[sunishsamuel]

Funnily enough, imagine you are offering a Uber ride to a female passenger, your girl friend/wife sees that. How would you handle it ?

On a serious note, if owner of the car is not aware of the rider details, its a good opportunity for a tech savvy thug. Today, all you need is an email ID and phone number to register with Uber. So what if some thug registers, books a car and if his day is good, gets a good victim ? I've sent an email to Uber customer support with these questions, let's see what they come back with.

[dark.knight]

Between Ola, Uber, autorickshaws & buses along with the tens of thousands of cars & lakhs of 2-wheelers we have an unholy mess on the roads of the city. My view is simple and perhaps terribly unpopular - ban Ola & Uber with immediate effect.. they drive terribly rash and break every rule in the book. Autos & buses are necessary evil - keep them, just no more cabs please.

As for the private transport - implement odd/even rule with immediate effect like Delhi, applicable to 2-wheelers as well. I take public transport to work for the most part of the week now and couldn't be happier. The roads of Bangalore are equipped to handle about 1/3rd of the current population, period. The only solution out of this is to reduce the number of vehicles drastically, its getting worse everyday and the best example is today > took an hour and a half to get from Langford Road to further down K'la hardly 6 km and that too in an auto. "App-based" cabs simply drive like devils when passengers have boarded, or drive at 1kmph to find an address, its about time people got off their rear ends and onto the roads to catch a ride themselves.

[binand]

Originally Posted by dark.knight

As for the private transport - implement odd/even rule with immediate effect like Delhi [...] The roads of Bangalore are equipped to handle about 1/3rd of the current population

You need to keep 2/3rd of the vehicles at home if the roads are equipped to handle only 1/3rd the current vehicle population. So you need a remainder-when-divided-by-three rule to decide which vehicles to let on the road on which day - simple odd-even will not help based on your logic.

And you need to stop new vehicles being sold or brought in to city from elsewhere. Otherwise it won't stay at 1/3 very long.

Originally Posted by dark.knight

I take public transport to work for the most part of the week now and couldn't be happier.

Be careful what you wish for. If you force 2/3rd of the commuters to take the currently available public transport, your daily bus ride wouldn't be all that happy anymore.

[Rajeevraj]

Originally Posted by hserus

If you accept even one paisa for that and are shown to have the uber rideshare option enabled, just pray that your insurance doesn't find out when you have an accident, and just pray that none of the ride sharers are injured in that accident.

A yellow board taxi has some very complex and expensive insurance to cover the vehicle, owner, driver and pax.

Your normal car insurance, zero depreciation and bought from the dealer, or an el cheapo online policy regardless, has a very clear exclusion clause - if you operate your vehicle for hire, you will not be able to claim insurance.

Agree, this is where the 'greyness' I mentioned in the previous post comes in. You do not accept any money during or at the end of the ride. Uber settles your share later (end of week or 2 weeks if I am not mistaken). So in my view that line between carpooling/sharing costs and picking up people as a hired car is pretty hazy.

BTW, if I take a cab-am I covered in case of an accident? The insurance is always on the car and at max the driver right? I tried reading through a commercial insurance policy document and that is what I would infer.

Also, it is not just Uber. I recently did a quick analysis on carpooling options (Thread Link) and there are a lot of providers who support this. In Blablacar-Which is an intercity pooling provider, the riders pay cash at the end of the ride.

Maybe any insurance expert here can clarify on how the insurance companies are seeing this trend.

Originally Posted by vinjosep

Good idea, until I came across the following detail:

"Uber’s product safety features will be on before, during and after the ride–such as the ability to see your driver’s details in advance, GPS tracking, share my journey and the HELP button in case of an emergency."

So the rider would have the details of the driver, though the driver will be ignorant of that of the rider(s). Either mask the details for both or be transparent both ways. Also in this case, security is equally a big question mark for the driver/ owner as well. In case of an accident the driver would be at the mercy of Uber to identify his passengers? not a situation to be in..

They recently updated this, it goes both ways now- The number is masked/rerouted so that the driver/rider do not see the actual number where the call is coming from.

A rider books the ride via the Pool option on the App. So he/she has to be a registered user. So there is no reason for Uber to not know the rider details. But yes, personally the driver is ferrying strangers, so an accident scenario can get messy.

Originally Posted by sunishsamuel

On a serious note, if owner of the car is not aware of the rider details, its a good opportunity for a tech savvy thug. Today, all you need is an email ID and phone number to register with Uber. So what if some thug registers, books a car and if his day is good, gets a good victim ? I've sent an email to Uber customer support with these questions, let's see what they come back with.

The owner will see the name and the rating given by fellow drivers. In Bhpian quickdraw's thread on his experience as a driver in Delhi, he mentions this. He accepted a rider after seeing a 4.9 rating. I assume you will need to do a minimum amount of rides to get the rating public.

