Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal • Hacker News Board

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#101

Post by paulmd » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:33 AM UTC

coherentpony wrote: post #57

Lazare wrote: post #2

I feel like I'm missing something. Reasonable people can disagree about what jobs should/should not require a background check, but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. > Unfortunately, the rules passed by the City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It…

> Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It's being presented as "Uber is literally unable to operate with this rule in place", but why? Do they need to fund the background checks? Are they too expensive? Would their drivers refuse to undergo them? Would their drivers fail them? Do taxi companies face the same rules? How is it they can maintain service? Because proposition 1 contained othe…

They would also have to identify their vehicles with a logo (slap a magnet on the side of the car), avoid obstructing an active street or bus stop, and pay one of three fee options (at Uber/Lyft's choice).

It's not going to cripple Uber/Lyft's business model. They disagree, of course, which is their prerogative. There are still taxi services available in Austin who find those regulations perfectly workable.

If you dislike your health department making you wear hair nets or meet food-holding temperatures, you are perfectly free to discontinue providing a service that goes against the public interest.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#102

Post by jensen123 » Sun, May 08, 2016, 9:44 AM UTC

I'm actually not familiar with criminal background checks, but they work like this right: if you get caught for some crime, and spend time in prison, then you will have a criminal record, and be discriminated against for the rest of your life?

This seems very unreasonable to me. Perhaps some very narrow/limited discrimination would make sense. Like if someone gets caught several times for drunk driving, then perhaps that person should not be allowed to have a drivers license for a long time afterwards. But if someone gets caught for smuggling drugs, then that person should never be allowed to drive a taxi for the rest of their life? That seems unreasonable.

Some groups, such as people with criminal records, sex workers, the mentally ill, people who enjoy other drugs than alcohol and until recently homosexuals, are treated very badly in some democracies. However, it's interesting that the mainstream press never makes much fuss about such human rights violations in democracies. In a democracy the majority has the power. Also, it's the goal of the mainstream press to sell as many newspapers as possible, get as many page views as possible etc. in order to make as much money as possible. Thus, they need to appeal to the majority. Pointing out that the majority is behaving in an unreasonable way will not endear them to said majority so they don't do that much.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#103

Post by Maxious » Sun, May 08, 2016, 10:08 AM UTC

madeofpalk wrote: post #100

xixixao wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, in Germany you cannot drive your family around without a special driving licence? Not all regulation makes sense...

The law isn't like programming. Judges typically see a difference between driving your family around driving for cash on Uber

> The Queensland government hopes to tweak legislation linked to a contentious crackdown on Uber that inadvertently made charter buses and limousines illegal as well.

> A spokesman for Transport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe, who received legal advice, on Thursday said the threat to all pre-booked passenger vehicles needed to be removed.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/business-as...

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#104

Post by jon-wood » Sun, May 08, 2016, 10:35 AM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #101

coherentpony wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It's being presented as "Uber is literally unable to operate with this rule in place", but why? Do they need to fund the background checks? Are they too expensive? Would their drivers refuse to undergo them? Would their drivers fail them? Do taxi companies face the same rules? How is it they can maintain service? Because proposition 1 contained othe…

They would also have to identify their vehicles with a logo (slap a magnet on the side of the car), avoid obstructing an active street or bus stop, and pay one of three fee options (at Uber/Lyft's choice). It's not going to cripple Uber/Lyft's business model. They disagree, of course, which is their prerogative. There are still taxi services available in Austin who find those regulations perfectly workable. If you di…

I find it strange that they're so against it in Austin when in my home town they just launched with much the same conditions - here Uber effectively operate as a private hire taxi firm, to the point that the only thing the local taxi companies could find to complain to the press about was Uber not being required to display a phone number on their cars.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#105

Post by pessimizer » Sun, May 08, 2016, 11:23 AM UTC

Hondor wrote: post #93

Don't forget who the biggest victims of background checks will be. Unemployable ex-cons. Anyone who's been convicted at any time in their life will have yet another door to employment shut in their face. Maybe 10 or 20 years ago, New Zealand decided to ban anyone with a record of sexual offending from being a taxi driver. That sounds good and safe to the average Joe but one poor man, in his 50's I think, lost his job…

>Maybe 10 or 20 years ago, New Zealand decided to ban anyone with a record of sexual offending from being a taxi driver. That sounds good and safe to the average Joe but one poor man, in his 50's I think, lost his job because he'd been convicted as a teenager of having sex with his then-underage girlfriend. They'd since been happily married and still were. Somehow that meant he was considered unsafe to drive people around in a taxi.

