Sick Opportunist Taxi Industry Lobbyists Use Death Of 6-Year-Old Girl To Attack Uber

from the disgusting dept

We've talked many times about how legacy industries will stop at nothing to attack disruptive upstarts and innovators. Rather than compete, they'll try to come up with the craziest stories of "harm" being done in order to try to restrict competition through regulation. As we've seen time and time again, while companies often claim to be "against regulation," what many legacy providers have realized is that once they understand the regulations, they can actually be used quite effectively to limit competition and keep out disruption (while also allowing those legacy player to artificially inflate prices). Nowhere is that more clear than with traditional taxi/limo companies and their out and out hatred for Uber, Lyft, Sidecar and other similar services.

The latest showed up in my email box a few weeks back, where Robert Werth, the head of the Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association went to incredibly depraved depths, trying to argue that the tragic story of a six-year-old girl, who was hit and killed by "an UberX driver" showed that Uber needs more regulations. Of course, the details show that the driver in question, Syed Muzaffar, wasn't even working for Uber at the time of the accident. Trying to push your political agenda on the back of a tragic accident involving a child is pretty sick. And, really, this doesn't seem like the sort of fight that Werth wants to get into, seeing as a story just popped up elsewhere talking about a NYC cab driver killing a 9-year-old boy.

Accidents happen not because Uber isn't regulated in the same manner as taxicabs, but because accidents happen. The fact that Werth and the taxi lobby immediately jumped on such a tragic accident as if it was an opportunity to bash a company that many riders have found to serve a real need -- a need that cabs often fail to provide -- is really just an incredibly low blow from an organization that clearly doesn't want to innovate, but would rather hold back and limit innovation. Even if it means twisting the tragic story of a 6-year-old girl to make their point.

Filed Under: lobbyists, robert werth, taxis
Companies: tlpa, uber