Driving for UBER on New Years Eve in the Shire

by | Jan 1, 2016 | 9 comments

UBER Logo

Want to drive for UBER? It’s easy to get started.

I’m one of New Hampshire’s newest UBER drivers, or “partners” as UBER refers to us. I’ve been a fan of UBER’s innovation and open challenging of the status quo of transportation for a long time, and we’ve covered their various conflicts with state and city regulators on my talk radio program, Free Talk Live.

More recently, UBER has been featured multiple times here on Free Keene in the context of the Portsmouth, NH showdown between Free UBER activists committing ongoing civil disobedience versus the city enforcers who are protecting an oligopoly. With Portsmouth police openly threatening New Years Eve charity rides – the city is now scraping the bottom of the barrel, and it will be a real feat for them to look more embarrassing and ridiculous than they do now, but they might figure out a way. Give ’em time. Maybe Portsmouth will file a stupid lawsuit like Keene did against the Robin Hooders and shoot the free publicity for the new Arcade City ride-sharing app to the moon.

UBER NH Territory 2015

The actual coverage extends north of Concord and as far west as Peteborough and Hillsborough.

On New Year’s Eve I logged in to the UBER partner app in the Concord area and was able to help a bunch of somewhat intoxicated, very nice people get home safely! Plus, we had some very interesting conversations. I’ve only given six rides for UBER thus far, but my clients have all been under forty years old. I asked some tonight what made them use UBER in Concord, given that it’s not even officially operating there (click to see UBER’s currently inaccurate coverage map), and their responses were that they knew it worked in other big cities and wanted to try it rather than deal with the apparently awful cabs. There were plenty of unprompted complaints about terrible cab experiences my passengers have had in New Hampshire.

For one passenger tonight, it was his first time taking an UBER. He said it was the best possible UBER first time experience – wow, what a compliment! The guy tipped me, too (not required with UBER, but still appreciated!) During our conversation we were talking about the crackdown in Portsmouth on Free UBER (which he’d not heard about), and he was totally onboard with freedom, at least in the area of transportation. He even commented about how competition makes everything better. (more…)

Stranded Woman Stunned Portsmouth Police Laughed At Her Request For Ride

by | Jan 1, 2016 | 13 comments

That’s the headline of today’s Union-Leader article about the Arcade City / Free Uber effort last night to provide free rides in Portsmouth to whomever needed one.

No commentary needed. The article speaks for itself.

PORTSMOUTH – A stranded Massachusetts woman said police in Portsmouth laughed and drove away on New Year’s Eve when she asked them for a ride back to her hotel.

 

Alicia Sargent, of Somerville, Mass., told “Free Uber” founder Christopher David about the alleged incident in a recorded interview. David stopped and asked Sargent and her partner if they needed a lift when he saw them on the side of the road leaving Portsmouth’s downtown early Friday morning. They were approximately a mile away from their hotel.

 

“I came to Portsmouth to have New Year’s Eve, and I was looking up online to see kind of the safe ways to to get around town and one of those safe ways was the police patrol said that they were out, and they were helping people get around town, and unfortunately when we went, and we saw a police officer, and we asked them for a ride home, literally, they looked at us and they laughed and then they said, ‘Good luck with that,’ gave us a thumbs up and kept driving,” Sargent said.

 

When asked, Sargent said she did not want to pay an Uber surge charge, and did not know the names of any local taxi companies.

 

Portsmouth police posted two press releases this week on Facebook, and shared them on Twitter, which said there would be extra officers out Thursday night and early Friday morning to protect the public, and that there would be free transportation for those attending First Night.

 

On Dec. 28, police said a free bus runs between each performance venue, and a free parking shuttle brings First Night participants from the Connect Community Church public parking lot on Market Street to the High Hanover Parking Garage.

 

A shift commander at Portsmouth Police Department did not want to comment on the alleged incident Friday morning, referring media inquiries to acting Deputy Chief Frank Warchol, who was off for the day.

 

David, who was not driving for Uber when he picked up Sargent, said he was in Portsmouth with nine other ride-share drivers. They were using the new mobile app David created, called Arcade City. It is a tip, or donation-based, version of Uber.

 

Warchol said on Wednesday that if ride-share drivers accepted any money from passengers on First Night they would be violating of the city’s transportation services ordinance. Under the ordinance, taxi and ride-share drivers must register with the city. So far, only two Uber drivers have registered.

 

“I did not instruct our drivers to refuse cash tips, because that would be insane,” David said on Friday morning. “Our drivers provided a much needed service last night, rescuing stranded partygoers who couldn’t find a cab or an Uber. They deserved every penny and more.”

 

David stopped driving for Uber after his attorney advised him to. He was arrested in November on felony wiretapping charges for posting a YouTube video of a Portsmouth bouncer and taxi driver calling the police on him while picking up an Uber customer outside Daniel Street Tavern. Since then, he has been advocating for Uber drivers, and coded Arcade City.

 

He plans to officially launch the app at the end of this month.

Read the original Arcade City press release with full details from last night here.