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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?
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?
Err, under the Massachusetts constitution, any citizen (governor or not) may file a proposed piece of legislation. If you're going to rail on about the government, maybe try a different state?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
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?
Now that they own the market they will lobby to lock out other disrupters. The miracle of the "Free" market.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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!
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.
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.
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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.