It’s a practice that Sunday school teachers have to undergo. Uber and Lyft are so opposed to having their drivers fingerprinted, that they have suspended service in major U.S. cities.
While fingerprints are generally considered the best way of weeding out criminals they cost more than the simple background reviews that app-based ride-hailing businesses have done to ensure their continued use throughout the country.
A few months after Austin’s City Council voted to allow them anyway, Uber and Lyft spent $8.6 millions on a campaign blitz. “dicey misdirections”In the city’s largest newspaper — for voters to overturn regulations.
It was far from perfect.
The voters voted for 56 percent to 44% of the votes.
Why wouldn’t they? Take a look at the following:
* Ride-hailing drivers have been accused of a string of rapes, murders and other crimes across the nation.
* Uber agreed in April to pay as much as $25 million to settle a lawsuit in California that accused it of misleading customers about the strength of its background checks on drivers. “Laws designed to protect consumers cannot be ignored,” San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon declared.
The Austin vote is remarkable because people went to the polls aware that Lyft and Uber had threatened to withdraw if they didn’t loosen their rules.
“The threat brings to mind what was, for my generation, a famous (humor) magazine image,”Austin American-Statesman reporter wrote that he was referring to a 1973 National Lampoon illustration of a man shooting at a small dog’s head. “‘If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog,'”The headline read.
“Lyft and Uber told Austin, essentially, pass our (favored) regulations or we’ll kill your dog.”
The “dog,”In Austin’s case, Austin’s reporter clarified that they were their customers as well as as as many as 15,000 (at most temporarily out of work) drivers.
Advocates for public safety hope that the Austin vote will mark a turning point in their ongoing efforts to get Ubers around the world to follow the same rules as everyone else.
“Until all municipalities require suitable background checks for drivers of these ride-hailing services, we fear continued disastrous consequences as a result of digital hitchhiking,”Scott Solombrino, cofounder of the National Limousine Association (Limo.org).
Austin Mayor Steve Adler is offering to come back to the bargaining tables to make a deal. Uber and Lyft urge Austinites to contact their City Council Members if they wish to resume services.
One small start-up ride-hailing service called GetMe has said that it is not a problem complying to the fingerprinting requirements.
