[speedmiester]

Uber limits it's liability in India.

According to the new terms rolled out in India in the past week, UBER has limited it's liability to Rs.37500/ride. It also informs it's customers to acknowledge that their drivers "may not be professionally licensed"

Uber-seeks-to-limit-its-liability

This seriously undermines the safety and security aspect that UBER was all about when they started their operations in India. What happened to the stringent norms that were to be in place after the unfortunate incident happened in Delhi.

It's not just UBER, other cab service providers have similar terms.

What are the authorities doing in all this?

[hybridpetrol]

We have "Smoking causes cancer" added on top of every cigarette packet sold, just for name sake. Now, the cab aggregators wash their hands off, by saying "Please acknowledge the fact that our third party cab drivers may not have license, maniac rash drivers or even psychotic killers. It is your life, and your responsibility to take good care of it". By adding such lines in their terms & conditions, our laws free them from any kind of responsibility.
After all, Ola, Uber, etc are just software companies, developing some kind of fancy mobile application for Android & Apple.

[Shadowspy]

The government needs to create new legislation for these new age technology companies. Currently most of the laws are in the grey with regard to technology. Apart from these taxi companies there are also a number of startups in the financial services space. Add to that you are using a wallet for each of these cab trips. Who is responsible in case someone hacks your account and removes the cash from your paytm or ola wallet?

[phamilyman]

Here's a beautiful article by the ever awesome Mr ajit ranade (with quotes from Mr Mahindra) on how Uber and Ola have changed the dynamics of vehicle aspirations from ownership to access.
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/columns/...w/48928633.cms

Many work-from-home folks like my wife don't need a personal car+driver unlike say in 2007 because she manages her trips locally and anywhere in India just fine with these companies. If not for these companies, we'd have either a Nano XTA in the house, or would have upgraded my car and given the Swift to her with a driver (Damn!!!).

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

What are the authorities doing in all this?

And what are the customers doing about it?
I can wager that even if every Uber cab user get informed about this piece of disclaimer by Uber, not many will care.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by alpha1

And what are the customers doing about it?

Almost status quo from user's point of view. Autos / Black-And-Yellow Taxi also do not carry insurance most of the time (unless it is time to visit RTO for meter updates).

[S2!!!]

Some steps taken by Ola to up the privacy of its customers. All calls will be recorded and the company will monitor the conversations too. Driver's will not incur any call cost as all call will be routed via this device.

Taxi aggregator Ola said that it introduced number masking on its platform, which will enable mobile numbers of customers to remain undisclosed to drivers.

The aggregator integrated a cloud telephony solution, which sends an encrypted number to the driver whenever a customer books a cab.

Drivers calling from their Ola device will not be able to see the customer’s mobile number but will automatically be routed through the encrypted number, the company said in a release.

Source: The Hindu

[antz.bin]

Originally Posted by S2!!!

Some steps taken by Ola to up the privacy of its customers. All calls will be recorded and the company will monitor the conversations too. Driver's will not incur any call cost as all call will be routed via this device.



Source: The Hindu

This feature was always present. Ola always used their Exotel based back-end to route and record all calls. Never have I received a call from a mobile no. even though the person at the other end is the driver talking on his mobile phone. The call always comes from the Exotel based Landline no.

I haven't used Ola in the past 6 months but it was this way when I last used it in March 2015.

P.S.: I have worked on the Exotel platform at my earlier job so I can elaborate on how the entire thing works if required.

[dozer]

Originally Posted by hybridpetrol

We have "Smoking causes cancer" added on top of every cigarette packet sold, just for name sake. Now, the cab aggregators wash their hands off, by saying "Please acknowledge the fact that our third party cab drivers may not have license, maniac rash drivers or even psychotic killers. It is your life, and your responsibility to take good care of it". By adding such lines in their terms & conditions, our laws free them from any kind of responsibility.
After all, Ola, Uber, etc are just software companies, developing some kind of fancy mobile application for Android & Apple.

To be honest, I'm not worried about the lack of license liability. I don't think it'll even make a difference.
If a cab driver or anyone in India wants a license, they can get a license even if they know nothing about driving. Anyone can get a license; it's one of the easiest documents to get.
We have the problem of bad driving, and whether cabbies have licenses don't really matter considering they don't really have to know the rules to get the license.

[apachelongbow]

It's not licence issues. It's the issue of hiring drivers and not screening them to weed our drivers with criminal records. It's pretty simple. Why can't the aggregator be mandated to hire a driver only post a police NOC? And why can't his employment be based on renewal of the NOC every 6 months?

[sudev]

.....and the police will issue NOC based on?

Come on folks the industry is going through turmoil that is good for us. Do not think government control and licences will solve problems. They need to find and implement solutions that customers will be happy with.

Airlines routinely limit their liability....why can't cabs do?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by sudev

.....and the police will issue NOC based on?

Past accident history, bio-metrics and automated criminal database checks.

Originally Posted by sudev

Come on folks the industry is going through turmoil that is good for us. Do not think government control and licences will solve problems.

At least commercial driving license and insurance must be made mandatory for govt approvals. These checks should become automatic (For example: booking confirmation email/message itself should have details of license, insurance, past criminal record of driver, accident history etc).

Govt can manage and provide the framework that requires minimal human intervention and thus should work for both consumers as well as providers.

[VeyronSuperSprt]

Liability for any act done by any person / entity is determined in a court of law and not by that person / entity . Limiting ones liability before hand to Rs.37,500 wouldn't stand in any court of law as it is for the court to determine your liability. Not you.

One can't go about doing business all over India and think that you have the right to limit your liability even though you have stated as such in the midst of a long list of pre-conditions.

Given Uber's history, this appears to be advice given by an oversmart lawyer which would certainly be struck down as invalid in a court of law.

Much as confining the cause of action to a particular place in a contract isn't valid as the law governing cause of action would apply and not what you determine as the cause of action.

[JD1]

20K Uber drivers to protest in Bangalore today!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/49079037.cms

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/...cle7682928.ece

Interestingly both these stories have different versions of Uber response!

I am still able to see available cabs on the app so hopefully no impact to us.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by JD1

20K Uber drivers to protest in Bangalore today!
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/49079037.cms

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/...cle7682928.ece

Interestingly both these stories have different versions of Uber response!

I am still able to see available cabs on the app so hopefully no impact to us.

Deja Vu : http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/street...ml#post3788436

Oh boy, history does repeat itself and the human being never learn.