The other night, I ran into an old buddy who has driven a limousine for years. As such, he experiences the undercarriage of Las Vegas transportation on a daily basis.
I asked him what he thought of Uber.
“I love it,” he said. Then he told me a story about using the ride-sharing program months ago during its all-too-brief run here.
My friend suffered from an allergic reaction that caused his throat slowly to contract. He was alone at home, several minutes from the nearest hospital. He hit his Uber app and hoped for the best.
“I had a driver at my place in three minutes,” he said. “I was at the emergency room at UMC inside 15 minutes.”
Of course, the more sensible move might have been to summon a paramedic. But the point is, the ride-sharing program worked as designed, picking up a potential passenger in need of a quick ride in short order.
The conversation was sparked by Uber’s latest effort to gain traction in Nevada. Two bills have been introduced in the state Legislature that would allow companies using smartphone applications to link passengers with ride services such as Uber.
Uber’s brief foray in Nevada, and especially in Las Vegas, was blunted by strong resistance from the state’s powerful Taxicab Authority and its hired guns, namely lobbyists Bob List and Richard Bryan, both former governors. (Bryan also is a former U.S. senator.)
But Uber is a global, multibillion-dollar operation, winning similar battles all over the country. The company doubtless is willing and equipped to slug it out to enter a transportation market as fertile as Las Vegas.
Still, questions abound about how Uber would police itself if it were allowed to conduct business full time in our city.
A friend, a former cabbie who signed up as an Uber driver last October, recently outlined such concerns. Uber does not endorse developing clientele, even during a single day or night. A driver might deliver a group of golfers to, say, Badlands Golf Club, and be asked if he or she can return in four hours to scoop up the group. Uber’s guidelines say no, passengers must launch the app and send a signal to the nearest driver, whomever it might be.
But in an example of how murky Uber’s rules are, a driver conceivably could drop off the group and return to the course parking lot at a prearranged time, when the passenger would hit the app — and guess who is closest to that ride?
There also are no gratuities built into the payment process for Uber; passengers pay a flat rate. But Vegas’ service industries are legendarily tip-generated. To expect a driver to turn down a tip because some disembodied overlord says it’s not part of company policy is remarkably naïve.
And how would Uber contend with a per-head payment to transport guests to the city’s many strip clubs? Cab drivers currently make $60 to $80 per passenger to ship customers to gentlemen’s clubs. Uber has no stipulation as to how to deal with that reality, and a driver would take such a payment outside company guidelines.
Regardless, Uber drivers receive 80 percent of any fare, with the rest delivered to the company. Cab drivers make 30 to 35 percent, plus they pay for gas. This is the overriding reason cabbies are reluctant, or simply will refuse, to take a long trip if there is not a ride wait at the destination.
What resonated in the recent conversations with those in the industry is the backlash from passengers against cab drivers. Complaints about long hauls, dingy cabs, drivers’ unwillingness to carry passengers to remote destinations and lengthy waits are commonplace.
My limo friend flatly told me he would never take another cab in a city that offers Uber.
“Think about it,” he said. “The only people who are against Uber are cab drivers and cab owners.”
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