Police Targeting Uber And Lyft Drivers?

[villager]

It’s not easy being an innovator, as Lyft and Uber drivers in place likes Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are finding out as the police are issuing thousands of dollars in citations to “send a message.”

Officers in plain cloths in Madison and Pittsburgh have used the ride sharing apps to summon up a ride and then promptly issue the driver a ticket upon arrival for violating the city’s taxi driving ordinances.

In response, Uber has been trying to rally rides to their cause in Pittsburgh with the hashtag #PGHNeedsUber and asking them to contact their local officials.

Lyfts has been paying their drivers tickets and offering legal assistance.

<snip>

http://www.pymnts.com/news/social-commerce/2014/police-targeting-uber-and-lyft-drivers/

[snooper2]

1. nobody took the time to tell the person who came up with "lyft" that they spelled it wrong?

kind of a fail right , or was it some tweens creation?

[KurtNYC]

5. Okay I'm taking the time to tell you that you spelled "tweens" incorrectly. n/t

[snooper2]

6. how do you spell tweens correctly?

google search says I got it right

[KurtNYC]

8. In your sentence it needs an apostrophe -- tween's creation.

We would also accept "Tween's creation" with the initial cap like the terms Boomers, and Millenials.

[Starry Messenger]

2. They are breaking the law.

"The tickets mark a shift in how police are responding to the controversial companies, which have been offering rides to Madison customers for weeks despite the city saying they amount to unlicensed taxis.

Police officials said in March they could cite drivers or launch sting operations, but they also said doing so was not a top priority and that they hoped the companies would voluntarily stop giving rides. As Lyft and Uber stayed active, though, Capt. Richard Bach of the department’s traffic division said police and city officials decided citations were necessary.

“There needed to be enforcement action taken to send a message that the city was not going to tolerate their operation without licensing,” Bach said.

<snip>

Each received three citations totaling $1,317 for violations of the city’s taxi ordinances, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said, including a $691 fine for transporting passengers for hire without a license.

The Uber driver also was cited for an illegal U-turn made after the passenger was out of the car, DeSpain said."

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/police-lyft-uber-drivers-cited-in-ride-sharing-sting/article_8cf054ff-7c55-5448-8cff-eee89da884f2.html#ixzz30NqD6KRw

[villager]

3. Or does the law need to adapt...

...rather than being used to reduce peoples' transportation choices in these towns?

Is using police to target these drivers the best way to "stop crime," or is it akin to grabbing people outside medical marijuana dispensaries?

And further, how do police know who is riding Lyft or Uber?

[hfojvt]

4. presumably the licensing is there to keep passengers safe

and to keep drivers safe.

Hard to tell.

KCTV5 just did a story about the same thing in KC.

[villager]

7. The licensing can also be used to prevent lower-cost alternatives from arising...

...and to keep monopolies in place.

I doubt the police's main worry is, suddenly, the "safety" of taxpayers.

[hfojvt]

9. monopolies?

Shirley there is more than one cab company in Madtown, a city of over 200,000 people. Perhaps even some bus lines. http://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/schedules/

There are even "Sprecher" neighborhoods in Madtown. http://www.cityofmadison.com/metro/schedules/RideGuide/rideGuide.pdf

I wonder who that is named after.

[villager]

10. By "monopoly," I meant a particular industry, with existing players

...keep the door shut to anyone else.

Still, the enforcement -- and again, how do the police know who has texted for an Uber ride, etc.? -- isn't being used for "safety," but to protect existing business licenses.

No, might Uber or Lyft need to meet in the middle, for some kind of safety oversight? Perhaps so.

But these various sharing models -- AirBnB is another -- tend to undercut pricing in established businesses, benefiting a broader array of citizens.

the police are being dispatched to protect profit margins -- that is all.

[hfojvt]

11. the world is so simple, isn't it?

It must be about the profit margins.

Who tends to undercut pricing in established businesses? Other established businesses.

Once I opened my own bookstore, I could not help noticing how almost every retailer with an "extra" two square feet would put in a spin rack so they could get into the lucrative book business.

Maybe it was lucrative for them - it never was for me.

But I also had to compete with Madtown, because my customers could easily drive there for larger selection and maybe even lower prices.

[villager]

14. In your world, the police are only here to protect weak citizens, and never the profits...

...of businesses?

That's some world.

[hfojvt]

16. "only"

I am not saying only.

But I am saying it is more complicated than "the police state protecting the capitalists".

My world is a mad, mad, mad, mad world, especially in Madtown, which BTW is a very liberal town. Dane county voted for Obama by 71% to 27%, even in 2012.

In my world, at least in theory, the police answer to the commission which answers to all those liberal voters.

And Madtown is loaded with bicycles too, even though you gotta be nuts to bike in that traffic.

