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Uber and Lyft Spend $8.2 Million To Lose Fingerprint Election, Vow To Leave Austin (examiner.com)
On Saturday voters in Austin, Texas refused to repeal a new regulation that requires fingerprinting drivers for ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft. In Austin's most expensive election ever, the ride-sharing services spent over $8.2 million pushing Proposition 1, apparently outspending their opponents by a 80:1 ratio. But on election day, the proposal to repeal ultimately received just 39,083 votes -- 44% of the total cast -- meaning the lobbyists spent $209 for each vote received. Both services have said they will cease operations in Austin rather than perform the fingerprint-based criminal background checks.
They could rather have spent this kind of money performing the actual background checks.
"I decided I could write something better than everything out there in two weeks. And I was right." - Linus Torvalds
Austin voters just said "we don't like your current business model, change it or stop doing business until you do."
The companies replied "okay, we can do that."
By the way, there are talks in the works. I wouldn't be surprised to see the companies come back within a year, under some sort of compromise.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I live just outside of Austin and couldn't vote on this but would have voted against Prop 1 (against Uber an Lyft) just because of the annoying radio ads constantly running against it -- the ads with the hushed, concerned female voice saying things like, "Did you know that the city will take over background checks, at taxpayers expense?" Combine that with the threats to leave the market... After enough of those I wasn't even interested in looking into the merits of the arguments on both sides. Good riddance, although Uber and Lyft will probably run to the state government and get some State Rep from Bumscrew, West Texas to sponsor a bill overturning all local elections/ordinances preventing "consumer ride choice freedom".
And Nothing Of Value Was Lost
My friends who have used Uber said that they were getting like 3-4 mail advertisements a week about this, plus emails, texts, etc. Some who otherwise wouldn't care voted against it because they were so annoyed at the spam.
Austin still has a driver service besides taxis. Get Me operates here and complies with the background checks.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
For a moment I thought that Uber started respecting the law.
Turns out their withdrawal is a form of pressure, not out of respect for the law.
n/t
soon they might have learn what its like to hold down a proper job,
Government finally found an effective way to make Uber and Lyft go away.
The rich can buy anything they want.
I understand fingerprinting would be an added one-time inconvenience for uber drivers, but I think it makes sense (I'm assuming regular taxi drivers also need to be fingerprinted).
Uber's only argument seems to be that its not 100% foolproof. That may be true but I think it would still be better than doing nothing.
Can someone explain what the objection by Uber/Lyft was compared to background checks they already do (based on SSN/ID/DL)? They already have to physically see the person applying, don't they? Was it objection to the cost of a few fingerprint scanning terminals, the software infrastructure, or a principled objection to the regulation?
Imagine applying the same process to the November elections and completely purging the House of all incumbents. Let them have their Citizens United and spend all the money they want. With our votes, we can turn that money into confetti. No phony "reform" or term limits needed.
So, they "vowed" to leave Austin. Maybe that was the idea behind the rule. This is a vaporous company (really, what's this 50 billion "valuation"bullshit?) that is going to leave a lot of people holding the bag when it disappears.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...Easy solution for other cities that have been fighting to shut them down too?
Ride-sharing companies should have no objection to safety and environmental regulations, so long as they appply to all drivers for hire in the area. The line on the asphalt that Uber/Lyft must draw is any regulation restricting the number of cabs.
If you are against abortion, don't have one. If you are against riding with a non-fingerprinted driver, don't ride with one.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
So this is who you wish to ride with?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Kalamazoo_shootings
i'd like all my public service-persons cleared before we trust them with whatever.
There is absolutely no reason the government should require collecting and using fingerprints, especially just to run background checks. Using fingerprints and allowing the government (or any other party) to have access to that data is unacceptable. Not only because the government should have no need to track what people are doing but because the gov should not have fingerprint registration data- which will be horribly abused. To me this is just SHOCKING.
Stand up for your rights, people... (and the rights of your children, too). Once you give this data to the government (or big business), it will NEVER be erased or restricted, regardless of claims or laws- it will go into huge databases and shared between all agencies and used however they want for as long as they want. Even worse, with every crime investigation, you will be searched without probable cause.
