Slashdot Mirror
California Sues Uber Over Practices
mpicpp writes with news that California is the latest government to file a lawsuit against Uber. "California prosecutors on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Uber over the ridesharing company's background checks and other allegations, adding to the popular startup's worldwide legal woes. San Francisco County District Attorney George Gascon, meanwhile, said Uber competitor Lyft agreed to pay $500,000 and change some of its business practices to settle its own lawsuit. Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey partnered with Gascon in a probe of the nascent ridesharing industry. A third company — Sidecar — is still under investigation and could face a lawsuit of its own if it can't reach an agreement with prosecutors. Uber faces similar legal issues elsewhere as it tries to expand in cities, states and countries around the world. The companies have popular smartphone apps that allow passengers to order rides in privately driven cars instead of taxis."
This will protect The Consumer (tm).
Of course California would sue Uber. The state is so anti-business you could mistake it for a European country.
Damn those Californian commies.
"Hey Ez, where are you going"?
"Up to the store".
"Mind if I go with you, I need a few things".
"Not at all".
"Thanks, here's a couple of bucks for gas".
That is ride sharing. Uber, Lyft, and the others are arranging drivers for hire. Just pointing out the obvious here.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/12/10/india-rape-uber-driver-idINKBN0JO0CC20141210
Can we just say that this is not "ridesharing". Ride sharing happens when I want to go from A to B, and I pick you up on the way because you want to go to a similar route.
The Uber drives have no intention to go from A to B themselves. They are sitting at home waiting from phone calls. It's a private hire car, where you rent out a car together with a driver, to transport other people for payment to places that you don't want to go yourself.
I totally want to stay with the old taxi ways, where you have to call a cab company repeatedly over the course of six hours or more before they finally come pick you up or just flat out leave you stranded in the cold and never come... and have policies that if you give up on them after a few hours and call another company in the city, they'll just both refuse you service entirely or blacklist you. And then when or if they ever bother to show up, they charge you out the ass.
Open up the Taxi licensing and charge reasonable prices....
Not just India. Do a Google search for "uber driver criminal"
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12...
Uber’s System for Screening Drivers Draws Scrutiny
By MIKE ISAAC
DEC. 9, 2014
Uber uses Hirease, a private company that says it has an average turnaround time of “less than 36 hours.”
Both services do drug and alcohol testing, but neither does fingerprint testing. And they rely primarily on publicly available information.
Although state background checks for taxi drivers vary by jurisdiction, lawmakers say they are generally more rigorous than either of these services. They usually include searches of private databases like F.B.I. records, gaining consent from prospective drivers for those searches,
In California, those drivers must undergo checks by the state’s Justice Department, including fingerprint scanning, drug and alcohol testing, and searches of private databases. A check can take as little as three days, but as long as eight weeks.
(Uber defeated bills to require the same checks, including fingerprints, required for taxi and limousine drivers, in California, Colorado, and Illinois.)
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/n...
Risky Ride: Who's Behind the Wheel of Uber Cars?
How safe is Uber? The NBC4 ITeam investigates.
By Joel Grover and Keith Esparros
Friday, May 2, 2014
UberX, where anyone with a car and the inclination can apply to be a driver.
Maps: Uber Regulations in the U.S. | Uber Timeline
That's exactly what Beverly Locke did. Working with the NBC4 I-Team, Locke filled out all the necessary documentation needed to become an Uber driver. She proved she was a licensed driver with a safe car, and agreed to submit to a background check.
Four weeks later, she received an e-mail indicating her background check had cleared.
On her first day "on the job," she received a request from Paolo, a frequent UberX user, who was looking for a ride from his Hollywood apartment. He is an Uber fan.
"I use cabs a lot," said Paolo. "And, it's almost half the fare in Uber than for a taxi driver."
Who's Watching Uber?
His phone lit up with a picture of Locke, and a message that said Beverly will pick him up in three minutes.
What he didn't know is that Beverly was an ex-con with a violent past. Her 20-year rap sheet includes burglary, cocaine possession, and making criminal threats with the intent to cause death or bodily injury.
"I pulled a girl out of a car and almost beat her to death," said Locke, who described herself as a reformed criminal with a good job and a desire to make up for her past. "I do not do criminal things anymore."
NBC4 asked Locke to cancel the ride, so the former convict never actually carried a passenger. But the NBC4 I-Team found several examples in which drivers with a criminal past have picked up Uber passengers.
Tadeusz Szczechowicz drove the streets of Chicago for a year, despite five prior arrests and two convictions for burglary and disorderly conduct.
Syed Muzzafar had a prior conviction for reckless driving, but he cleared the Uber background check and was behind the wheel New Year's Eve when he was arrested for hitting and killing a 6-year-old girl in San Francisco.
And, Jigneshkumar Patel was arrested for battery of an UberX passenger, a charge he said is "rubbish." Still, the UberX driver had a 2012 conviction for DUI.
Uber declined to talk to NBC4 directly, but did send emails describing corporate policy on background checks. A message said Uber "leads the industry" with its "best-in-class background checks for drivers."
Uber also said it has a "zero tolerance" policy for drug and alcohol offenses, and said it carefully screens applicants and immedia
California... uber alles... Ca-li-fornia ub-er alles!
And why is every single news item about Uber posted here? It's not news, it doesn't matter, and it sure as hell ain't nerdy. Someone at Dice or Slashdot has an negative interest in Uber and it hijacking Slashdot for that agenda.
You're more likely to be killed by a cop than Uber.
The problem with Uber? It threatens the crony "capitalism" of the government-controlled taxi monopolies.
Taxi medallions in New York were an investment that had never lost value before Uber. They were worth over $1 million until recently, with special financing set up so you could buy them and run a taxi.
