Today might be a tough day to get a cab in the Riviera Maya. Uber announced it was starting service in Cancun and the Taxi syndicates are not too happy. Today protests began. So far protests have amounted to hundreds of taxis taking turns driving up and down the freeway in large slow caravans, slowing traffic. They are
all lining up near Xcaret to stage each protest. They are being fairly civil and only taking up one of the two lanes on the freeway, but that is enough to increase drive time. Also, if you are looking for a taxi, they might all be busy with the protests.
Similar protests occurred when Uber began operations in Mexico City and Merida. There are many mixed opinions on Uber, especially with their recent tests of autonomous (driverless) cars in Pittsburgh.
It might be a while before those become commonplace in the States, and likely even longer in Mexico due to the cost equation (much cheaper fares). But, if autonomous cars are coming, then they are coming regardless of Uber. Most every major auto manufacturer is doing research and even big companies like Google and Intel are throwing big dollars into autonomous cars.
For now we still have humans driving us, and there are many a tourists and locals that welcome the nicer cars, pricing transparency, and operators of Uber in Mexico.
Scams and corruption seem to be slowly getting addressed by global competition, and not by the Mexican government. We are already seeing the effects of this global competition at gas stations due to the new oil legislation. Now that level of honesty might be coming to the cars we hire.
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