Again, there is ZERO reason for fingerprints just to do a background check of *LICENSED DRIVERS*, but if one MUST use biometrics, there is only one safer and practical biometric I know of- that is deep vein palm scan. That registration data cannot be readily abused. It can't be latently collected like DNA, fingerprints, and face recognition can. You have to know you are registering/enrolling when it happens. You don't leave evidence of it all over the place. When you go to use it, you know you are using it every time. And on top of all that, it is accurate, fast, reliable, unchanging, live-sensing, and cheap. If you must participate in a biometric, this is the one you should insist on using.
Austin has more mature companies that provide safe passage. It doesn't need Uber or Lyft.
What? Are people supposed to be sad that companies which don't value safety and their drivers are going to be missed? hahahaha, good one
don't let the door hit you on your way out.
I bet they don't cease operations.
It's the same shit all over again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And it will be just as funny in 50 years as the flag laws are today. People seem to never learn. You can't stop progress, the "best" you can do is to postpone it.
Uber also wanted to be allowed to break traffic laws and pickup/drop off passengers in the car lane.... hah, and they pretend to care about safety
And how the flying fuck would a fingerprint have stopped that?! Guy had no prior and had no major signs before the shooting!
We don't need companies run by young dumb potheads that want to avoid the law and put people at risks. Fuck those guys. They can go elsewhere.
Kudos to the people of Austin for standing up for safety and responsibility, two things potheads never go for.
Granted, it is Austin, but there is something good in being able to resist the whims of pseudo-taxi services. The rules have worked well for Austin's residents, they don't need to give an exemption for trendiness.
What kind of bribery will they try next to get around the check that every other service uses? Or will they just try to implement another baseless "DeBlasio meter" to cause customer-sourced pressure? Besides, rule exemptions are for high-speed toll roads ;)
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Thanks for dumping a bunch of the cash you fuckers ripped off by undercutting legitimate taxi services, right back into the Austin community where you stole them from!
Don't let the door hit you in the ass as you leave! :-). Hahahaahha!
I live in Austin and voted prop 1. Why? Because the city government is out of control here in general, and even though I am not a U/L user, I wanted to send that message. One thing about prop 1 that didn't get a lot of attention was how convoluted the damn language on the ballot was. One local TV station did some reporting on it.
prop 1: "Shall the City Code be amended to repeal City Ordinance No. 20151217-075 relating to Transportation Network Companies; and replace with an ordinance that would repeal and prohibit required fingerprinting, repeal the requirement to identify the vehicle with a distinctive emblem, repeal the prohibition against loading and unloading passengers in a travel lane, and require other regulations."
Yea, how many folks stood in front of the ballot box and scratched their heads on that one.
http://www.kvue.com/news/local...
because they're already short drivers. Uber doesn't pay enough to cover rent let alone the wear and tear on a vehicle. I know the popular belief is that their drivers are college kids out for beer money but in my experience it's mostly desperate people. A lot of those are ex-cons who can't get any other work in an increasingly bad economy. Why hire an ex-con when you've got 100 guys with clean records to choose from? A lot of Uber drivers won't pass the checks. That'll mean Uber will have to pay better to get more drivers. e.g. more surge pricing. That'll eliminate their competitive advantage over taxis.
Uber and really the entire "sharing" economy can't survive without white knuckle desperation. Take those people out, however you do it, and they'll collapse. And that's just what they did in Austin.
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But on election day, the proposal to repeal ultimately received just 39,083 votes -- 44% of the total cast...
So, in Austin, a city of a little over 910,000 people, only 89,000 or so voted... And people wonder why government doesn't represent them...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
my brother just took an Uber and both folks were recently laid off. Also, I hate to be rude but were you not listening? Uber doesn't pay enough to pay for the wear and tear you're putting on your car. You're making well under minimum wage when you factor in the actual costs. And that's before we talk about the risk of driving professionally without commercial insurance (which again, Uber doesn't pay enough for).
Uber was, is and always will be only viable so long as they can externalize their costs. That's why every single one of these "sharing" economy companies shut down the moment they were made to stop doing that. Remember that company that did the same thing with Maid services? As soon as the local government demanded they pay minimum wage by reimbursing the workers for mileage and supplies they shut down. Completely. Hell, they couldn't survive paying _minimum wage let alone a living wage. Neither could Uber.
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Austinite here. The summary is a bit misleading (as have most statements from the "grassroots" Ridesharing Works for Austin group).
First, the vote was for a new proposition. The new proposition was "scrap existing ordinance and come up with something else that does NOT require 1) fingerprint based background checks, 2) clear marking on taxis, 3) taxis be required to drop passengers at a curb (as opposed to having everyone jump out in the middle of a 3+ lane street)." The existing ordinance was not new. Uber and Lyft simply saw a dint in their business model and a cost they didn't want to shoulder (or ask their non-employee, contractor drivers to shoulder). All taxi, limo, and pedicab drivers have operated under this system for years. THe only "new" component was a ruling that, yes, Uber is a taxi company. The vote was about whether ridesharing companies could convince Austinites to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Over the course of the campaign, everything they claimed turned out to be lies, misinformation or erroneous. RWfA claimed that drunk driving plummeted since they started business. The police were asked to take a lot at the statistics and found out they were mis-reported: drunk driving stayed the same. RWfA claimed that if the proposition failed, the city would take over background checks. That's not true, as it would allow the current system of asking the taxi company to request the check according to regulations continue. RWfA claimed that the background checks were not as thorough as their own (false). They also noted it was not a nation-wide check, only a statewide check. The City Council thought that was a good point and made it a nation-wide check going forward. RWfA claims that the City had agreed to pay for checks if the proposition failed, which was also false. (And if you've ever lived in the city, you find the idea of them agreeing to pay for anything utterly laughable.)
What it comes down to was whether Austin wanted to let their laws be written by the City Council, or by the Travis Kalanick the CEO of a company that leverages under-employed people (who are "not really employees, or even contractors" according to Kalanick in courts in California) for the purpose of stealing business from employed and licensed people (at least until their heavy investment in self-driving car technology makes poor people unnecessary).
While some of the hip twenty somethings who've helped to double the population in Austin over the past decade may object, most of us are glad to tell Uber and Lyft, "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out."
I live in Austin (District 5), and the advertising was madding, worse than the last presidential election. I had 3 people come by the house and talk to me in person, at least one political survey call per week, 2-3 other out-bound Pro prop-1 calls per week, flyers left on my door, and about about one piece of pro Prop 1 junk mail per day. Then there were the radio spots, and campaign signs (many of which are still up).
Looking at the numbers: 88,241 votes were cast in the Prop 1 election. $8.2 million spent by Uber+Lyft. That's $92 per vote cast
This hasn't been true in a very long time. The only new thing is the prints are now going to be checked nationally, not statewide.
Hell, my daughter drove a pedicab starting in 2010 and had to get fingerprinted.
So, what you are saying is that private jobs with any public risk should require recorded fingerprints, and perhaps other personal data also?
I can imagine that extends to a goodly percentage of occupations..
I can only assume that right now all people working bus, taxi, aircraft, ferry, etc services in the US are fingerprinted? ;) in fact, we better make it mandatory
Also all doctors, nurses, teachers, etc? pretty high risks there.
Better throw in all construction workers, and others in situations where equipment drops, etc could kill others.
Must come in damn useful when you need to unlock their iphones
for phone ownership....
I am sure thats just a tip of the iceberg, but think of the children!
Because, as we know, registered taxi drivers have never committed crimes against passengers, and this is not all part
of a buggy-whip protectionist racket.
However, on the flip side, can we PLEASE stop calling these minicab services ride-sharing, and convince the rest of the
world that minicab is the correct term, as used in the UK? That in itself would address 90% of the issues.
So, you know that for a fact?
It must be amazing to live in a country where all graft and bribery is openly and publicly reported so that you can come to such a conclusion.
Where I live, the fact that uber/lyft spent so much on trying to get a message to the public would be seen as interesting as it pretty much proves
that they didnt either just bribe the officials, or buy votes (which, it seems, would have almost certainly allowed them to win with such a
tiny turnout).
But no, you are worried that they took the legitimate part for democracy instead of the other path? Interesting.
Why not offer different levels of background check, let the customers decide which drivers they want? The guy with no check offers cheapest rides, the guy with deep check clearance gets to charge the most. Driver's pay for the background check and get the option to charge ride premium for that, but have the ability to wave the premium if they so desire. That would show whether people value background checks and how much they value them.
It's not ride sharing. Ride sharing is when someone is going to go to a specific destination, and is willing to take other people there, splitting costs. Pretending to be a taxi is not "ride sharing".
If it were made voluntary, and drivers could use the certifcation as part of their pitch (which would require the company to verify and integrate the certification as part of their platform), then let the users decide if its sufficent added value. Of course, then lack of certification might be considered suspicious, but that would be the customer's privilege. The market decides, and customers who want the extra peace of mind can have it. The bleeding hearts and souless Randians in perfect union.
Any government agency that wants your fingerprints already has them. In case you weren't aware, you leave them behind everywhere you go.
And as far as the cost goes, my local sheriff charges $50 to take fingerprints and perform background checks for concealed carry permits. And that includes sitting on the application for every single day of the allowed 90 day processing period.
I've perpetually argued that government corruption and special interest influence can be mitigated by shrinking and distributing government power. Every possible government function that can be handled locally should be. Anything else should be left to states. Federal government should be very small and should do very little.
The unsuccessful attempt to influence this vote with big money was transparent to the voters precisely because it was a local government issue. The same happened in Richmond, CA when Chevron spent $millions to influence 3 local elections and failed.
In Washington DC, the monied influence is so ubiquitous and opaque that it's impossible for people to vote in such a way as to reject that influence. Want to get the money out of politics? Get the money and power out of the hands of the federal government and back into the hands of state and local governments. The corruption becomes increasingly more transparent in the lowest levels of government.
The statist mechanism: Oh, you just killed your passenger and yourself despite our best regulations? Well I guess their family can apply for welfare or something.
All teachers are now subject to extensive background checks. I can't speak for those other occupations.
Source: I'm a teacher.
If you read the actual ordinance that was passed triggering this whole thing in Austin, you'll see Commercial Insurance is the thing that really drove Uber / Lyft to spend so much money on trying to get it repealed.
It's literally the first three provisions in the requirements. (Part 3 Section B) at the bottom of page 3.
http://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=219353
I think Uber / Lyft did a good job of making people think this was about background checks, but the money for insurance has to be the real reason.
This is utter bullshit. My daughter drove a pedicab in Austin in 2010 and had to get fingerprinted.
because it's so nonsensical. The same people who tell me minimum wage only applies to teenagers also tell me the U.S. economy would collapse if we raised minimum wage. So which is it? Are these largely unnecessary service industry jobs or the backbone of our country? Can't really have it both ways.
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"Current taxi drivers did not have to submit to fingerprints either."
This hasn't been true in a very long time. The only new thing is the prints are now going to be checked nationally, not statewide.
Hell, my daughter drove a pedicab starting in 2010 and had to get fingerprinted.
Ha, government incompetence. For a pedicab, you should be footprinted.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Austin cab companies are not required to fingerprint drivers. So Uber and Lyft were being required to do something that the regulated cabs were not. It was all about city control and showing they were going to at least control something. Anyone who believes it was about safety is ignorant. Hope you feel "safe" in those regulated cabs whom haven't had fingerprint checks and have had cases of bad criminal drivers before.
Austin resident
Real libertarians don't push unnecessary dubious regulations like this. There is no evidence whatsoever that there is even a safety concern with how these companies are conducting background checks and even if there were issues the market can handle that. If you don't trust Uber or Lyft don't use them. I should be free to get into a car with a convicted sex offender whose murdered people if I so choose. You have no right to deny me or the person I choose to do business with from conducting that business when it hurts no other party.
If you don't like how these companies do business and think you can do a better job go do it and stop bitching.
I notice that the news media did not note that Austin planned to charge $500 per driver (per year) for this fingerprinting.