Taxi driver sets himself on fire in protest of carpool service - Sensationalist Headlines

Taxi driver sets himself on fire in protest of Kakao carpool ser.. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/132997/daaf2cb6-e735-4cdc-8cb9-96c9cd9320e5/optimize.jpeg A Seoul taxi driver died after setting himself on fire in front of the National Assembly on Monday, apparently in protest of the planned launch of a ride-sharing service by a local information technology enterprise. The driver, identified only as 57-year-old with the surname Choi, sprinkled flammable materials on his body inside his car and committed self-immolation in front of the Assembly's entrance at around 2 p.m. Choi was rushed by police and firefighters to a nearby hospital but died at 2:49 p.m. According to his acquaintances and police, the driver burned himself to death to oppose Kakao Corp's plan to launch a commercial carpool service in South Korea.

the taxi industry needs to change but cities and governments should be wary of tearing up the protections that enable these professions to have a livelihood and hand over control of this industry to some tech startup who can pay people less.

I use lyft because it's convenient tbqh. I don't use taxi services because I straight up don't know how to get a taxi. Also every taxi I've ever been in was dirty. Lyft drivers keep their cars clean. If there was an app that let you hail a taxi from a number of unionized/regulated/licensed taxi services and you could shop by price/reviews (you might pay higher for a cleaner car, or less if you don't care, or even if you're fine sharing a ride with someone else), I totally would. I don't like how tech companies are eroding jobs which could pay a living wage away so that middle class people can do it for less than minimum wage because they've got nothing to do on a saturday

Drivers for Uber, Lyft and all other taxi apps are usually given the title entrepreneur, especially in marketing materials, yet they carry all the actual risk and responsibility in the relationship with none of the protections of an employee. They buy cars according to the app's regulations, their level of service is determined by the app, they're subject to a rating system they have no say in. Once you factor in fuel costs, maintenance, cost of the car they work pay is fuck all and god forbid if they get sick. It's basically exploitation and I personally will never use their services because of this.

What an idiot. Adapt or die, and in this case, he chose the latter.

"Adapt to a handful of huge tech companies using legal loopholes to pay people less than minimum wage by classifying them as 'Entrepreneurs'' Get real u bozo

with an attitude like that, you should join him

I understand all that yet the alternative is a very sketchy taxi service with most likely a rude driver with a dirty car that takes 30 minutes to even get to me, as opposed to a usually very friendly driver with a clean car whose location I can track and have an estimate of the travel cost (which is usually pretty cheap).

Obviously I can't speak for other countries (or even other cities honestly) but here taxi services are quite reliable and you can practically guarantee a good experience if you order from the right company.

See there's this thing called an oversaturated market where there are so many people in the business it drives the price of everything down for both the employers and consumers. The Taxi industry as a whole is a prime example of this oversaturation where in order to protect themselves in places like new york they set up a good old fashioned protectionist guild to keep wages high and competitors out to enforce a monopoly so that the market can't equalize. If we add time into the mix we get complacency and corruption which leads to dirty neglected fleets and high prices. Then we have the alternatives: Uber, lyft, and public transportation. While public transportation is great and I'd love to see more of it but cities often neglect it or keep it to the busier sides of town because everyone more or less already owns a car and from the cities point of view car sales taxes makes more than whatever pittance the public transportation rakes in. Uber and lift have been a long time coming in terms of reliable transportation at a decent cost and provide a better service in most cases. Now I understand these businesses will use any loophole in the book But I can't think of any business big or small that would stay in business long if they took the moral high ground.

the monopoly on taxis didn't start out as protection. It was a way to control the number of taxis in the city through the medalion each driver owned. where it all went wrong was when they deregulated and let companies purchase medallions in the early 70s, which suddenly turned it from just a license to operate to a commodity with taxi companies snatching them up for higher and higher prices. Then through good old buyoffs, they kept the political machines from doing anything about it. Then Uber comes a long and created an even more exploitative model

The best part is that foreigners can get their taxi license (livery license?? don't know the proper term for the UK) in their home country, and then drive in London without having to go through that. Or at least they could. I remember reading a lot of horrifically racist stuff about brown people stealing cab jobs a few years ago.

Friendly neighboring country question: Are the taxi services still doing well there in SG? My experiences with them were positive, at least two years ago. Grab is dominating the local scene currently after Uber was gone.

Doing Uber is what helped me pay my way through college while still being able to manage my time so that’s I could focus. It paid way more than any minimum wage job I could get, was low stress due to being able to set my own hours. We no longer have corrupt Taxi service monopoly shit going on, honestly I’m glad taxis are dead.

I would think a medallion system where its unique to each city would prevent that.

Darwin award.

Here you can be sexually harassed or assaulted, or be the victim of various methods of scamming riders (meter tampering, taking longer routes to keep the meter going, etc.). Taking an Uber or Cabify is the one way to ensure that you get proper service, and all the drivers I've ridden with have been very pleased with doing it as a job.