Having lost a referendum over whether they would be regulated by the local government, the ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft followed through on their threat to effectively fire 10,000 drivers and strand thousands of customers who had come to rely on them for transportation in this hot, spread-out, car-centric city.
I love Uber and Lyft. I use both services quite often.
I live here, I voted against Prop 1. For simply not wanting to fingerprint drivers (and get into any legal bindings that would make them treat drivers as anything other than contractors), they acted arrogantly and pissed off a lot of people. Constant mailers, cold calls, robo-texts, and guys knocking on our doors at 9 pm in the evening. Not to mention the way they tried to mislead people on the ballot. “Vote for Prop 1 if you want to keep Austin Safe” I believe was their tagline. “Vote for Prop 1 or we’ll leave”. Bye then. Lyft has already changed their claims to that they are “pausing” their service. I predict they’ll be back within a month.
Uber and Lyft could stand a bit of oversight.
Not so über … Austin? You give Texas a bad name.
It’s complete BS that Uber and Lyft are getting away with murder. They are taxi services. Period. Ride Sharing, before Uber and Lyft, and which still exists is where you pick people up for FREE to use HOV lanes. That is ride sharing. If you are exchanging money for a ride, that is a taxi.
Fingerprinting is totally reasonable. Heck, most jobs require it now. Uber has a lot of cash to throw around, and it’s doing it. Their “business model” is to be a taxi service and not have to play by the taxi rules. It will catch up to them sooner or later.
http://www.recode.net/2016/1/29/11589190/things-are-getting-ugly-in-ubers-and-lyfts-fight-against-fingerprint
That initial legislation was prompted by concerns over rider safety, specifically sexual assault. According to a document provided to Re/code, in 2015 the Austin Police Department received 27 reports of unwanted sexual contact in taxi cabs and ride-hailing services. Two took place in an “Independent Ride Share,” five happened in taxis and the remaining 20 occurred during Uber and Lyft rides. Seven assaults were committed by transportation network company drivers.
These numbers, up from eight reports (exclusively in cabs) in 2014, prompted the Police Department and assault victims advocacy organizations to recommend the more stringent background checks for drivers.
How many sexual assaults should Austin accept so that they can keep Uber and Lyft without fingerprints?
God, you are such a fool.
People, this is NOT about fingerprints. None of you who are supporting the city have even read the legislation like I have. The city of Austin had 12 pages of brand new regulations for Uber and Lyft, including (drum roll please) NOT BEING ABLE TO PICK PEOPLE UP ON CITY STREETS. Also, the city of Austin demanded a 2% equity share in the annual revenues of Uber and Lyft. Are you paying attention yet? There are 12 pages of bullshit like this. And it gets 20 times worse than that.
Now I will admit that Uber and Lyft did a bad job educating people as to what was really going on with the government’s new oppressive legislation, and how important it was to deny the new legislation by voting yes (which would have kept the old legislation in place). But I am still absolutely appalled with our corrupt city council and how they totally catered to the taxi cartel lobbyists. (Don’t get me started on the fingerprints — I have a whole video coming out to talk about the corruption there.) In the meantime, drunk driving incidents were down 25% since Uber and Lyft came to town. 10,000 people had jobs to make ends meet and to put that money back into the economy. 2.5 million people per year used Uber and Lyft on Austin. And now we have drunks back on the road again, we have unemployed people again, and we have inconvenienced & stranded people everywhere. Meanwhile, I saw a taxi do an illegal u-turn today and another taxi run a red light today. They think they own this city. Probably because they do.
grow up kiddo.
Most jobs require it now? Most certainly not. Maybe in the police state where you live…
Québec Canada just passed new project law to be adopted to force Uber driver to have taxi permit and pay taxi driving licence, and get adequate car insurance for taxi transportation.
In sum, Uber will probably leave Quebec !
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2016/05/12/quebec-government-introduces-bill-to-regulate-uber-and-taxi-industry.html