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Massachusetts Governor Introduces Bill To Regulate Uber, Lyft
jfruh writes: The "wild west" days of ridesharing services may be coming to an end. The governor of Massachusetts has proposed a bill that would regulate Uber, Lyft, and their rivals in the state. Among the new rules: ridesharing services would have to run background checks on their drivers and keep a roster of active drivers; vehicles would need to have some external marker indicating that they're a ridesharing car; and drivers would need to hold at $1 million worth of insurance when transporting passengers.
As if they will give a damn any your regulations... If they did, they would be a proper taxi service.
Or they could classify them as taxis and leave legit ride shares alone. Its not ride sharing when you pick someone up and their location and deliver them anywhere they want. You aren't going near there, you are driving people for money, so you are a taxi driver... because internet doesn't change this.
The über price model reflects this with surge pricing to get more drivers on the road..... how can you do that with people who are just sharing rides?
This is Massachusetts doing what it does best - looking to rake in some tax money. Massachusetts is particularly diligent to make sure they get a cut when cash changes hands. I'm pretty sure that the legislators here get twitchy in summer when they see kids setting up unregulated lemonade stands.
I do see this being ignored completely, until someone gets pulled over and stupidly blurts out "Uber" in the conversation with the officer. At that point they will probably set up checkpoints on the HOV lanes where one must pull over and look deeply in a trooper's eyes and state that they are not an Uber/Lyft driver, honest!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
A quick web search shows that similarly worded legislation is being considered in Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, South Carolia, and New York.
While I didn't do an item-by-item comparison, a quick glance suggests that most or all these were crafted by a common hand. Anyone want to guess who that might be?
A governor (Executive) cannot introduce legislation. He can propose it, but not introduce it. Yes, there is a difference. The mistake is predictable, as Millenials are used to unconstitutional Executive actions, but just because it happens doesn't mean it's legit.
Well, if it walks like a taxicab and talks like a taxicab, how is it not a taxicab? Because you signal it with a hep and cool app instead of making a phone call?
Or you can move to Texas like the best and brightest are currently doing.
Texas is a shithole dependant on Federal dollars. Sure, businesses love a place that lets them do whatever they want at the expense of the actual workers and populace. But it's a race to the bottom that even Texas can't win.
Get good weather
100 degrees in summer?
AND good government.
Wannabe theocrats?
Massachusets blows other states away in actual census data. Education, economy, median income, poverty rates, teen pregnancy.
And it isn't dependent on federal dollars, unlike other places. The reason for that is that Massachusetts isn't trying to race to the bottom with the South.
NH is full, no vacancies. You should never come here. It's awful.
I was born there, if the weather didn't indeed suck, I'd move back in a second.
In other words, to regulate them seemingly as if they are normal taxi cabs, forcing the same large costs upon them and so totally destroying their current form, which is what makes them so valuable - in other words, banning by regulation.
It is already banned by regulation and they are doing it anyway. Boston is just making new regulations recognizing them as some different sort of commercial for hire service. But they aren't. They are just a taxicab that chooses not to obey the law.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Yes. That's the difference between car services and taxi cabs. Usually they are regulated differently.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Uber backs the legislation, saying the bill would promote innovation and keep Uber drivers and passengers safe, said Meghan Joyce, Uber East Coast general manager, in a statement. Massachusetts residents have shown they support ride-hailing and Lyft will work with the state to pass legislation that maintains this transportation option, according to the company.
The main innovation of Uber and Lyft is that it bypassed taxi legislation. It introduced a supply/demand based pricing system (which presumably bypasses legislation on pricing). It does not limit the amount of drivers that can be on the road (bypassing the legislation requiring taxis to have medallions designed to limit the supply of drivers). I don't think the government would have considered these to be innovations until it worked better than the existing corrupt taxi system.
I feel the government is infringing on my rights as a sovereign citizen! Why should I have to obey laws, ordinances, and other bullshit that doesn't benefit me? I mean, there's no fucking way I'd pass a background check. Those "person of interest" flags in multiple disappearances and serial murders that follow me like a shadow just don't erase themselves. And carrying a million in insurance? That's insane! Do you know how much good, strong duct tape and monthly storage rentals cost these days? It's outrageous.
Well, if it walks like a taxicab and talks like a taxicab, how is it not a taxicab? Because you signal it with a hep and cool app instead of making a phone call?
No $300,000 buy-in for a medallion in San Francisco or Chicago?
They actually show up when they're supposed to, rather than taking whoever flags them down instead on their way to you?
They don't blow you off and lie to the dispatcher about it?
Let's see... how else are Uber and Lyft different from taxis?
