Most insurance companies will not care if they had a job or not if it can be demonstrated that they were recently using the car for commercial purposes.

Definitely in Australia, if you had just finished an Uber job and run into the back of a Mercedes SL, even if you hadn't accepted another job your private insurance will legally be considered null and void as you were using the car for commercial purposes for that trip. The insurer of that SL will be permitted to come after you and Uber for the costs with no limitations.

I have no doubt insurers in other nations have similar regulations.

I wish we could get away from the "we need regulations, because what if *this* happened!" model of legislation.

Sigh,

Is that any worse than "we need regulation because this *has now* happened.

As much as you dont want to admit it, the scenario the GP used is not a "once in a million years" event. In fact its quite likely to happen even if we remove the "hopped up on stims". Hell, just a 4 hour shift without a break is enough to produce enough fatigue that it's the equivalent of driving with a BAC above 0.08%. Now consider an 8 or 12 hour shift.

It's a simple appeal to emotion

Your logical fallacies are stereotype threat and appeal to probability.

The problem is you're dead wrong with the appeal to probability.

A rational argument might analyze not only the possibility of this happening, but also its *likelyhood*.

A rational person will analyse it. The problem you have is that the numbers dont add up for you.

The risk of having an accident is not a fixed thing, it increases with the number of hours you spend on the road. In Uber's case it also increases with the number of drivers. Ordinary transport companies have mitigation procedures to reduce this loss ranging from additional training and increased insurance to punitive measures like employment suspension and termination and in many nations professional drivers are subject to higher punitive measures than private drivers (the penalty for a truck driver speeding is 3-5x that of an ordinary driver in Australia).

Uber is not doing anything to improve the safety of its drivers, so as more drivers spend more time on the road, the likelyhood of a fatal accident becomes ever more likely. Given that Uber drivers are not professional drivers, this increases the risk significantly.

So the risk of being injured or killed by an Uber driver is a real threat and has already surpassed the chance of being injured or killed by an ordinary private driver (which is greater than being injured or killed by a professional driver) by the simple fact that Uber drivers spend more time on the road, increasing fatigue. We'll ignore the extra pressure caused by time constraints, talking passengers and so forth for now, I dont really need those to make my point.

It's a simple case of "market liquidity"

Again you're wrong here. Uber is not competing on the same terms as ordinary taxi companies. They pay no tax, they dont pay for insurance, it is a false economy and the problem with false economies is that they always fail in the end. In Uber's case, we're just waiting for that one fatal crash in a country with decent liabilty laws. Taxi companies here are protected because they pay tax, license fees and insurance so this limits their liability, Uber receives no such protection so when that one fatal crash happens, insurance companies will be allowed off the leash to tear Uber to shreds. Uber being killed by regulation would be a far kinder death.

Because you like to drive.
Because you want to just pick up and drive somewhere.
Because you dont want to wait 15 minutes to take a 10 minute drive to the shop.
Because you live out in the suburbs or just outside of town.
Because you have kids and dont trust someone being paid less than minimum wage to drive safely.
Because you dislike the mafia-like organisation that illegal taxi operations inevitably become.

Those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Ubiquitous and cheap taxis decrease the number of cars on the road. Medallions limiting taxis increase cars, not the other way around.

Reality disagrees with that assertion. London for a long time has had minicabs (private cars for hire) as well as an excellent public transport systems, London is truly a city where you can live without a car and they've still had to introduce congestion taxes to reduce the number of cars because people want to own a car, there are significant benefits to owning a car that outweigh the cost of car ownership.

If you wish to speak of morals and ethics, I suggest you go and live where illegal taxi services have been operating for decades. There are good reasons for taxi regulation and they've been quite effective at preventing illegal taxi services becoming organised crime.

No problems, I start at $80 per hour plus fuel. I start charging from the moment I leave my house.

BTW, you'll be getting picked up in a 2001 Nissan Silvia S15 that has been modified for performance with comfort not being a factor. It gets about 12L/100KM.