In my world, there are risks involved in getting a ride, or giving a ride to a random stranger. Risks that are reduced by regulations. Regulations that lyft is apparently ignoring.

[villager]

17. Listen, I don't actually disagree with a lot of that

And as the sharing economy grows, and new business models arrive -- especially those helpful to ordinary citizens -- we'll have to rethink ways to regulate, or protect consumers (outside of bad Yelp reviews!)

Still, that will also mean more than "cops helping to shut down new businesses, to protect established ones."

And I'm still wondering how they know who to target?

[LeftyMom]

21. Uber cars have a blue lit U in the window, Lyft cars have a big pink fuzzy handlebar mustache

attached to the front grill/bumper.

Not hard to spot.

For a sting all the cops would have to do is download the app to somebody's phone and request a pickup.

[villager]

22. Kind of a basic entrapment thing

So they're calling for rides, then ticketing whoever shows up...

[LeftyMom]

23. No, entrapment would be "hey, you should sign up for that Lyft thing to make some money"

Lyft drivers have a habit of taking the mustaches off their cars when they go to airports and other places where they know they're likely to be ticketed, they know what they're doing isn't legal.

[elleng]

26. That's been the historic rationale,

but there were and still are unintended consequences, as always.

[Starry Messenger]

18. The police aren't arresting the passengers.

Uber can follow the laws, just like the taxis.

This is why regulations are a good thing:

Why Is Uber Charging You Extra to Not Get Assaulted?

"The next time you hop in an UberX—one of the transit startup's fancy gypsy cabs run by unlicensed drivers—you'll notice a new "Safe Ride Fee" added to your fare. It's only a dollar, but since when do we have to pay extra to not get raped?

The question of who exactly is driving you in the "sharing economy" has come up, notably, a few times in the past year. Last month, The Daily Beast's Olivia Nuzzi recounted a particularly unsettling encounter with an Uber driver:

At the end of the ride, the Uber driver asked me if I had been near Lincoln Center a few hours earlier. I said I hadn't, since I didn't remember walking past there. Then he took out his iPad. "Really?" he asked. "Because you look like this girl." He turned the iPad around to face the back seat. To my surprise, I saw a full-length, close-up picture of me, wearing the workout clothes I'd had on an hour previously.

Uber has promised (nebulous) background checks and screening processes before, but they're clearly inadequate—maybe a company with such a thick libertarian streak thought the market would simply weed out creeps and convicts."

<snip>

[LeftyMom]

20. Lyft's "background check" is that they let you see your driver's facebook page.

Really. I wish I were making that up.

Lyft is really pushing to expand here. I feel bad for the drivers. If they get in an accident their insurance won't cover them (driving passengers around for money is explicitly excluded from regular auto policies) and they'll be all kinds of fucked.

[Starry Messenger]

31. I know, that insurance doesn't cover this.

And the insurance that Lyft and Uber claim to have to cover their drivers is hinky too.

[MADem]

27. And further, how do police know who is riding Lyft or Uber?

Sounds like the police are signing up for the service and stinging the participants.

[Retrograde]

12. You gotta admit it's a great business model

the company owns no vehicles, pays no insurance or maintenance, doesn't pay the drivers or provide them benefits, but takes a cut of every transaction. Maximize inflow, push the expenses on to someone else.

So Lyft has been paying the tickets? That's nice of them: in San Francisco Uber has been denying anything to do with an incident in which one of their drivers killed a child, saying that the driver was between fares, excuse me, clients.

There's another stir going on now in San Francisco about Airbnb, a lodging "sharing" company organized along the same lines. The "sharing" is the company's spin: if I say "Sure, Fellow DUer, you can crash at my place for a few days" that's sharing. If I take money from strangers in exchange for a bed and a roof over their heads that's renting. (Disclaimer: I have used Airbnb back when it got started to sublet an apartment abroad. It was inexpensive, the guy we rented from was very helpful, but I don't think I'd rent out my place on the basis of a brief email correspondance)

[villager]

15. Well, we could take two isolated incidents from the taxi, car rental, or hotel businesses too

...and extrapolate from there that "no one should ever use these busineses!"

AirBnB is great -- I've found rooms in California towns where there was no other lodging. Friends have used it abroad, and housed foreign visitors here, who prefer the "locality" of rooms in houses to frittering away their entire travel budgets on hotels alone.

[MADem]

28. Lots of states do this for free with CARPOOL and RIDE SHARE schemes.

At the Pentagon they have a slug line where you wait at a bus stop for people who are heading your way; they trade a spot in the HOV lane for the fun of driving a few strangers partway home.

[villager]

30. Yes, some areas do. There are also rideshare notices on Craigslist.

Are those going to be targeted, too?

