Uber wins: State clears road for online-based livery service

The counter arguments and anger was based on that the law is suppose to be there to protect us and when the results seems to be harmful - such as stiffing competition in the name of our consumer protection, then I think it is understandable to be displeased.

The given justification for state involvement with regulation of taxis justify to protect us from cheating meters and ensure a minimum bar of service. Specifically, the meters needs state involvement because it is difficult for us individually to verify the integrity of meter boxes and thus we turn to a party to do the testing for us - in this case the state.

However, Uber seems to already carry a reputation of quality and transparency. We can already see the route on a map, we can verify the distance easily, we can see the name of the driver - basically able to validate their integrity without the state involvement.

But, you chimed in saying we need the state to regulate this and the state is justified its actions. I and seemingly the other posters disagree.

If you look back at your previous statements. You were more than advocating that the state needs to follow its laws. You were not only arguing from your posts that the "since the law exists, the state have no choice but to follow it even to companies that seem to be providing a net good." But you were repeatedly arguing that the state involvement is justified and reasonable. You question the reliability of GPS systems in an age we trust GPS all over the place. You compared it to higher stakes issues of medicine. You draw a parallel where other commentators pointed that that GPS has no equivalent to mice and fridges hidden from us to review. You were arguing more than just following the law, you were arguing the state is right. You are arguing that despite transparency and service (as noted above) that seems to nullify the need for state involvement we can check ourselves unlike taxi meters, we still need the state.

Adding that the results of state involvement with taxis still leaves us with an overly expensive system and crappy service with common citation that the medallion system being a root cause, it is hard to see the good can be created to justify state involvement.

Do you really believe the division of standards would have been so swift in finding NIST is in process so Uber is good to go if the governor didn't got involve to announce he will do something? Do you think it is ideal that the governor have to get involved to make things right?

That's what I ask you to reconsider here. Not the law should be ignored or not. Nobody is going into that territory. But is the state is right given the justification for state involvement is for our protection. However, as many argue in from many different directions, what wrong is there to protect us from?

------

Also I should point a different legal perspective. Now making a argument about the law itself. Getting from that reading in the past, we are talking about there there is "no regulation", not "regulation saying we not allow to use GPS" or "regulation that says we are only allowed to use meters." This is an area of legal debate here of the spirit versus the letter of the law. In this case, much anger can be found that the state is not following the spirit (as my writing above can be seen as argument to the spirit if the state is justified), but also the letter as only following the letter - where does it grant the power to call things to be illegal for areas of no regulation. My understanding is actions are legal until it is defined to be not legal - not the other way around. So even following the law itself, there's ground for people to be displeased.

Über is only obeying the law because the Commonwealth came to its senses and conveniently back tracked on its decision. In exactly what world are you living in that you don't understand that?

if Cambridge is stepping on State law here.

IANAL so all I can do is cite the info I found a few years ago when I was pondering doing something similar to what Uber is doing.

There is state law, but it mostly delegates authority to the cities and towns. See MGL 40, section 22.

Cambridge Municipal Code chapter 5.20 deals with taxi and livery service. It requires that pickups be "based on a contract prearranged significantly prior to the time of the pickup." Based on transcripts of past Cambridge License Commission hearings, they consider "significantly prior" to be several hours, not several minutes. When Uber customers create their accounts, I assume they agree to some sort of terms and conditions, and that could perhaps be considered a blanket prearranged contract for any future pickups, but again IANAL.

Perhaps one of the goals of this rule is to prevent people from hailing a livery car right off the street, having the driver wink, drive past them and go around the block a couple times, and then pick them up and claim it's prearranged.