Modern cars instead of a 20 year old Ford Crown Victoria or Dodge Diplomat?
Lack of vomit smell/stale cigarette smoke smell?
They differ in terms of insurance and driver background checks.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This exclude about 8.6% from yet-another job.
An uncomfortable fact armchair economics have real trouble with is that communism and capitalism are only different when operating as toy systems with no extra variables or systems involved. Once you add those in, they end up indistinguishable from each other, differ only in a few nouns but politically identical.
Apparently you stopped following things back in 2006. California is not bankrupt and is doing quite fine financially. They chose actual economics over the "tickle down" nonsense of the likes of Texas and Kansas. With the massive drop in oil prices, Texas is hurting (their financial "success" during the recession was always due to rises in Oil & Gas rather than any special policy). California has other issues, but they aren't financial.
I think you are confusing your Tea Party talking points for facts. California isn't bankrupt. In fact the state budget outlook is very good.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Seriously. What are we talking, like an average annual snowfall of 60 inches? I know Vermont is 80 inches annually.
Maybe 80 sunny days per year. I'd lose my mind. Chicago's bad enough.
You are welcome on my lawn.
These might make sense for taxis, which are/were government-enforced monopolies. But for the viciously competing companies the regulations aren't needed.
And, like all regulations, they inevitably increase costs. That the Statists of Massachusetts will seek to impose such things is not surprising. That Slashdot would applaud them — that's more of a disgrace...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Well, if it walks like a taxicab and talks like a taxicab, how is it not a taxicab? Because you signal it with a hep and cool app instead of making a phone call?
It's not a taxicab because it actually shows up when you call one.
Well, if it walks like a taxicab and talks like a taxicab, how is it not a taxicab? Because you signal it with a hep and cool app instead of making a phone call?
It's not a taxicab because it actually shows up when you call one.
I keep seeing people making this exact same quip without providing any evidence that there is any such guarantee. "I think I sound clever" and "They have an app" don't count.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I carry ~$500,000 worth of unrestricted personal liability coverage as part of my homeowner's policy, which runs me ~$500 a year total. (Amounts converted from SEK.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Other countries don't have these problems with taxis, so it might be worthwhile to see what those countries are doing, as opposed to just throwing it all in and surrendering to Uber...
Crafted by consumers which do not want to be caught in a rideshare uninsured in an accident, or want to get late at night in a rideshare with a known rapist ? The amount of the insurance is really up to discussion. The presence of all mentionned items (insurance+markers+background check) are on the other hand good for consumers.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
So they are a taxi with a better service? Still a taxi.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I keep seeing people making this exact same quip without providing any evidence that there is any such guarantee. "I think I sound clever" and "They have an app" don't count.
I don't need a guarantee. Uber lets me know in real-time where the available Uber cars are located (along with real-time traffic information and the number of stars that a driver has). That's more than enough for me. If I don't see an available Uber car on the map near me before I order, then I know I can't rely on Uber to pick me up. It's as simple as that.
And if I make an order, and an Uber driver accepts that order, then that Uber car is immediately taken off the public map of Uber cars, and I am the only one who can see it moving on the map.
Not only that, but once an Uber car driver accepts a pick up order from someone, he isn't being bombarded with other offers along the way. Also, his rating is at stake, because Uber will ask me to rate him after the ride (whether he picked me up on time, or not). In addition to that, even if I falsify my customer rating of the driver by saying that he took 30 more minutes than he was supposed to by taking a detour in between, Uber could verify my claim with the gps data of the driver, and/or the gps data and time of my pick up on my phone (which I assume is logged when the Uber app is in use).
So this isn't me being clever. I'm just someone who has used Uber in the past. Anyone who uses Uber at least once would come to the same conclusion I have.
That being said, let me add a disclaimer: When I make fun of Taxi cabs, I make fun of the Taxi Cabs in San Francisco. If you don't live or work in a city like San Francisco, or New York, where medallions are extremely expensive and insanely scarce because of corruption, then you may not have had the same problems with taxi cabs during peak hours as I have had.
The question is will your insurance company allow it to cover professionally as well. That may be a sticking point.
Capitalism fails because people redefine the word to mean what we used to call Corporatism or Fascism.
Capitalism in the US ended in 1913 with the founding of the Federal Reserve. Central banks are a central pillar of non-capitalist economic systems. They create a monopoly on the very core of free exchange, minting and issuance of money. Prior to that, anyone could issue currency, and many did, mostly backed by gold. This worked well enough to see the US rise from agrarian backwater to industrial superpower over the course of a single generation.