[Retrograde]

32. There's a difference between a casual carpool and a taxi service

There's a continuum: giving a lift to a co-worker or occasionally looking for passengers to help cover gas and tolls for a trip and running a full-up taxi service. Uber/Lyft claim they're doing the former when they're actually on the latter end of the spectrum, and like some children have the idea that if they call something by a different name it's a different thing. Is there room for improvement in how taxis are operated in the US? Certainly, and the arguments over unlicensed cab companies are good because they show that there are problems with the current system and that there are new ways to do something that may be better for customers in the long run. Doing it while "sharing" all the risk with the individual operators while "sharing" the profit with the broker company is playing with semantics to get away from real costs of doing business - like making everyone who works in a particular business a contractor instead of an employee to avoid paying benefits.

I'm banishing the Newspeak "Sharing Economy" from my personal vocabulary.

[villager]

34. Banish all you want, but finding ways to share resources - rides, housing, food, etc. --

is really the only viable economic model left to us "going forward," as they say.

There will be kinks to work out, but having cops shut down start-ups isn't the way to "work it out."

[MADem]

38. UBER hires criminals--some of them violent.

They don't call their drivers "employees" either--they are independent contractors. You get in trouble, you're on your own.

That's a "viable economic model?" They sound like rip-off artists to me.

See this (click link for video), and the report downthread as well--I think you'll fall out of love in a hurry

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Is-Uber-Keeping-Riders-Safe-256438921.html

It’s the trendiest way to get around town, but Uber drivers have been linked to several alarming incidents including the death of a six year-old girl last New Year’s Eve. Now, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit has found that Uber’s policies can leave drivers and passengers in the lurch if there are accidents. And despite administering background checks, Uber still employs drivers with criminal records that include burglary, domestic assault and drug trafficking.

Drivers for UberX, which unlike the more upscale Uber black car service allows regular folks to drive their own cars, say the hiring process is quite simple. “It's all over the internet,” said Driver Bassim Elbatniji. “You only add your name, you add your social security”.

Elbatniji had been an UberX driver for only nine days when he collided with another vehicle. Just a mile into a short drive from the Mission to the Marina Districts, Elbatniji’s 2008 Toyota Prius smashed into another car, badly inuring himself and his passenger, Jason Herrera.

“All I remember was waking up inside the actual ambulance,” said Herrera. Both Hererra and Elbatniji were left with hospital bills. Elbatniji had personal car insurance—not commercial—and his plan wouldn’t cover the accident. Uber claims it’s not their responsibility. NBC Bay discovered just yesterday that the driver of the other car in this incident is a relative of an employee at the station.

“You buy a car, it comes with a warranty, you go step in a cab, you’ve got coverage” said Herrera. “I stepped into an Uber car and I have to question whether or not I’m going to be covered if there’s an accident?”

I think ridesharing is great, but you can call the carpool lines the "gubmint" runs or put a notice up on the bulletin board (either virtual or corkboard) at work. Seems like a safer bet than trusting a stranger who could be just out of jail because these people do shitty background checks.

[villager]

39. so.... no taxi driver, engineer, bus driver or pilot

...has ever been linked to criminal activity in the history of transport?

I guess we should shut down all those things too.

[MADem]

40. No--they actually go THROUGH real background checks, and the burglars and violent offenders are

eliminated.

I don't see UBER taking prints or asking for a standard form 186 or equivalent to be filled out.

Sorry, you don't make your case with snark. I question your judgment if you dismiss these reports, frankly.

I doubt NBC News is covering this just to get an "OOOOOH" or an "AGGGH." They're covering it because it is an issue. People have been hurt and been the victims of crime, many of them, in the short amount of time this business model has been up and running, because the drivers are not properly vetted. That is the take away from these reports.

[villager]

42. You clearly have an emotional stake in this, seeing snark where it is not

But that's beside the point.

You have made this specifically about potential failings of Uber, alone. Lyft -- which falls somewhere between Craigslist and Uber -- is different.

The question is: Should cops be randomly busting Uber and Lyft drivers simply for being drivers? The cops weren't busting criminal activity -- just drivers working for the service.

You consider this a splendid use of police resources. I do not.

I also agree that Uber will need to change, amp up its background checks (though it's begun to do that, actually), etc.

There will also be other services that come along to help re-allocate underused resources, that will threaten established businesses. Kinks will need to be worked out.

Hopefully cops will have better things to do that bust Lyft drivers trying to make extra money in a down economy.

[MADem]

44. Good grief; your argument is failing so you start getting personal about me!

"Emotional stake?" Please. And you were snarking.

I can look at the numbers (hint--that kind of thing is the OPPOSITE of emotional, you see) and draw a conclusion--the conclusion I have drawn is that this company doesn't vet their "not employees."

Tell me how many Bay Area cab drivers are violent criminals, have run over and killed six year old girls, or have burgled the homes of their customers in the last year or so, hmmmm?

