Uber may have solved some of your transportation needs, but there’s one thing all car services still have to deal with: traffic. The best Uber driver in the world can’t make all that congestion go away just because you need to make it on time to Wednesday bar trivia. To avoid the frustration of gridlock they’d have to try getting you around with something sleek enough to actually slide through traffic.
That is why today, in Bangkok, Uber is starting a new pilot program called UberMOTO, aimed at helping you get around the problem of traffic. It’s the first time the company is allowing passengers to be picked up by motorcycle.
The new service will just be another option on their app, and drivers will still be required to pass the same background checks as their colleagues who drive cars. The idea seems so obvious, doesn’t it? I mean, it just makes a lot of sense.
Which is probably why Nathan Fielder came up with it first.
That’s right, on this past season of Nathan For You on Comedy Central, one of Fielder’s biggest business failures was actually one of his best premises, and I can’t help but think about it in lieu of this new Uber program. The idea was a service that you can call up when you are stuck in traffic (and desperately need to get somewhere on time) that would send two people on a motorcycle to come pick you up. The driver would use the motorcycle to weave through traffic and get you where you need to go, and the second rider would actually get in your car and drive it to you.
It was a great idea that didn’t work because he just had two people on a motorcycle randomly going up to people stuck in traffic, offering the service cold, as opposed to having people call for it. People were confused and scared. It…it wasn’t a great roll out.
It can work though, and now thanks to Uber’s original/not-so-original service we’re going to get to see it in action.
Will you use UberMOTO if it makes it to your city? Would you use Nathan Fielder’s? Tell us why in the comments below.
—
HT:Â theverge.com
Image: New Line Cinema
