Subscribe via E-Mail

Get all of our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning! Just tell us your name and where to send it using the form below.

PS – We hate spam too. We don’t sell or share our list with anyone, and we never send commercial email.




luxe
Friday, January 29th, 2016  |  USD: Buy 531.29 / Sell 543.92
20 years

Costa Rica taxi drivers “declare war” on likely arrival of Uber service

Email this page

July 27th, 2015 (ICR News) Costa Rica’s taxi drivers have “declared war” against the likely arrival of popular driver-for-hire app, Uber, according to the National Taxi Drivers Forum spokesman, Gilberth Urena.

 

Urena told CRHoy.com that his organization has established alliances with other groups in opposition to the service in Colombia, Panama, and Mexico with the singular goal of keep the service out of Costa Rica.

 

The union has already expressed its concerns to Deputy Transport Minister, Sebastian Urbina, Urena said, adding that Costa Rica law prohibits such activity without legal permits.

 

The union’s alarm was raised when beginning in May ads seeking local administrative employees for the company – including a marketing director – began appearing in local newspapers.  Urena said the San Francisco-based company has already hired three local staffers.

 

Urena said his union and their allies represent some 4,000 taxi drivers.

 

Opposition to Uber has been strong in other parts of the world, including other Latin America countries where strikes and demonstrations have ensued.

 

Taxi drivers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil disrupted traffic Friday in protest, describing the service as “pirate transport” and “unfair competition.”

 

Some 1,500 drivers used their vehicles to block several roads in Brazil’s second-biggest city and left hundreds of people without taxi service.

 

San Francisco-based Uber responded to the protest by offering its customers two free rides – with a value of up to 50 reais (some $15) each – until 7:00 p.m.

 

“We know that today will be a difficult day for public transport, and to not leave Rio residents without any option today everyone will be able to use Uber free of charge in all parts of the city,” the company tweeted, using the hashtag #orionaopara (Rio doesn’t stop).

 

The online ride service, which has drawn the ire of taxi drivers in different parts of the world, said its “users have the right to choose the way in which they move about the city.”

 

In France, protests against the service turned violent last month, with protestors overturning vehicles and attacking other vehicles with metal bats.  U.S. musician Courtney Love tweeted that her car was caught in the violence as she took a car to the airport, claiming her car was ambushed by protesters and her driver “held hostage” for an hour.

 

EFE and VOA contributed to this report.

 

costa rica news

ATTENTION: If you are seeing this message,


Advertisement


Get our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning.

Click here to subscribe to our email list. We hate spam too and never send commercial email.

Like us on Facebook and receive our news in your timeline

  • duke ster

    With dangerous robbers out there-sometimes driving pirate taxi’s-I would stick with the local taxi services while living in Central America. The local taxis in different towns in CR for example have different colored hoods and are recognizable because of those markings. They are safe and very reasonable and cheaper than the large taxi companies. If you live in Nicaragua–just about EVERY taxi driver is a robber and will kidnap, knife and beat you–unless you get a taxi which is well known by you or someone you trust. Do NOT NOT NOT get into any other type of taxi in Nicaragua or you might not live to tell the story.I know this from actual experience but if you don’t believe me go to the popular travelers web site “Lonely Planet” and read about taxis in Managua. This is something I failed to do and I was kidnapped, stabbed, and beaten for hours while the group of thieves held me hostage while stopping at several bank machines to try to make withdrawals. The taxi driver stopped and his friends–the other thieves jumped in.. STAY AWAY FROM NICARAGUA ALTOGETHER !!! CR is safer but quickly adopting the robber antics of the more ruthless neighboring countries.

  • duke ster

    Uber works in USA because of ratings rewarded to the good drivers–in Central America–I don’t think the UBER system will work

  • Derryl Hermanutz

    So why don’t all the CR licensed cabbies sign up as Uber drivers, and charge normal cab fares for Uber-dispatched rides? They can keep doing their regular fares, and “add” the Uber-riders. Either that, or how can the government ‘catch’ unlicensed cabbies dispatched by Uber? Is it possible to ban Uber from CR? Or would there be trade retaliation from the US? Online monopolists are kind of like Walmart setting up shop in a town and driving all the local merchants out of business. With no jobs working for local merchants, people have no “incomes” to pay everyday low prices. So people use credit cards to shop at Walmart, until the nation suffers a household debt crisis. Lower prices look good to consumers in the short term. But it kills your commercial economy and employment in the medium term.

Popular Content