Uber Drivers Protest Uber – John Han's Video

I didn't take in the Uber Drivers Uber Protest but John Han did and he was kind enough to let me pass along his two videos. The first runs around sixteen minutes and the second is an edited version of the first concentrating on insurance fraud.

Other insites in the video are the facts that: Uber has 16,000 vehicles in San Francisco alone, cuts in driver's incomes has caused some drivers to work as much as 100 hours a week thus endangering the public, Uber steals parts of their drivers tips, and Uber drivers are aware that they are not insured.

To see the videos, Click below.

Why are Uber drivers protesting Uber? Drivers reveal Uber's terrible ethics by John Han  

Video on Insurance Fraud by John Han

Good work, John. Thanks for letting me share.

Airport Commission Rubber Stamps Sidecar, Uber & Lyft SFO Okay

Commissioner Crayton actually wasn't asleep during most speeches at the Airport Commission today but she might as well have been. When we finished speaking she said that the Commission didn't have any choice but to okay the rulings of the CPUC and allow the TNC'S into the airport.

If so, why did they need to vote on the issue?

There were some excellent speeches by Mark Gruberg, Barry Korengold, Mary Mcguire, Jeffery Rosen, Tara Houseman and others whose names I've forgotten or never knew.

To summarize, these points were made:

• TNC vehicles are not going to be inspected by the SFO – and should be.
• TNC drivers are neither given DOJ background checks nor fingerprinted – and should be.
• TNC vehicles and drivers are not properly insured – and obviously (to anyone but a government official) should be.
• All this endangers the public.
• Why should taxis and limos have to meet higher standards?
• SFO might be held liable for lowering their standards to oblige the TNCs.
• Pollution and congestion will increase at SFO because of the TNCs.
• SFO will be putting customers at risk.
• Allowing double stands is creating unfair competition for taxi drivers.
• Letting TNC's enter the airport could spell the death knoll for the taxicab business.

Cab driver and video maker John Han pointed out that all the drivers who buy new cars to use as TNC's are committing insurance fraud; and, if taxicabs are put out of business, the fraud would be massive.

Another speaker said that this was just the start of a war of the rich on the worker and that workers in every other business will soon be facing similar assaults on their professionalism and incomes.

Yet another speaker dissed the Commission for calling this a three month test period – the only purpose of which was to push the legalization of TNCs through without public comment.

Several drivers raised the likelihood of a massive strike. 

All blowing in the wind.

John Han thought that the speeches were good because they would be part of an official record.

So it's back to the CPUC ... for justice?

Just in case you've forgotten, I'm closing with an updated partial list of TNC attacks.

• The scary and ridiculous - like the Uber driver who locked a woman in his car  so he could steal her phone and give himself a five star rating.
• The creepy – like the Lyft driver stalking his passenger.
• The frightening – weird harassment.
• An alleged assault on a pedestrian by a Lyft driver.
• An alleged homophobic verbal and physical assault by an Uber driver.
• An Uber driver charged with fondling a customer in Chicago.
• An Uber driver arrested for sexual assault in Washington D.C.
• An alleged kidnapping and rape by an Uber driver in L.A.
• Another Uber driver arrested for raping a teenager  in Washington D.C.
• The Hammer attack
• Monday's Battery

And no – there is no comparable list for cab drivers.

The Airport Commission voted unanimously to let the TNCs operate at SFO.

Director of the Airport John L. Martin said that he would have liked to have the vehicles inspected and the drivers vetted but couldn't get it done for some reason. He's hoping that the standards will improve in the future.

Commissioner Larry Mazzola thought that this was a good first step to solving the problem of the TNCs. He pointed out that they'd been operating illegally for two years. He didn't say it but the next sentence should have been ... "at least this way we're getting paid."

The logic of a Mexican mayor "legalizing" a drug cartel.

BTW –  SFO sets the rules for us. They can certainly set the rules for anybody else who wants to operate in their domain. What Commissioner Crayton was in essence saying was, "We're just as corrupt as the CPUC."

This youtube video was sent to me as a comment but I'm including it here because it's a good summary of what we've been hammering on for the last two years. It's very well made.

Four Things You Wish You Never Knew About Uber.

An interview with Tony Kelly Who is running for District 10 Supervisor

This is the first time I've endorsed anyone for a political office and I confess that my initial motivation for doing so was simply that Tony Kelly is not Malia Cohen.

That's current San Francisco District 10 Supervisor Malia Cohen who in the past tried to block fines against illegal cabs and wanted to punish taxicab drivers for not picking up enough in her Bayview district by voting against a meter increase.

More recently Cohen together with Supervisor Scott Weiner blocked an attempt to improve public safety by regulating Uber, Lyft and Sidecar. This would've included requiring full insurance like taxis carry and thorough background checks administered by the Department of Justice using fingerprints.

Supervisor Cohen also wanted to officially name Uber, Lyft and Sidecar part of the city's transportation system despite the fact that none of these companies even include most of her District 10 in their maps of San Francisco.

