrol or local police will enforce the requirements — and the ride-hailing companies have a history of flouting regulations. Before California became the first state to legalize them in fall 2013, they operated in defiance of cease-and-desist orders from the state and some cities. Likewise, they have expanded into cities nationwide (and internationally in the case of Uber) even when existing laws bar their services.

Drivers for Uber and Lyft reportedly have said that the companies told them they would reimbuse drivers who received citations for violating laws against airport pickups, which require permits that the companies have only recently begun to obtain.

Although their citizen-driver models are just a couple of years old, Uber and Lyft have seen rapidfire adoption by riders and drivers. Uber, which is far bigger, has some 50,000 drivers in the state, according to a report it released on Thursday, with more than 20,000 in Los Angeles, 16,000 in San Francico and about 5,000 each in Orange County and San Diego. Lyft’s numbers aren’t available.

“The California Public Utilities Commission allows (ride-hailing) drivers to use personal vehicles with personal registration on the UberX platform,” Uber said in a statement, adding that Gov. Jerry Brown’s signing of a bill regarding insurance for the companies showed him affirming that drivers may use personal vehicles.

Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid

[dcarrigg]

Re: Cali's Commercial Gambit

The wheels of Justice turn slowly. But they do turn. All of these new app-middle-man services have three things in common:

1) They misclassify employees as independent contractors to avoid paying payroll taxes or providing minimum wages or obey any other labor law.

2) They are built to violate insurance policies (personal auto, personal homeowners, disability, workman's comp, unemployment and others) on purpose by making sure the host company never takes the financial responsibility for risk.

3) They prey on the young and encourage them to violate other private agreements such as their rental contract and their agreement with their parents about the cars they were given for college, etc. Weirdly, it's a way for the tech companies to capture money off speeding depreciation of middle class capital goods. It encourages them to use up wear on property more quickly and get a cut of that wear, and since they often don't own the property being worn down, they don't care.

[LorenS]

Re: Cali's Commercial Gambit

The wheels of Justice turn slowly. But they do turn. All of these new app-middle-man services have three things in common:

1) They misclassify employees as independent contractors to avoid paying payroll taxes or providing minimum wages or obey any other labor law.

2) They are built to violate insurance policies (personal auto, personal homeowners, disability, workman's comp, unemployment and others) on purpose by making sure the host company never takes the financial responsibility for risk.

3) They prey on the young and encourage them to violate other private agreements such as their rental contract and their agreement with their parents about the cars they were given for college, etc. Weirdly, it's a way for the tech companies to capture money off speeding depreciation of middle class capital goods. It encourages them to use up wear on property more quickly and get a cut of that wear, and since they often don't own the property being worn down, they don't care.

I agree. Just because it happens on a smart phone or "the cloud" doesn't make it new, novel or efficient or inevitable, for that matter. Some folks just can't say no to anything that has an "app".

I'm all for technology and innovation, but this bogus "sharing" is ridiculous. If your business plan violates the law it's not a viable plan.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Cali's Commercial Gambit

...They prey on the young and encourage them to violate other private agreements such as ..their agreement with their parents about the cars they were given for college, etc. Weirdly, it's a way for the tech companies to capture money off speeding depreciation of middle class capital goods. It encourages them to use up wear on property more quickly and get a cut of that wear, and since they often don't own the property being worn down, they don't care.

I was acutely aware of that when my son was in high school.
He took a job delivering pizza for Papa John's.

I hated to discourage work - kids need to develop a strong work ethic and learn the value of money by laboring to get it.
But I was painfully aware that he was liquidating the used car I bought him for the benefit of Papa John's International, Inc, whose annual report shows $635 million in gross sales in 2013.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Cali's Commercial Gambit

I was acutely aware of that when my son was in high school.
He took a job delivering pizza for Papa John's.

I hated to discourage work - kids need to develop a strong work ethic and learn the value of money by laboring to get it.
But I was painfully aware that he was liquidating the used car I bought him for the benefit of Papa John's International, Inc, whose annual report shows $635 million in gross sales in 2013.

And they pull the same trick. Odds are your son didn't have a commercial auto insurance policy. But if he had gotten into an accident at work and the insurance company found out, bang, they might not cover it. Or worse, they cover it and figure out later that he was using the car for commercial purposes, and, bang, you've committed insurance fraud.

The insurance companies are also getting wise to this fact with the big boys like Papa Johns and going after them too.