Oh, another name for crony "capitalism" is fascism. Literally.
Hooray for the state! Cheer them on while they "protect" you!
Of course, the thing that you really need to be protected from is that very state...
[AC because already modded here]
I'm stupefied how the general perception towards Uber has changed close to 180 within a few months in here!
Then, when arguing along these lines that we can read here, as opinion of the majority of the non-ACs, non-Trolls, I was attacked from all sides, modded down. Almost everyone saw Uber as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Overall I am very happy that Uber is losing ground, and AFAIAC, can go bankrupt. Capitalism isn't a stately regulated taxi service. Capitalism is a non-regulated the-stronger-the-better and no-questions-asked profit maximization. Uver, sorry, Over.
Although state background checks for taxi drivers vary by jurisdiction, lawmakers say they are generally more rigorous than either of these services. They usually include searches of private databases like F.B.I. records
In what manner is a database maintained by a taxpayer funded government agency a private database?
It's really wonderful that Uber, Lyft, etc. have caused taxi medallion prices to collapse. If the investors in taxi medallion manage to buy legislation that prevents Uber, Lyft, etc. from operating, then we'll need apps that provide the same service without the legal obstacles, maybe the company operates from abroad, maybe the apps doesn't deal with money, but instead just helps people find rides, etc.
You might for example design a ride sharing app that's optimized for actual ride shares, and takes no money, but *could* be used by drivers looking for fares, except that they'll compete with people driving that same route anyways. You place the company owning the app somewhere outside the legal reach these petty bureaucrats, maybe operate the database through either a peer2peer system or a Tor hidden service. You might even protect drivers and riders from local authorities by finding the connections through their facebook friends or something.
Ya know, even Uber and Lyft would feel the price pressure from such a service with drivers really "going that way anyways".
Hirease does a shoddy job with background checks. I returned to the US a few months ago to another state after 10 years, and got a new DL. I applied to Uber, and Hirease, after doing a background check on my license, recommended that I be denied since I had less than a year's experience in driving in the US. I then pointed them to my previous DL, where I had driven for 30 years, and this time, they accepted. If they were any good, they should have been able to from my SS# obtain my entire driving record in one go, and determine whether I was worth recommending or not. At any rate, I dropped the idea of using my car as a cab.
How come geeks get up in arms when a company receives a patent for doing something ordinary "with a computer" on the grounds that doing something with a computer doesn't make it novel, but then they turn around and act like Uber is new and novel? It's a taxi company trying to sidestep taxi regulation by claiming it's different on account of performing traditional taxi functions "with a computer."
Uber's long term strategy is to simply break the taxi medallion industry then once the medallions are cheap, simply say "Opps, my bad, I'll buy medallions now", and pick them up at 1/1000th the cost?
Well it's quite obvious that the special interest parties have astroturfed this topic. Seriously paradigm shifts need to happen, and apparently they've needed to happen to an embedded (corrupt?) industry such as this for a VERY long time.
This would avoid having to take on the issues around engaging drivers, provide the tools to do the job better than trying to do the job better.
- My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
There is strong correlation between which states are going after online ridesharing and their level of corruption. As a lifelone CA resident, it surprised me that it took this long for the state to take action.
This is a mixed bag, on the one hand you need some form of regulation for safety and responsibility. On the other hand taxi cabs don't effectively serve many areas with no real incentive to change (For example mine ... if I want a traditional cab company to pick me up I need to call the day before, and pray that they show up on time ... if they show up 15 min late oh well .. If I am 5 min late I get charged per min)
Some of the laws are protectionist to keep others from offering the same service but better. Others are to protect consumers. When there are bad laws on the books that are profiting the people representing us they are almost impossible to remove without a serious shakeup of the industry and massive consumer awareness that it doesn't have to be this way.
Seriously ask yourself, before Uber did you even know how much the price of medallion was? Did you even know what the relevant laws were? Since there was no other option we just accepted it. Yes people complained and small fixes were done like flat rate to airports from major cities and the like, but no serious major look at the system. Now people are aware, and uber (and others) is getting the voters geared up to change. Traditional taxi cab companies are not happy and will use all of their power to fight the change in major cities since it means a significant cut into their profits. In smaller areas the smart thing to do is for the taxi companies to work with Uber (or another) and find a way to team up (As uber grows that will be a more likely outcome) so that everyone benefits in a new system.
"Hey Ez, where are you going"? "Up to the store". "Mind if I go with you, I need a few things". "Not at all". "Thanks, here's a couple of bucks for gas".
That is ride sharing. Uber, Lyft, and the others are arranging drivers for hire. Just pointing out the obvious here.
The government figured out ride sharing vs commercial activity long ago in the area of a private pilot's license vs a commercial pilot's license. A private pilot can take a passenger who chips in for fuel. I think the chipping in has to be accurate with respect to fuel, no gross overpaying for the passenger's fair share. Also I don't think splitting rental or maintenance costs were allowed, just fuel. And the passenger can absolutely have no influence on where or when the plane departs and where it goes. The passenger literally has to be leaving, arriving and go to a destination that the pilot was going to anyway. If the passenger has such influence on the flight a commercial license is necessary.
That said, maybe a new commercial class of driver's license is needed for "drivers for hire"? Something that involves a little extra driver training, a vehicle inspection, insurance requirements, etc?
Or whatever the state equivalent of that is. Simply take everything unto the state, tax everything and 100%. Problem solved. By the way there's no way to hire a 'real' cab by me where the driver doesn't speak ONLY French or ONLY Spanish. So.....good going. That's fucking awesome.
And remember to down mod me, please.
Do you or I have access to that database? No. It isn't open to the public, which makes it private.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!