When people are properly vetted, you get quality. When they aren't, you get ... UBER. Where 'employees' are not even 'employees'--they're independent contractors and you're on your own if you have a problem with them. Where they can get hired with no personal contact, over the internet.

Keep using the service if it floats your boat--I won't touch 'em with a twenty foot pole. And don't come crying here if you get a shitty driver who gets you in an accident and you wind up in the hospital; and don't cry if you return home to find your place burgled, or you get robbed by a driver with a drug problem.

Because, hey, it's all about the mean old police state, wanting to look out for their citizens and all!

If the drivers haven't gone through a training program, are not vetted for criminal activity, violent or otherwise, and don't have the same protections as a cabbie (in car cameras and contact with a dispatch), then the community at large is at risk--even if you can't see that. What sort of person would gravitate to a job where fast money can be made, and no one checks? Criminals, that's who.

This isn't about "threatening established businesses." It's about using inferior and unsafe and criminal drivers as "independent contractors" that they don't vouch for or check up on; even while they pretend to their hipster customer base that they do. Hot-breathed defense of this business model is just not smart. It's caveat emptor the whole way.

[MADem]

35. I think it's acceptable if no money changes hands, or goes to a service for the "introduction" in

essence.

In actual fact, we know that some carpoolers chip in for gas, while others just rotate the driver to even out the contribution to the group effort. Everyone wins because they get to use the HOV.

[Upward]

46. So Is Enslaved Labor

But we don't do that, anymore. Not outside of the black market, anyway.

[Initech]

13. Is it safe to say we're in a police state yet?

Seriously? Über? They're seriously targeting a shared ride service? Über is great, I use it a lot.

[MADem]

41. Watch your wallet and don't ever let them pick you up from your house.

Make sure you have good accident insurance because they might not pay your hospital bill.

WATCH these:

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/Is-Uber-Keeping-Riders-Safe-256438921.html

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/Risky-Ride-Uber-Investigation-256604571.html

I don't think we're in a "police state" if people are objecting to drivers of this dreadful caliber.

[MicaelS]

19. It is about the taxes and fees the city isn't getting.

It isn't about "protecting" the public. It is all about the money. Plain and simple. Soon as these ridesharing companies agree to start paying money to these cities, this behavior will stop.

[LeftyMom]

24. Or they could get the proper insurance and permits to protect their drivers.

Right now the drivers are taking on huge financial risks: after an accident they could be up shit creek because regular insurance policies will not cover them (and if they're still making payments on their cars they're likely also voiding their warranty.) These "ridesharing" companies know that they're placing their drivers and customers alike at risk and they're doing it to save a buck. It's exploitative.

[Luminous Animal]

25. It is actually more than that. In San Francisco, drivers undergo

background checks, random drug and alcohol checks, they are trained, they carry heavy duty insurance, and there are security cameras in the cab.

I would trust my 24 year old daughter with a licensed cab driver than with a random stranger.

[MineralMan]

29. How is operating a service for freelance cabs

innovative. Gypsy cabs have been around since, well, since cabs have been around. These two services simply provide a central system for getting the cabs to the place their customers are.

The problems with gypsy cabs are still the same. Improper insurance, poor background screening, and no vehicle inspections. If you ride in one of these cars, the risk is yours, and it could be a big risk. If you get into an accident and are injured, the driver's insurance ain't gonna pay for your medical care. If your car is hit by one of these Lyft or other gypsy cabs, the insurance won't pay off, because it prohibits using the car for commercial purposes.

I wouldn't ride in these cars, for those and other reasons.

Libertarianism isn't always the solution. Truly it's not. Good public transit is the solution.

[rafeh1]

33. you are mistaken

Uber and lyft both have policies covering their drivers. In fact their policies are more extensive than taxi policies.

Anyone what did airbnb do wrong besides not paying off the local political honchos.

[MADem]

37. Links and proof? NBC--Risky Ride?

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/Risky-Ride-Uber-Investigation-256604571.html

This report is HORRIFYING--I will never use UBER...they don't do criminal background checks!!!!!!! They say they do--but they don't.

And they say their drivers are not their employees--they are "independent contractors."

It's employment for ex-cons/burglars!!!!

[951-Riverside]

36. If I was a vulnerable person I would not get in one of those freelance cabs

I shutter to think what could happen if I happen to be drunk at a bar and ordered one to go home.

HELL no, I don't care what it costs, its just not worth it

[ProfessorGAC]

43. What 951 Said

Seems to be a marginally less risky form of hitchhiking.

[MADem]

45. Of course, you pay cash for the service...

None of that "Gas, grass or ass--nobody rides for free" stuff that was popular in the politically incorrect sixties and seventies (for the younger generation, that was an ACTUAL bumper sticker--imagine the outcry today?).

AGGH--I just did a google search, and to my shock I've discovered that the sentiment lingers on--I guess it's just not happening in MY neighborhood.