I mentioned this to my wife and she had another spin to it. What happens if a thug signs up his private car as a driver and starts offering rides. I assume the level of background checks will be limited for a private driver.

Note: I think I am beginning to sound like Uber PR. Just to reiterate, I have nothing to do with Uber.

[chakri400]

Originally Posted by binand

You need to keep 2/3rd of the vehicles at home if the roads are equipped to handle only 1/3rd the current vehicle population. So you need a remainder-when-divided-by-three rule to decide which vehicles to let on the road on which day - simple odd-even will not help based on your logic.

I was having a similar conversation with my shuttle mates yesterday. We need color coding in bangalore to really decongest it - white cars only on Sunday to black cars only on Saturday

[IronH4WK]

another bus breakdown on BETL after the lay by on the right towards EC; almost at the same spot as yesterday. this time it's a company bus.

keep left.

[dark.knight]

Originally Posted by binand

You need to keep 2/3rd of the vehicles at home if the roads are equipped to handle only 1/3rd the current vehicle population.

True, the 1/3rd aspect is only optimal living conditions in the city which unfortunately can no longer be got back. However what I meant was any measure to decongest like keeping cabs off the streets or odd/even rule would help, even if its a 20-30% reduction in traffic. This city is growing at an alarming rate population wise while not having expanded in area like Mumbai/Delhi, logically someday the backlash of this can be expected

If you force 2/3rd of the commuters to take the currently available public transport, your daily bus ride wouldn't be all that happy anymore.

True, trying to plug traffic is like trying to plug a 3 holed leak from a barrel.. close one and intensity of flow increases in the other 2 and so on. Surely though, the solution is also not in watching this rampant destruction happen, something has to be done otherwise in 2020 there will be no room to move and long flowing jams will become a norm with no one complaining about it.

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

Maybe any insurance expert here can clarify on how the insurance companies are seeing this trend.

Doesn't matter whether one is accepting money during the ride, after the ride or after an year, if the insurer gets even a whiff that your car was being used for "Hire or reward", they will outright deny the claim.
A private car insurance policy is for personal use only. Also there is a chance, the passenger can claim damages in case of accident. There is no clear policy on how to tackle such eventualities by none of the car pool apps, rideshare providers.
Until such time a clear policy is formulated, I would stay away from such initiatives.

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

if the insurer gets even a whiff that your car was being used for "Hire or reward", they will outright deny the claim.

This actually happened, well, even under a false impression like this below!!


A case last year with my friend's Punto done 1L kms in under 3 years and met with an accident near Kolhapur driven by 4 of his friends in while he took the flight from Pune due to stringent schedules.

A well known Service Provider (mostly with Fiats), sent a lawyer to Bangalore from Mumbai to meet my friend to ask these questions:

1. How as a Teacher by profession, you have managed to drive to much in less than 3 years unless you are using your car for hiring. In reality, he drives a lot and has covered almost the entire country barring the North East

2. What is the proof that you may have not rented out your car to 4 of your friends who met with an accident (all safe) while you took a flight

Eventually, after showing this fella lots and lots of photos from his trip and few Travelogues written elsewhere, the provider only managed to agree to pay 50% of amount and it was a total loss to the owner too!

[hserus]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

BTW, if I take a cab-am I covered in case of an accident? The insurance is always on the car and at max the driver right? I tried reading through a commercial insurance policy document and that is what I would infer.

Hire or reward exclusion for personal motor insurance policies is a reality worldwide.

For commercial vehicle insurance the basic policy typically covers own and third party damage and separate riders are available for coverage of injury and liability claims for named driver and unnamed pax

Sample http://www.bharti-axagi.co.in/others...icle-insurance

[ashwin.terminat]

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/banga...w/50430281.cms

In this accident, I do not know whom to blame more; BBMP for weird design or rider for riding with no helmet and under possible alcohol influence.

[audioholic]

Early morning jam on ORR in front of Adobe. Slow moving traffic. Unsure of the reason
Edit : badly mangled cab. Stick to right most lane.

[suresh_gs]

Folks

My friend said there was collision between 2 bikes near the Helicopter division on Old airport Road. One of the bikers who fell down was run over by a bus killing him on the spot.

[hillsnrains]

Old Airport Traffic Alert:

There is mess everywhere on Old Airport Road (between Borewell bus stop/Yemalur junction to Kemp Fort in both directions). Those who are planning to take this road, be prepared for delay all along the above mentioned stretch. Reason might be the accident mentioned by suresh_gs.

My suggestion: Better avoid this road for Today.

[chandrda]

Originally Posted by audioholic

Early morning jam on ORR in front of Adobe. Slow moving traffic. Unsure of the reason
Edit : badly mangled cab. Stick to right most lane.

I was stuck in that Jam for 10 mins and then saw the Indica with its front smashed. Looks like the cab rear ended a truck. But I couldn't spot the truck or any other vehicle with its rear damaged.

Regards