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Uber, Lyft Leave Austin
Via the NYT:
On Monday, the two leaders of the booming ride-hailing industry halted service in Austin, Tex., after losing a legislative fight over how they screen their drivers. The decision to leave an energetic city known for its young, well-educated populationoffered a stark illustration of how strenuously the companies oppose new rules that would require them to perform fingerprint background checks on drivers. Ending the service also meant that about 10,000 drivers would be out of work, Taylor Patterson, an Uber spokeswoman, said. “Folks are devastated,” she said. “People are saying, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pay my rent.’”
More:
Published in CultureDavid Butts, a political consultant in Austin who helped lead a campaign to preserve the new ordinance, accused Uber and Lyft of putting corporate strategy above public safety.
“But we’re a progressive city,” Mr. Butts said. “We happen to believe that government has a role to play. And the idea that we’re just going to give them a blank check and say, ‘Self-regulate and we’ll take your word for it’ was not acceptable to the majority of voters in this city.”
They should be treated the same as other cab companies. Are others required to do the same kind of checks in their drivers?
. . . and how does that assault rate compare with the rate for taxi drivers. If the government is going to assert its “need” to regulate, the government should be required to show that the regulation makes a [positive] difference.
And didn’t this sentence set off your irritation meter:
“But we’re a progressive city,” Mr. Butts said. “We happen to believe that government has a role to play.”
I agree. And this will teach leftists a lesson. When they stifle businesses, consumers suffer. I’m kidding myself, leftists never learn.
I’m not sure what this particular wrinkle changes, but Austin is now recommending that the cab industry be deregulated. Mostly it looks like lifting restrictions on the number of cab drivers in the city.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/city-recommends-austins-cabs-be-deregulated/nrLLQ/
Sounds like they’re just whittling down regulations on par with the ride-sharing companies, i.e. not completely deregulating and making it a wild west situation, but simply bringing cab companies to roughly equal legal status with Uber. They’ll still require fingerprints. That seems like a smart thing to do all around.
Especially if you or someone you know is the one assaulted. It happened to a realative of a friend of my wife.