Is the tragedy here that there are taxi laws, or that there are bad sex laws?

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#106

Post by carussell » Sun, May 08, 2016, 11:24 AM UTC

drewcrawford wrote: post #46

partiallypro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, it's not easy, and it's an artificial barrier to entry created by the government to enter the space. This has absolutely nothing to do with safety and everything to do with special interests (taxi companies) lobbying to keep competition out of the area.

You're very misinformed. I live in the area. Uber/Lyft have campaigned really aggressively. I've got stuff from them in the mail, they contacted me at my unlisted cell, they've been canvassing hard for months. I've never even seen an "anti" ad. The "pro" Uber/Lyft PAC spent north of $8m, while the "anti" PAC spent 1/40th of that [0]. This is by far the most money ever spent on any election in this city's history, by…

> I've never even seen an "anti" ad.

Well if we want to match anecdotes, I live in the area and have only seen "anti" campaigning. FWIW, I'm in North Austin, where it turns out the opposition apparently did really well.

> Quite frankly I have no idea whether the regulatory reforms Uber/Lyft wanted were sensible or not. [...] SV investors spent an absurd amount of money trying to convince everybody of that, and Austinites are a very skeptical bunch who decided not to take their terms.

I think this is a weird characterization, to the point where your bias is showing. Both your comments and the article you link to make it seem as if the ridesharing startups launched an underhanded campaign in order to change the status quo to suit themselves. But that's not the case.

The reality is that regulatory changes to specifically target Uber and Lyft were adopted months ago, those companies reacted by saying, "WTF WTF let's not do this", managed to bring it to a special election to get the city to reconsider the new regulations, and that attempt failed.

I find your own comments as well as the articles that try to focus on storytelling to be the ones that rely the most on readers who aren't entirely sure of what's going on. Speak some reassuring words that suggest to the confused reader, "someone's trying to pull the wool over your eyes; voting this way> would show them it can't be done!", spin some yarn about companies trying to buy their way into deregulation to benefit their bottom line, and that's how you win a campaign to use the law to get the ridesharing companies in question to go away and preserve cab companies' customer base.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#107

Post by pessimizer » Sun, May 08, 2016, 11:29 AM UTC

A victory for people who neither have smartphones nor extra money when it rains. If taxi services are generally to be unregulated and unmarked, people will eventually start being robbed, raped, kidnapped, and killed by random people with a phone number.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#108

Post by dctoedt » Sun, May 08, 2016, 11:34 AM UTC

The same fight is brewing here in Houston, with Uber threatening to leave [1] if the city council doesn't repeal the fingerprinting requirement. Our local paper, which consistently promotes and celebrates entrepreneurship, came out strongly in favor of the city regulations [2].

[1] http://www.chron.com/news/politics/houston/article/Uber-thre...

[2] http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/E...

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#109

Post by _delirium » Sun, May 08, 2016, 11:45 AM UTC

What I'll be watching for: whether a competitor (existing or startup) will exploit the two big companies' absence from the Austin ride-hailing market to gain a foothold. Unlike cities that have banned ride-hailing, Austin has made clear that it's legal, but with certain requirements. Given that it's legal and the two biggest national companies have entirely ceded the market, it could be an attractive place for a competitor to get a start.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#110

Post by codingdave » Sun, May 08, 2016, 12:02 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #34

Lazare wrote: post #2

I feel like I'm missing something. Reasonable people can disagree about what jobs should/should not require a background check, but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. > Unfortunately, the rules passed by the City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It…

Why is it even remotely reasonable that taxi drivers should have background checks? Are we really that worried about rogue taxi drivers? What is the worst case scenario here? What exactly does a background check for taxi drivers prevent? The idea that the state should have anything to say about driving a car in exchange for money is absurd on its face and nothing more than the worst, silliest kind of security theater…

The state already has things to say about driving. At all, for any reason. They already have different classes of licensing for driving your own car vs. commercial vehicles. And for most vehicles other than cars, you already need extra licensing to commercially transport passengers. If you are taking a philosophical stand, you had better also start campaigning against commercial pilot licenses and boat captains.