I met future Supervisor Kelly at Farley's Coffee in Potrero Hill where Kelly has lived since 1994. It was an appropriate choice. It's the kind of unique neighborhood place he favors over national chains because it keeps money in the local economy and is part of what makes San Francisco "the San Francisco that everybody in the world thinks we are."

Impressions of the San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance

Since I'm working with impressions instead of facts, I think it's best to start with photos. They tell most of the story. Nine out of the eleven member San Francisco Taxi Workers Alliance (SFTWA) board are in this shot. Another is included below sitting behind a National Taxi Workers Alliance (NTWA) organizer who is speaking in the following photo.

The final member of the board is Rua Graphis of the United Taxicab Workers (UTW). The SFTWA represents the merger of the UTW and the San Francisco Cab Driver's Association (SFCDA) with a bunch of guys I don't know and who haven't, except for an occasional protest, been part of the SFMTA's decision making process for the last five years. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I'm not enamored with many of the people who have been part of that process.

The person most responsible for bringing all these different groups together is the blond at the table, Beth Powder, who is a film maker and short time cab driver with clearly exceptional organizational skills.

Who is John Galt? Uber, Lyft, Sidecar & the Culture of Deception

One answer to the above question is that Uber CEO Travis Kalanick thinks he is. Why else would he have t-shirts printed with the Uber "U" asking, "Who is John Galt?"

Kalanick obviously identifies with the hero of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. For those unfamiliar with Rand's philosophy, she sets the innovative genius against a society rife with democrats, communists, unionists, socialists, corrupt politicians, seedy journalists, the overweight, sleazy lawyers, environmentalists and their various shills.

I confess that I was a big fan when I was 19. Naturally, I identified myself as a potential fellow genius but beyond that I was attracted by the integrity of Rand's characters: Galt, Howard Roark from The Fountainhead, and Rand's persona Dagny Taggart. The books were not only about greatness vs mediocrity but truth vs lies.

Three Cheers for the SFCDA & Keep Those Photos Coming

The photos the drivers have been sending to the San Francisco Cab Drivers Association (SFCDA) are being used by insurance companies to warn drivers that they are not insured if they are driving for Lyft, Uber or the rest.

The photos are also being used as evidence in a suit filed by the Taxi Paratransit Association of California (TPAC)  against the California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) violation of the California Environmental Protection Act (CEQA).

Barry Korengold says,

"This data base has been an invaluable tool in our efforts to demonstrate the number of these vehicles and the negative impact that they've had on the environment."

Unfortunately, many drivers have recently eased off in sending in the photos. I confess to being the worst. I mean, it's a pain in the ass to keep the camera always ready to shoot whenever these miscreants turn up ... and they turn up endlessly. Cab driving is exhausting anyway. But there are more and more "S.H.I.T.S."(Smartphone Hailable Illegal Taxi Services) out there. There are an estimated five or six thousand active "tncs" woking every weekend and we need to document that fact.

The photos also help environmentalists understand that rather than taking cars off the road they are actually creating congestion and greenhouse gases.

So please keep the photos coming. For those of you who are new at shooting evil, contact Trevor Johnson at trevor@sfcda.org to find out how to upload the photos properly.

The important thing is to capture both the license plate and the symbol in the same shot – be it the pink mustache, the Uber U, the Sidecar sock or whatever.

I think it's past time to give the SFCDA the credit that they deserve. In my 30 years in the cab business I've belonged to or dealt with several cab driver organizations and the SFDCA has been by far the most effective and the most persistent of them all. They've fought for the cab drivers at the SFMTA, at the CPUC and now at the State Legislature.

So I want to give special thanks to Barry Korengold, Trevor Johnson, Jeffery Rosen, Francoise Spiegleman, Jam Khajvandi, the late Tori Lansdown and the rest for all the work they've done over the years without getting paid for it.

Three cheers! If we're still in the game we owe it to you guys.

Uber's Phony Surcharges or the Trickery of Travis

Uber is now changing a $4.00 airport fee. This is interesting for a few reasons:

• It's illegal for them to drop at the airport.
• An airport fee is for picking up at the airport.
• Uber failed to inform the customer that there was going to be a surcharge.

Therefore, Travis as in travesty, when are you going to pony up?

Just as interesting is your $1.00 safety fee. Is this to protect the customers from your drivers?

• Like from the one in NYC?
• Or the one in Washington D.C?
• Or the one who needed the 5 star rating?
• Or ... I could go on

Are you going to take care of that stuff, Travis? Is that what that one dollar is for?

Apparently not, says Travis.

Let me emphasize that last paragraph,

"In the email, Kalanick blamed the media for thinking that Uber is 'somehow liable for these incidents that aren't even real in the first place.' Kalanick also stressed that Uber needs to 'make sure these writers don't come away thinking we are responsible even when these things do go bad.'"