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Uber Fined $8.9 Million In Colorado For Allowing Drivers With Felonies, Motor Violations To Work (jalopnik.com)
Uber has been fined by a Colorado regulator on Monday for nearly $9 million, after an investigation revealed that 57 people with criminal and motor vehicle offenses were allowed to drive with the ride-hailing company. Jalopnik reports: States across the U.S. have been considering laws to require additional background checks for individuals who drive for Uber and competitors like Lyft. In Colorado, the state's Public Utilities Commission investigated the company's drivers after an incident this past March, reported The Denver Post, when a driver dragged a passenger out of a car and kicked them in the face. The commission said it found 57 drivers had issues that should've disqualified them from driving for Uber, including felony convictions for driving under the influence and reckless driving, while others had revoked, suspended or canceled licenses. A similar investigation was conducted on Lyft, the Post reported, but no violations were revealed. An Uber spokesperson said the situation stems from a "process error" that was "inconsistent with Colorado's ridesharing regulations." The spokesperson said Uber "proactively notified" the commission. "This error affected a small number of drivers and we immediately took corrective action," the company said in a statement to the Post. "Per Uber safety policies and Colorado state regulations, drivers with access to the Uber app must undergo a nationally accredited third-party background screening. We will continue to work closely with the CPUC to enable access to safe, reliable transportation options for all Coloradans."
Remember when users here whined about Austin, TX wanting Uber to conduct stronger background checks... Care to eat crow?
There's no incentive for someone, once convicted of a felony, to cease committing crimes when the only places that will hire them are Taco Bell and McDonald's. That's why our prison system doesn't reform people, it just makes them even worse criminals. The law should work the other way: it should be illegal to discriminate against people for past transgressions unless they clearly disqualify the individual, such as a child molester working at a daycare.
It would seem that something as basic as being an Uber driver should be available for most former criminals. I mean, I get the people who don't have drivers licenses are a problem, but why should you have a spotless record to be an Uber driver?
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
That will teach them.
NOT.
You want change?
Jail the Uber execs.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No Lee Iacocca, his reign begins to resemble a Marissa Mayer salvation.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If government cares, then government should police that nonsense.
It's not the responsibility of The People to do the Government's job.
Colorado never enforces laws on companies that are native to its turf. Because xenophobia and anti-Americanism bring votes and support, repeated kangaroo courts against American companies are common. Had a company in Denver did the same violations, it would have been completely ignored. In fact, there has yet to be a single Colorado company actually fined more than a token amount by Colorado in its courts, in its history.
Is that a crime? Anyone know?
I just want a fucking ride. Both parties are being tracked by phone. If Uber was a felon's place to do damage we would be seeing bad things happening every day.
Basically, who's to say what clearly disqualifies somebody? I've seen it pointed out several times that just about any serious crime should probably disqualify somebody from being alone in a tiny, high speed vehicle that probably has the ability to control whether the passenger leaves or not (child locks). And that's before we start talking about whether someone with a history of DUI/DWI should be allowed to drive professionally.
I'm generally in agreement on the whole punishment factor though. I'd like to see punishment ended entirely as numerous studies show it's worthless past about age 10. Probably a better solution is things like basic income, which if we're wishing for things that aren't politically feasible and just aren't going to happen (like not abusing ex-cons) then we might as well wish for that.
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it legitimizes their business. What they should be fined for is skirting minimum wage laws and mis-classifying employees as contractors. This is more or less the exact opposite of that.
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Uber accepted me as a driver. I am not driving for them, but apparently I could if I wanted.
From the summary it seems like they got in trouble for having drivers with vehicle related felonies.
would politicians want to drive for Uber? i call bullshit.
Whenever something bad happens there's always someone that says, "There should be a law against that!" Well, we can't bubblewrap the world. There's just some things that the law cannot fix.
Beating people up is still illegal. So, there is already a law against offering someone a ride, then dragging them from the vehicle, and kicking them in the face. The connection to some ride share app is pretty tenuous. The whole point of services like Lyft and Uber is that it's a cheaper ride because they did away with the overhead of running a taxi service, that comes with a cost somewhere else. If you want someone giving you a ride to have gone through a background check from the FBI then go call a traditional taxi service.
If we make a law that ride sharing services have to run background checks then prices will go up. Then we'll see someone come up with some other way to sell rides at a lower cost by circumventing the regulations on ride sharing services. What would that look like? I don't know, maybe it'd be an app that claims to sell anything on a short time scale but people merely use it to offer rides. When the next person gets in a drag out and beat down fight because of some argument over fares then someone will scream, "There should be a law!" We simply cannot make a law to cover every variation on every possible threat to someone getting beat up. What we can do, and should do, is when someone does beat up someone else over a trivial matter like a $10 fare that violent behavior needs to be punished.
Imagine I create an app that allows people to advertise their services to tie people's shoelaces. I have no intention of creating such an app, nor do I think such a thing would have any success but just imagine any arbitrary service. Now imagine we have someone using this app to offer their services to tie laces ends up beating up one of the people instead of tying their laces. Am I now going to be required to run a background check on the people that advertise on my app? What happens if the person offering their services to tie shoelaces ends up getting beat up? Will there then be a law requiring that the people asking for the shoelace tying service to have a background check before they can request services through my app? The connection to people offering the service of a car ride is really meaningless, this could have been any service. The only reason we are talking about this is because these services are popular and still relatively new.
It turns out that the world is a dangerous place and we cannot make it safe by piling on more laws. Sure, we need law to place limits on behavior to have a polite society but even law needs its limits on behavior. Beating up people is bad, and those that do it need to be punished. Does past behavior have a tendency to predict future behavior? Do people with a history of violence tend to have a violent future? Sure. If Uber and Lyft want to run their drivers through a background check voluntarily then that should be their choice. Don't make it the law to have to do so.
I remember seeing an advertisement for someone wanting to do a ride share. Not a ride share like Uber and Lyft, which are really just taxi services now. What I saw was someone that wanted to share a ride every day between near where I live and where I go to school. If I took up this offer for getting paid to drive this person would I be in violation of this law for not going through a background check? Who would be liable if something happened? I don't recall where I saw this ride share request, I recall it was just some general job posting website. Would job posting websites now have to run background checks for ride share offers? Would they have to now check every posting to see if it's some kind of ride share and remove them or risk getting fined?
This is just stupid. If we keep piling up the regulations on everything then we'll just end up burying ourselves.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Fixed that for you...
To me that sounds like a very miserable corner to back yourself into by committing a felony.
It's not like felonies are committed involuntarily.
Again, not all felons committed violent acts.
You're right.
Will you be the first to hand your credit card to pay for your Uber ride to Jeffrey Skilling, the former CEO of Enron?
Almost all non-violent felonies involve money... I would not hire these people to handle money.
Excuse me?
Again, they probably are not. You are punishing a whole set of the population because of your fear of the few.
In what universe, where Spock has a beard, is not being allowed to drive for Uber "punitive"?
Why. Statutory rape is a serious crime but it has nothing to do with driving. Which was the parent poster's point. There's no reason a convicted statutory rapist can't work in a bank, and there's no reason someone convicted of bank fraud can't work at a daycare.
Which is exactly how other, less-stupid countries do it. Rather than do a background check that can disqualify someone today based on a petty drug offense that occurred during the Carter Administration, an employer asks the local police department if the applicant has a record that applies to that job. Otherwise you're practically begging for recidivism. If you're going to continue to punish people after their sentences have been served, some of them will decide they may as well be guilty of something. Especially if you're keeping them in total poverty.