Your uber ride is fully insured. Can you point to any current examples of insurance denials? Obviously there was the one before Uber added more insurance and the safe rides fee, but that was against the driver not a passenger.

That is complete bullshit.

They use their regular car insurance, and no one insures their car for commercial use, and uber does not provide insurance.

The stories I've read by independent journalists trying it put the net to the driver at $10-15/hr after variable car expenses.

They pay 20 dollars an hour roughly, your 10 - 15 is complete lies considering 15 is probably after gas, let alone wear on the car.

Could you actually get a taxi in either of these situations? I doubt it.

Did you not read what I wrote, I live in a city that just hosted the Olympics, we passed strict taxi laws to stop them from being asses in general, and make it a better end users experience. I got taxis during the Olympics relatively easily.

For NYE in NYC I did get a tax on NYE when I left the part I was at in uptown manhattan, I went to the lower east side in one. Partied there til about 6, then back to 70w. Waited a bit, wasn't a big deal. Gawker ran a shit ton of stories the next day about unsuspecting uber users getting fucked.

Also taxis aren't known for their upstanding treatment of foreigners, or even out of towners.

Your city needs more regulations then, not less.

When uber is 3x surge (major drinking holidays, etc) in Houston (making it1.5x what taxis are), I couldn't get a taxi. Even at that price I'd rather take uber for a nicer newer car and no payment hassle, but I don't have the choice since the taxis aren't picking up.

The amount of taxis in any given city in the western hemisphere is literally ordained by that city. Sounds like Houston is a shit city with idiots running it. Not really surprising, it grew really quickly.