Yesterday I came to Las Vegas to attend the Taxicab Limousine & Paratransit Association (TLPA) annual trade show. I hadn’t been in several years but since this was the 100th anniversary, I was interested to see how things went.
I took a cab to get to the airport yesterday from my suburban Chicago home and ordered it through a suburban cab company’s app, as I’ve done in the past. The app is pretty intuitive and easy to navigate. As with previous experiences, when it was time to go and I looked out of my window the cab already there waiting for me.
The ride was uneventful. I’d ordered it for 4 a.m. so there was virtually no traffic. Since it was that early and I was still in a groggy funk I was uncharacteristically quiet during the ride, as opposed to chatting with the driver.
The driver was also quiet and courteously didn’t have the radio playing. On the headrest in front of me was a screen with a message, “Pay During Ride Tap Here Now.”
“Great,” I thought as I tapped it. On the next screen it gave me an option to tip 15%, 20%, 25% or Other. None of these options worked, apparently because no price had been populated, though I’d been given a quoted rate when I booked the trip.
So I waited until we got to the airport. When I tried to pay with my card through the terminal in the back, the driver told me it didn’t go through. He knew that because he heard single beep. If it went through we should have heard a double beep, he said. I tried it again and heard a double beep but the driver said it still didn’t go through. Tried it again with the same result.
The driver tried processing it manually. Didn’t work. He tried again and it finally went through.
I got to Vegas and took a cab from the airport to my hotel. It was fine.
Then I wanted to go to Men’s Warehouse to get my sport-coat pressed and buy a couple of shirts. It was less than two miles away. Took a cab. On the way the driver blew a red light and cursed at a driver who had the right of way yelling it was probably an Uber.
The cabbie sped up next to the other car, narrating it was someone with a handicapped logo in the window. She cursed the driver, trying to get his attention with hand gestures before speeding past the old man and cutting over in front of it to send him a message.
When I got to the Mens Wearhouse the meter read $13.39. Since I wanted to pay with a credit card it cost me an extra $3.00. Then there was an excise tax of $.49. So before tip the cost of the 1.8 mile ride was $16.88.
This is the kind of stuff that helped Uber decimate the taxicab industry. Here we are, years later and taxi frustrations still abound.
I took Uber on the way back. Cost was $7.92 before tip. Driver was pleasant. He popped the trunk and got out to help me with my suitcase, which the taxi driver didn’t do. I gave him a 5 star rating.
The worst part about this is that when I’ve brought up taxi problems to taxi folks, a common reaction is to become defensive and to rant about how bad Uber is. That reaction is not nearly as bad now as it has been in the past – the taxi industry has pretty much gone through the five phases and has accepted Uber is here to stay.
However, bring up the argument about why Uber service is better than taxi service and you’ll still hear denials and defensiveness.
Get it together, taxi industry. It’s not my fault I’m taking Uber. It’s yours.
I can’t believe I’m still saying this in 2018.
