Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb

Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by dilap on Wednesday May 13, 2015 @10:53PM (#9543208)

I don't think the specifics are comparable, tho. Even as a pedestrian or skater, I'd rather be sharing the road with an uber or a lyft. At least here in SF and in oregon, traditional taxis are reallllly bad.

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Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by debaserab2 on Thursday May 14, 2015 @01:57AM (#9543643)

Why would you rather share the road with an uber/lyft driver vs taxi as a pedestrian?

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Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by viraptor on Thursday May 14, 2015 @04:21AM (#9543974)

Not from the US, but in the UK I'd much rather see a system where I can give a real feedback about the ride. There's a lot of talk about how Uber is not responsible for drivers and is only matching parties to workaround the law. In practice it looks like this to me:

In a usual "city-approved" taxis you get crazy behaviour, parking in dangerous places, speeding, etc. Try complaining and you'll learn that drivers only rent the communication equipment - the company is not responsible for what they do.

In Uber, I got a dangerous driver only once (where "dangerous" meant tailgating, but nothing really bad). He got 3 stars and a comment. I got 2 emails following up on the situation and Uber's assurance that the driver has been talked to.

So yes, I'd much rather share the road with an Uber/Lyft driver, because I know the feedback actually works in that case. There's another case of what insurance they have of course... but that's another topic about actually using the service.

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Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by TeMPOraL on Thursday May 14, 2015 @08:45AM (#9544766)

> So yes, I'd much rather share the road with an Uber/Lyft driver, because I know the feedback actually works in that case.

Yeah, the feedback system seems to be a cool idea. In case of Uber though, keep in mind that the driver will get fired if their average rating drops to ~4.6 stars. That 3 you left there? Probably had a really big impact on him.

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Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by droidist2 on Thursday May 14, 2015 @10:55AM (#9545501)

Yeah it's kind of crazy how people expect to see 4.5+ star ratings on everything but then also often use 3 stars to mean average, like the people who leave 3 star reviews for apps that say "looks interesting, I'll check it out later."

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Re:Santa Monica council votes 7-0 to crack down on Airbnb by girvo on Thursday May 14, 2015 @03:51AM (#9543913)

Taxi drivers face fewer repercussions for shitty driving. Interestingly, as a function of Uber being illegal here, Uber drivers are super duper careful about what they're doing; if they have an accident, then the traffic authority isn't going to be very happy with them.

But, to be honest, a crappy driver is a crappy driver. Taxi drivers just seem to be worse in my personal experience.

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