In my car, you may not touch the stereo or the air-conditioner. If you have strong opinions on politics, religion or immigration you are well advised to keep them to yourself.

What, you dont want to pay me to drive you in my car under my conditions... Remember that I enjoy driving, if you dont want to pay to share in my joy that's your problem.

Modular? Yeah not so much. I run a company that makes wire harnesses for the auto industry.

I think he meant computer wise. Talking about electronics such as wiring harnesses and the like, yep you're completely right. Even for manufacturers that try to get as much commonality across models as they can (Kia, Huyundai, Ford, GM) there is still huge differences that cant be avoided.

However when it comes to microcontrollers like ECU's, ABS controllers and so forth, very few manufacturers make bespoke hardware, most ECU's are from well known manufacturers like Bosch. Software is another story however.

I'm glad I dont live where you live.

In most civilised countries a loan does not give the lender ownership rights, it only places an encumbrance on the vehicle. This is certainly the case in most countries based on Common (British) law. This means you have the right to sell the vehicle but if the vehicle is being used as security for a loan, the lender must be paid first. The only rights the lender has in a sale is to demand that the purchaser pay the lender the remainder of the loan first but this is only done when the debtor is believed or known to be untrustworthy (this is very rare in Australia).

Hey, if you like to define yourself by your car, that's cool. For myself, the car is a box that goes from place to place.

And by extension you've defined yourself by your car.

You aren't a driver, you're a steering wheel attendant who sits in a boring, drab, uninteresting box being bored. You seem to like this. However that isn't the worst thing, your lack of care about your car only highlights your lack of care about your driving, this means you wont be a safe and considerate driver.

Driving is something most people do a lot. Having an interest, or better yet, a passion in your car shows that you aren't a drab boring person and have something you actually care about.

The argument is, that instead of competing using better engineering (which is expensive) car manufacturers want to compete using cheap gimmicks like infotainment systems (which are cheap).

Keep telling yourself that, but it doesn't change the fact that it's wrong.

The sticking point that Apple had was that Google wanted Google branding on Google maps. Apple refused and released their woefully inferior Apple Maps. Apple maps was (and still is) so bad they had to break their own rules and approve a stand alone Google maps application.

Australia is in Europe?

I've seen a few throughout SE Asia too (Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines).

That being said, I abhor pod coffee and given the choice, I'd rather instant (or a cup of tea, even Liptons).

Having watched people get burned rice out of a rice cooker, they are definitely not "fire and forget". Let them run for too long without water (or not enough water) and then you'll have problems.

Personally I prefer to use the adsorption method (stovetop) as a small pot is easier and faster to clean than an average sized rice cooker, gives me more control over the process and it's not much effort especially when I'm already cooking.

The problem here is that on ./ there are a few people who have a hard on for going cashless despite the fact it will only increase costs (banks dont do things for free) and make every purchase you make traceable so whenever economic issues are mentioned they tout this as a magic solution to whatever economic problems are being mentioned. They're a lot like Libertarians in the way their solutions dont make sense. If Argentina went cashless, wouldn't everyone just start using US dollars given there's already a thriving black (more a darkish shade of grey) market for them?

There will never be a cashless society because cash is so useful, if the government tender becomes useless, people will adopt another form. We see this when a nations currency devalues to a point where it's useless, they simply adopt the currency of another nation. Even if every nation went cashless, we'd end up with a black market currency as an alternative.

Nope, its stupid.

Real men dont complain about things like this.

I fear more about the death of manliness from people who see feminist conspiracies in a harmless movie than from actual feminist conspiracies (mainly because feminist conspiracies, like most conspiracies only exist in the mind of a few nutcases). I haven't seen the new Mad Max yet, but I'm willing to bet this conspiracy is nothing more than a way to get screen time on a hot chick (because sex sells).

My biggest concern is that the actor who plays Max, Tom Hardy is English... then again, Mel Gibson isn't really Australian either.

The idea is that Chickens are not a wild animal, therefore not a real animal.

Yes, I facepalmed too when I first heard it.