It’s a way too familiar story if you live pretty much anywhere. Your options for getting from A to B if you don’t feel like driving are limited to friends with cars, public transportation, or a handful of taxi companies who all charge very similar prices, take way too damn long to get to you, may or may not actually know where you are or where you’re going, and definitely don’t speak proper English. If you live in Ottawa, at least, you have the “advantage” of those same taxi companies working out of the same central office where the same half-awake souls may or may not properly take and pass along your request for a ride. And pretty much no one, without a significant amount of arm twisting, can or will tell you where the hell your ride is when it’s been an hour and a half after they told you 15 minutes. Uber takes all that headache and makes it run away.
My favourite Uber story to this day is still from the early days with the company. May and I were going out for an evening, just because–well, let’s be honest–we were due. Our first instinct was to call for a taxi. Uber was still new, and though we’d used them before we hadn’t entirely settled on them yet. So we called our cab, got the standard 5-15 minutes and it’ll be here. Awesome. Cool our heels for 15 minutes or so, we’ll be on our way. Out of curiosity, we popped up the Uber app. The app told us there was a driver sitting 4 minutes away from our house. Just for background, 4 minutes away could be just down the street for all we know–there’s a shopping mall that’d be maybe a 5 minute drive from our house if I feel like exaggerating.
Half an hour passes. No cab. We call to check. “Oh, it’ll be just another 5 minutes. He’s on the way.” Another 15 passes. Another phone call. Still on the way. In all, an hour and 15 minutes pass–no cab. That Uber driver’s still 4 minutes away. My next phone call to the taxi company is to cancel the ride. We went with Uber instead–both to where we were going, and back. And what I found was amazingly surprising.
Not only did the ride cost significantly less than a traditional taxi, but the app wasn’t kidding. When the thing says 4 minutes away, you’d best be putting your shoes on and grabbing your keys, because he’s out front in approximately 4 minutes. The driver knew exactly where he was going. There was proper freaking English. And the icing on the cake: I didn’t have to whip out my user manual for taxi drivers. We call that epic win in my book.
And this right here is exactly why I will stick to being a Uber convert for as long as it sticks around. If they don’t collapse, and if Ottawa doesn’t force them to implode, the local cab company is going to be hurting for my business–unless, of course, they can compete with Uber on at least price. However, since that’s not exactly happening…
One response to “Why I will be a #Uber convert for as long as they’ll let me.”
Interesting about the time difference. That might be why many Uber users keep their cabs waiting. They haven’t gotten used to the fact that the time on the app is real and not made up.