Taxi cabs shouldn't have been "regulated" in the first place. It was all a scam to make the most powerful taxi companies at the time of imposition of those "regulations" tons and tons of money, both be limiting competition, and by giving them large numbers of medallions at cheap prices, which they could then resell for millions years later (ie artificial scarcity).
Why do you feel the need to make shit up? You shilling or something? Uber has a million dollar policy in effect the second you get into the vehicle, and drivers are all subjected to criminal background checks. And unlike taxi companies, the drivers aren't recruited from among the patrons of a Lahore brothel.
Empiricism doesn't count either, I guess?
What do you think is happening to the Uber driver that he isn't showing up? They can't just pick people up off the street like a cab (which is probably the main difference between them and a taxi company). So what do you think they are doing in that little fantasy world inside your head? Stopping for a burger?
I bet if the government banned the sale of tomatoes, you would try to justify it. "They're a deadly nightshade!" you would say. "It should be illegal to sell them!"
I don't understand why people keep repeating the meme that there isn't any insurance here. There is! Uber, and presumably Lyft and Co, provide $1million of coverage from the second a rider gets in the car.
Uber's PR department sucks ass apparently. EVERYONE should know this, but no-one seems to.
I bet if the government banned the sale of tomatoes, you would try to justify it. "They're a deadly nightshade!" you would say. "It should be illegal to sell them!"
No. There are plenty of regulations I don't agree with. However, I don't think that if there is an existing regulation that some companies should have to work within those regulations and other companies should get to do whatever they want.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Correct. They should therefore remove the anti-consumer regulations from ALL people-moving services.
When there is a bad regulation, get rid of it! Don't force people to obey it.
as opposed to just throwing it all in and surrendering to Uber...
Yes, how DARE We "surrender" to the people providing the best service at the best price! THOSE BASTARDS!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
How much coverage do cab drivers have to carry?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
That always gets me. At 17, you're old enough to enlist in the military, be issued deadly weapons and get shipped over seas to enforce U.S. foreign policy, which may involve killing lots and lots of people.
"What's that you say? You want to be an Uber driver and have a beer when you get home? Sorry, son, you're just not mature enough for that."
... sufficient insurance for commercial purposes...
Actually, that may give a competitive advantage to cab companies in some cases. For example, in NYC historically the cab companies put each cab into its own tiny company in order to limit liability, and then buy the minimum insurance allowed by state law, which is a lot smaller than a million bucks.
That said, I'm not sure what the threshold is these days. It seems it would be pretty easy for a cab to do a couple of million in damage in NYC.
Right... That's why Uber is backing this regulation. It's so burdensome that Uber already complies with all aspects of it other than external markings.
In large cities only taxicabs have the right to cruise for passengers hailing them on the street. There is a different class of vehicles (called "black cars" in New York, "limos" in Boston) that respond to telephone requests for service. This just creates a 3rd category that responds to requests over IP (is there an RFC for this?) and has still different rules. Only taxicab medallions are limited in quantity and valuable in trade. Anyone can own a taxicab medallion- there are NO qualifications. However, that doesn't give the person the right to actually drive the cab. The medallion gives them the right to appoint a driver. The driver must also be licensed - there are no quantitative limits on the number of persons licensed to drive a taxicab. This puts the drivers in a poor position to bargain, and all the profits go to the medallion owner.
I keep seeing people making this exact same quip without providing any evidence that there is any such guarantee. "I think I sound clever" and "They have an app" don't count.
Also I should say, the first time I tried Uber, I was given a promo code for $20 (these are not hard to get if you want to give Uber a try yourself, you just need to google for one, the only problem is that you can only use them once).
In my case, I made sure that the upper limit of my quote was less than $20. So for the first Uber trip I took, I basically didn't risk any of my own money (although, I did need to provide the app with my credit card number). So if the Uber car didn't come within the 3 minutes it said it would, I could have basically walked away not losing a single cent on the transaction.
One beginner mistake I made thought, was to set the pick up location automatically based on my gps sensors. I shouldn't have done that. With Uber, you have to adjust the pick up location manually before you do anything else. The app doesn't allow you to tweak the pick up location after you've inquired about a ride, so be sure to set that part first. That's the only UI usability problem I had with the app, otherwise the rest of the process is done very well and the entire app is extremely well polished (even on Android, which is the phone OS I use).
Taxis pick up people off the side of the road. Uber and Lyft do not pick up people off the side of the road. Therefore, you are a liar and should be ignored. Good idea to post as AC, lest anyone connect you to your bosses, taxi shill.
Linus, stop peddling the idea that everything should be 80 characters. 80-wide character terminals are a relic of 1960. Let the git commits fly, and let any browser since, I dunno, 1961, handle word wrapping.
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.