| rev:text
| - I don't really know why Uber, a hugely-successful $68 billion valuation company, really needs a Yelp review, but I got some time to kill so here's my opinion of it.
I was first introduced to Uber two years ago in San Francisco and absolutely fell in love. It is the most convenient service for tourists especially because you don't necessarily know where you are at all times and a cab might be hard to hail down - not to mention you might be in a sketchy neighbourhood. I've had so many bad experienced with cab drivers - from purposely taking longer routes, constantly talking on their Bluetooth headphone, never wanting to accept credit card, adding an illegal surcharge when there's a big crowd - that I just got fed up with them. When I saw the Uber app pop up in Toronto I immediately got on board and told all my friends to get it.
Initially Toronto only offered an Uber Taxi service which are basically Taxi drivers who use uber to get customers. It is about 10% more expensive to use than just hailing a cab but the MOST important aspect of Uber for me wasn't the price, it was that I could give feedback. If the cab driver took the long route, I could file a complaint through the app and it would often get responded to in less than 1 hour, with Uber always taking my side. I'll also never get paired with the driver again, so the system will filter out all the bad drivers away from me, and if the driver dips below a certain threshold, he will be banned from the system for being a lousy driver.
That kind of monitoring system doesn't happen among cab drivers. I filed a formal complaint against them once in the past and the city official called me to ask me if I wanted to go to court for it. That's a lot of work for me to file a complaint, I just want the taxi driver to not be an asshole, but I have to go through the long and arduous legal system for that? I'll just use Uber.
UberX came along which cheapened the prices of car service (only $35 from downtown core to airport by cab!!) but at the same time the system did get filled with terrible drivers trying to make quick bucks. Make sure you give bad ratings to bad drivers - do everyone a favour. Uber drivers should know their major routes. If they don't know Yonge St. or Bay St. that's a bad sign. They need to familiarize themselves with the major roads in Toronto before signing on to becoming a driver in the city. Yes they have a navigation system, but they also should know their basic roads in case the GPS doesn't function properly. File a complaint if the car is dirty, or if the car is old, or if the license plate on the app doesn't match the car - we need to work together as a team to weed out the bad drivers to make sure we are only left with the good ones.
Because UberX is fairly new to Toronto (~1-2 years), the system still needs time to filter bad drivers out. Give it some time and then you'll get your good-quality uber drivers that you typically will always get in San Francisco or New York, which have had Uber for a longer period of time. While I've had my fair share of poor UberX drivers, I've had way more bad encounters with cab drivers. I also know that bad drivers will eventually fall out of the Uber system but bad cab drivers will likely continue on with no repercussions. For these reasons, I fully support Uber and hope to continue to see them persevere and overcome their legal battles all over the world. With $68 billion dollars, I'm sure they can do it.
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