The annual blizzard is today. 1/4″ of snow brings the city to a halt. Yesterday, school was called off, and the airport was closed for today. Not a problem. If you want streets plowed, move back to New Jersey.
I was curious what uber will do – the first time I looked, surge pricing was in effect. Since uber has insurance coverage for on duty drivers, and the probability of accidents is very high, here is what you get.
The Governor declaring an “emergency” invokes penalties for price gouging. Currently, Uber is 1.9x the normal rate
One comment about uber and vehicles being used: for potential buyers of pre-owned vehicles, it should be mandatory that each VIN be reported to CarFax & Autocheck as fleet, taxi, or commercial usage. i.e. Uber should be required to submit the VINs of its ‘fleet’.
These are non-commercial vehicles being subjected to commercial wear-n-tear. e.g. a car which is normally driven 10-15,000 miles, is now abused 35,000+ miles per year.
Perhaps CarFax/AutoCheck should create a new ‘event’ category for Uber, Lyft, etc.
My suspicion is many of these cars are leased, and when the lease is up, the mileage overage is going to be a rude shock, with cars earning less than the cost of operations. You turn in the car after 2 years and the lessor is expecting the car to have 25-30,000 miles and it has 60,000, that’s a big problem.
I don’t think the cars will be abused nearly like those of a taxi. There is only one driver, and the driver owns the car. The car is not being driven 18 hours straight to pay daily rental on a medallion. The mileage itself is a warning the car may have been used heavily. It’s an open question whether they will do necessary maintenance like checking the oil, etc