Taxi Drivers Who Join Uber in Tulum Still Face Attacks and Threats

A taxi concession holder driving for a ride-hailing app says members of his own union, Tiburones del Caribe, attacked him Tuesday near Jaguar Park, a week after Uber in Tulum began taking riders.

José Ramírez, 52, was carrying passengers booked through a digital platform on the morning of October 27 when several men stopped his car near the south entrance to Jaguar Park. A video sent to The Tulum Times shows men in white uniforms, whom Ramírez identifies as fellow union drivers, surrounding the vehicle and trying to open one of its doors while he stays inside.

Ramírez says the attack was both verbal and physical. It was unclear at the time of publication whether he had filed a formal complaint with the State Attorney General's Office.

Uber launched its service in Tulum on October 20 with an open call to the town's taxi drivers, offering bonuses of up to 2,000 pesos to those who complete their first 10 trips on the app. Ramírez's account shows what some of the drivers who accept may face from inside their own trade, and no authority has yet said how it plans to protect them.

Ramírez says he left with the same fare he brought in

According to Ramírez, the confrontation began because he drove into the area with passengers and left with the same people, without picking up anyone at the site and without changing the price of the trip.

"I'm not going to fight in the street anymore, I'm 52 years old. I went in with a fare and came out with the same fare and its passenger. That's what caused the problem."

He was speaking in Spanish, and the quote above is a translation.

The dispute turns on territory. In earlier incidents, Tulum taxi drivers have treated areas with established taxi stands as reserved for their trade and have confronted app drivers who pick up passengers there. By Ramírez's account, he picked up no one.

A union that has not called him

Ramírez says the leadership of Tiburones del Caribe already knows what happened. Nobody from the union, he says, has contacted him to hear his side.

"In the union, there are regulations," he said, arguing that any infraction by a member should be handled under those rules rather than settled on the roadside by a group of drivers.

He also said he fears for his own safety and for his family.

"If something happens to me or my family, I blame these drivers from the same union."

The union had issued no public statement on the incident as of this publication.

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Uber in Tulum opened its doors to taxi drivers a week ago

Ramírez now stands on both sides of the dispute that is running through Tulum's taxi trade. He holds a concession in the traditional system and also takes rides through an app, a combination Uber is actively encouraging. Its recruitment terms for Tulum include up to 2,000 pesos for car drivers who complete 10 trips and 1,000 pesos for motorcyclists who complete 5, as The Tulum Times reported when the service launched.

The legal ground for that recruitment is settled. A federal court in Cancún ruled in January 2023 that Uber does not need a concession to operate in Quintana Roo, and the state mobility institute authorized four other platforms, including DiDi, in July 2024.

Inside the taxi sector, the reaction has split. Some concession holders have moved part of their work onto the apps. Others reject the model outright. On launch day, Brigadier Hernández, a Tiburones del Caribe driver, told Uno TV he had waited about an hour at a stand without a passenger. "If more platforms come in, we are going to starve," he said.

Cancún went through the same split before reaching a deal. Uber and the Andrés Quintana Roo taxi union signed a collaboration agreement in December 2023, with the state government acting as intermediary, after years of litigation and documented attacks on platform drivers. Uber now reports more than 2,200 taxi drivers registered on its app in that city.

Earlier cases in Tulum ended without public sanctions

Tuesday's video is the latest in a series. In October 2025, footage circulated of a group of Tulum taxi drivers surrounding an Uber driver who had just picked up a foreign tourist, demanding that he "report" to them and pay a "moche," a slang term for a kickback, according to Excélsior.

On December 29, 2025, a 26-year-old Colombian tourist told municipal police that taxi drivers in Aldea Zamá blocked her from boarding an app-booked car and that the taxi she was steered into demanded 1,200 pesos. Police opened an investigation, but no penalty or identification of the driver was made public, The Tulum Times reported.

In neither case did authorities publish an outcome.

App drivers want City Hall to step in

After Tuesday's incident, drivers who work through digital platforms called on the Tulum City Council and its Transportation Department to intervene. They want clear operating conditions for every kind of transport service in the municipality, and a guarantee that disputes among concession holders, taxi drivers, and app drivers are resolved through institutional channels rather than on the street.

As of this publication, neither the City Council, the Transportation Department, the municipal police, nor the state mobility institute IMOVEQROO had commented on the attack near Jaguar Park. None has announced a measure to protect drivers working through the apps since Uber began operating in Tulum on October 20.

Ramírez is still waiting for Tiburones del Caribe to call and hear his version. The union has not said whether it will, and no authority has said what happens the next time a driver with an app booking pulls up to a taxi stand.

Should taxi unions in Tulum be allowed to discipline members who drive for Uber and other apps? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes .