Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
No, you've drawn the opposite of the correct conclusion. This demonstrates that no matter how much money you plough into a campaign, it's the votes that really matter.
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.
What's the problem with letting the market decide? If you feel unsafe riding with someone who hasn't been fingerprinted, then don't use Uber. But if I want to use Uber, and Uber wants to take my money, then that should be the end of it. The Uber driver is an adult, and I'm an adult. We don't need a nanny.
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.
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.
people are not aware of what safety/security measures are in place when hailing a cab, or when using uber. people are correctly assuming that if uber is running an alternative taxi service, that certain basic safety/security measures are in place: drivers a hired through a normal vetting process, vehicles are inspected, people are held responsible for their behaviors as with any job. uber is trying to muscle in on taxi service by taking advantage of peoples ignorance of what goes into a taxi service. I would pass a law which requires uber/lift cars to be painted with "WARNING. THIS VEHICLE, AND THE DRIVER, HAVE NOT NECESSARILY MET WITH ANY OF THE STANDARDS NORMALLY APPLIED TO PROFESSIONAL TAXI SERVICES. THE USER OF THIS VEHICLES/DRIVER'S RIDE SHARING SYSTEM DOES SO AT THEIR OWN RISK, AND POTENTIALLY ASSUMES FULL LIABILITY FOR ANY PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SERVICE, INCLUDING ACCIDENTAL OR INTENTIONAL DEATH AND/OR DISMEMBERMENT. THE RIDE SHARING SYSTEM THEY ARE ASSOCIATED WITH MAY HAVE OPTED OUT OF ALL NORMAL SOCIETAL REGULATION OF THEIR BUSINESS, FOR THE SAKE OF PROFIT." big black letters, contrasting with a strong background color, to mimic wasps and poison dart frogs.
That's a key detail, that is often lost on Slashdotters. You can't buy votes. You can buy attention and reputation, and that may lead to votes, but that connection is not guaranteed, and any attempt to ensure that votes are bought is illegal.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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.
And how the flying fuck would a fingerprint have stopped that?! Guy had no prior and had no major signs before the shooting!
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.
I'm assuming regular taxi drivers also need to be fingerprinted
Taxi drivers do not currently need to be fingerprinted, but under the new regulation they will need to submit fingerprints by Feb 2017. The fact that nobody cared about fingerprinting drivers until Uber and Lyft came along, indicates that fingerprinting is not designed to address an actual safety problem.
Well, there's also the issue that fingerprinting is for criminals and should never be a condition of employment. These onerous rules are imposed specifically to drive businesses like Uber and Lyft out of a market. If they'd complied, next year there would just be some new regulation to meet.
Imagine all the people...
Because people have to actually be victims before you find out who the bad guys are.
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...
Unless you want to work anywhere where biometrics are used as part of the security infrastructure.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Fingerprinting doesn't guarantee that you know who the bad guys are. Fingerprinting helps you make a decision, but you're always assuming some amount of risk no matter what you do. Why can't I decide the level of risk I want to take?
contrasting with a strong background color, to mimic wasps and poison dart frogs.
lol
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.
Why the fuck is this "Flamebait?" This exactly how it should work. NO one is forcing anyone to use Uber. All this does is eliminate competition and protect cab company margins, and ensure that the number of tourists willing to visit Austin (that do any research at all) will plummet.
Hell I had a job offer from an Austin company and my reply was just today "I have no interest in living in a town where if I need a ride I have to call Yellow Cab. Please do not contact me again."
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
If you want to pass a law that says Uber must display a prominent warning to new users in their app that says, "We do not fingerprint drivers. Use this system at your own risk.", so be it. However, Uber should also be free, right after that warning, to tell people what the actual probability is that the driver will assault the passenger, and User should be able to compare that to the risk you will be assaulted in a taxi. Let the facts speak for themselves.
It's sad that the state will allow me to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes, but they will not allow me to get into a car with a stranger who has not been fingerprinted (unless of course that stranger gives me a ride for free).
Why would you prefer a higher chance that your driver is going to hurt you in some way? That makes no sense.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Why would you prefer a higher chance that your driver is going to hurt you in some way? That makes no sense.
Security costs money. For example, take the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado. Would putting armed guards at every theater in the country make us safer in movie theaters? Probably. Would it be worth the cost? Probably not. If you disagree, you are free to open your own theater and hire armed guards yourself. That's the beauty of the free market.
Likewise, Uber tells me that they already do background checks, and they say that the fingerprint check that the city of Austin wants is redundant and creates an undue operational burden. I choose to believe Uber. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my choice. And, unlike you and the city of Austin, I'm not trying to force my choices on anyone else.
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."
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.
>> I'm not trying to force my choices on anyone else.
Sure you are. Want if I want to know that whatever driver I get has for sure been fingerprinted?
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.
>> Taxi drivers do not currently need to be fingerprinted
Yes they do, at least in SF.
https://www.sfmta.com/services...
The number in the summary was for votes cast in favor of Prop 1. They didn't pay for anyone to vote against them.
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.
Cause all those consumer protection laws...they were just made by bureaucrats who woke up one morning and said " I want to make a businessman's life hell!".
they weren't at all enacted after rampant and repeated abuses of consumers....oh no. that wasn't it at all....
Libertarianism is a bankrupt ideology.
It's nothing more than anarchy for the weak and powerless, and unrestricted power* for the already powerful.
(*used to say socialism there, but really, it's whatever the powerful want)
"Let the market decide"...
As in..."We shouldn't regulate tobacco...we should let the market decide"...after all, its not like the companies are going to lie and cover up research? And surely if people are dying millions of preventable deaths...the market will force them to self-regulate, and consumers wont let them get away with it...right? Now excuse me while I send in this ad campaign of a cool cartoon character to market to kids, and pay off these "researchers".
Or..."We shouldn't restrict lead." So what if the rest of the world did in the 1920s because of ill effects. We got all this research saying its harmless! We put it in paint, gasoline...everything! It's everywhere in the environment, and it's totally safe? Right? And if it wasn't...consumers would demand we change, right?
"Let the market decide"...
Yeah..sure. That always works.
And I run a unicorn ranch on the Arizona coast.
Self regulation is a fairy tale told by ignorant shills.
Ignorant, because they've been duped into shilling for these companies for free because of a failed ideology that doesn't work in the real world.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
No you didn't.
And if you did, you're a fool, who rejected a job for a foolish reason.
And you have it backwards : allowing taxi companies to get away with not calling themselves taxi companies, and thus ignore the rules all other taxis have to obey, is actually a method to eliminate competition, not preserve it. The result of the vote actually preserves the level playing field of competition.
If you don't see that, then I suggest you brush up on your Adam Smith, because somewhere along the way your view of competition got corrupted by ignorance.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
"It's not 100% foolproof" is a true but misleading statement. Between standard taxis (with fingerprinting) and Uber in the same market (without fingerprinting) in markets with significant numbers of Uber drivers (statistics don't work when you have a sample size of 4, dude), the amount of driver-on-passenger assault is essentially equivalent.
In other words: the data suggests fingerprinting is approximately as effective for the purpose of improving passenger safety as measuring the driver's penis size and keeping that on file. Not really better than doing nothing.
Politician's soliloquy: Something must be done; this is something; therefor, this must be done.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
What data? please cite your references.
>> Taxi drivers do not currently need to be fingerprinted
Yes they do, at least in SF.
https://www.sfmta.com/services...
This is about Austin, not San Francisco.
R.Mo
I really wonder if the OP was trying to be sarcastic with that statement (but failing miserably).
There's another great example of this: the GOP primaries. Look at how much Jeb Bush's campaign spent: it was absolutely enormous. But he failed miserably in the primaries, and instead Trump has won, and he didn't spend much at all.
Money can definitely make a difference, but it's not the sole determinant. When voters are pissed, no amount of money will make them vote the way you want. However, if the people who count the votes are corrupted, it doesn't matter so much how the people voted. This has been seen in the Democratic primaries, such as in Illinois, where the elections were blatantly rigged.
Then you don't use Uber/Lyft. Isn't that obvious in this line of logic? No one is forcing you to use these services.
The problem with your theory is that it sounds great on paper, but almost never works out in practice. Corruption *is* easier to spot in the lowest levels of government, but it's also the hardest to fix there; higher levels of government end up having to jump in and fix the mess, because the locals can't do anything about it for various reasons. Local governments will happily violate state and federal laws, and can only be stopped when those higher-level governments send their enforcers in to stop it and drag people into state or federal court for trials, so that necessitates those higher level governments have a certain amount of power and funding. Local governments are usually a horror show of blatant corruption, and what can anyone do when the local politicians, their rich benefactors (like car dealership owners), and the local cops are all in it together? And who counts the votes in the local elections?
Having options other than traditional taxi cabs is eliminating competition? If the extra regulation of taxis is truly worthwhile and desired by the public then it would be impossible for Uber or Lyft to compete with them, right?
Thats retarded. No-one has the time or resources to vet the workings of the parent company every time they get into a taxi or use any other service. I think its more than reasonable to expect that all reasonable basic safety checks have already been done.
Trying to find the reports I was looking at. Slashdot carried an article several months ago about Uber getting hit up in California because, across the whole state, they've had 25 assaults on passengers in their entire operating history; I did a bunch of research on the topic then, and concluded that Uber isn't specially safer, just not specially more dangerous. A lot of comments had horror stories about how taxis are so constantly dangerous to passengers, but that's the same kind of wargarble on the other side.
This one isn't strong enough. It makes a lot of logical arguments and carries some data (passenger assaults on drivers), but not the data I want (driver assaults on passengers). Still, the argument that fingerprinting might possibly carry more than 7 years of non-conviction arrests while Uber's background checks get all of that data *except* the non-conviction arrests is ... telling (what, not guilty, but not *really* innocent because you *did* get arrested some 20 years ago, even if the judge decided you didn't commit any crime? They're going to ban you from driving Uber for that? That's a lot of grasping for straws).
A Chicago study says taxi crimes went down when Uber entered the market; I think they just shifted taxi service to Uber and didn't count Uber crime. New York reports a rise in taxi cab sexual assault reporting, I think because people are chattering about how possibly dangerous Uber/Lyft might be and now are primed to be more vocal about getting groped in a taxicab. I also found a newspaper with the 2016 headline, "New York taxi drivers banned from flirting with or ejaculating on passengers" ... ... wtf?
This is impossible today. If you put "taxi assault statistics" into Google, you get 16 pages of highly-political, heavily-biased pages about Uber/Lyft, and how taxis *must* be safer because of insurance or background checks, or how Uber *must* be safer because it has *better* insurance or background checks (and tons of technology tracking everything that happens). Most studies are localized, not nationalized, and so you come across Chicago and Detroit and New York and "our city police don't specially-track who was committing a crime, so we can't know how many taxi drivers actually assault passengers". News outlets aren't particularly invested in settling the dispute, either, because it creates fear and draws eyeballs.
Great. Now I have to wait for both some institute to publish statistics *and* the news to latch onto it and make it popular so it doesn't vanish into the black hole of shit-you-can't-find-on-the-Internet.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
How is a past criminal a present bad guy?
Unless that is you make them a present bad guy by denying them the ability to actually get a job.
Ok I don't want to repeatedly comment on all you points but this is stupid. Someone has done something, served some time for it, and has been deemed a low enough risk to be let back into the public.
Now what makes no sense is fearing this person to the point where you would deny them the chance of making a living. You know what people without money do when they can't get a job? I'll let you guess. First four letters are C R I M and an action that will likely result with you parted with your wallet.
And as for your comment below:
Want if I want to know that whatever driver I get has for sure been fingerprinted?
To what end? Discrimination against a member of the public because you have some perceived risk that someone may sometime do something bad to you? Wait... you're not that lady that reported someone as a terrorist because he was writing math equations are you? Also when the sun shines you may cast a shadow. Just thought I'd give you the heads up in case it spooks you.
Interesting that you label others stupid when you have exhibited an inability to extrapolate what fingerprinting can mean for unsolved crimes.
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Interesting that you label others stupid when you have exhibited an inability to extrapolate what fingerprinting can mean for unsolved crimes.
You're right I take it back. That's not stupid. That super frigging think of the children because the terrorists are coming fucking paranoid. Now papers please comrade, after all someone somewhere may have committed a crime and we want to make damn certain it wasn't you Mr Pem, assuming that is infact your real name.
"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.
Why the fuck is this "Flamebait?" This exactly how it should work. NO one is forcing anyone to use Uber. All this does is eliminate competition and protect cab company margins, and ensure that the number of tourists willing to visit Austin (that do any research at all) will plummet.
Hell I had a job offer from an Austin company and my reply was just today "I have no interest in living in a town where if I need a ride I have to call Yellow Cab. Please do not contact me again."
And if you got a job offer from Uber you could just reply "I have no interest in working for a company where if I need a job I have to get fingerprinted. Please do not contact me again."
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor...
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
>> because you have some perceived risk that someone may sometime do something bad to you?
You conveniently overlooked the most important bit... the increased risk is real and is based on the FACT that they've already actually done something bad to someone.
Thanks for your comprehensive reply.
As you pointed out, the political involvement and resultant vagueness around anything solid just make me feel even surer about my original point that I don't see the problem with drivers being mandatorily fingerprinted/background checked.
It seems to be far bigger than that.
In any case (despite all the protestations I see) it doesn't make sense to do fingerprinting for cabs and pedicabs and not Uber drivers. If you want to fix it, fix it all around. Don't make an ordinance specific to "ridesharing" and toss in a bunch of other garbage (like being able to stop anywhere on a whim).
And all the false information in some of the threads here about how the city never did this for cabs and pedicabs is, intentionally or not, completely wrong. For that many people to be that misinformed, somebody had to be actively lying.
Which is, IMO, why Uber lost -- reams and reams of mails and phone calls with active, malicious lies in them.
So where do you think you're going to find a taxi service that does fingerprinting then? Austin doesn't have it. They only recently made this a law and it isn't implemented yet. Lots of other places don't have it either. Some municipalities do have this, but it's not universal. So apparently, having drivers fingerprinted does NOT qualiy as "basic safety checks". Therefore, if that's important to you, then it's your responsibility to check with every parent company to find one that does this for their drivers.
Should we also have mandatory checks for eyebrow width and the space between their eyes? Endomorphic theory says short, chubby people with beady eyes are more likely to be thieves and rapists, after all.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
NIce troll dude.
The difference is that background checks discover what crimes people HAVE ALREADY COMITTED.
See the differnece? There is no prejudice here. They have already demonstrated their criminality through their own actions. Or are you seriously trying to propose that people shouldn't ever have to take responsibility for their own actions?
The difference is that background checks discover what crimes people HAVE ALREADY COMITTED.
False. Comparing non-fingerprint background checks to fingerprint background checks, the non-fingerprint background checks provide data INCLUDING the prior seven years of arrest records WHERE NO CONVICTION WAS RENDERED, while the fingerprinted background checks MAY provide arrest records WHERE NO CONVICTION WAS RENDERED for an indefinite period.
That means if I accuse you of molesting a 9-year-old girl, the police arrest you, and the courts decide I'm crazy and full of shit, Uber's background check will show your arrest for child molestation for 7 years, while an FBI background check may (or may not) still show that arrest 15 years later.
If you're found guilty, the non-fingerprint background check will find that conviction until you die. 50 years later, it's still on your public record, sans-fingerprinting.
Also: my point wasn't the technical merits; it was the perception. You said you don't see the point; the point is FINGERPRINT CHECKS CREATE A PERCEPTION THAT NON-FINGERPRINT-CHECKED PEOPLE ARE POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS, and there is no basis for this. Thus we create a baseless prejudice against non-fingerprinted drivers, wherein people believe they are more dangerous than fingerprinted drivers. The example I gave was also a baseless and useless mechanism people have actually used to determine if someone is a potential criminal--it was and is just as effective as fingerprint-based background checks in comparison to non-fingerprint-based background checks.
Support my political activism on Patreon.