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More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

bostonherald.com

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Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#31

Post by adrianratnapala »

eridius wrote: post #24
bingomad123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will defend the right of sex offenders, people with suspended licenses etc. unless I know the specific crime for which they were convicted. A person pissing in a bush can become a sexual offender, an 18 year old kid having sex with 16 year old girlfriend can become sex offender. People might get their license suspended because of economic hardship. Putting all these people in same bracket as a brazen criminal is a…

What you're describing are really rare edge cases. Nearly all people on the sex offender registry actually did something that justifies being on there. And those people should not be put into a position of power over strangers at night. As for economic hardship, I don't see how that justifies getting a job as a driver when your license is suspended. It's literally illegal for them to drive at all like that. It doesn'…

At a guess, I bet the register has large fractions of serious criminals and also your "rare" edge cases.

The probability that someone doing one of these minor things getting on the register might be low. But the number of people doing them in the first place will roughly compensate.

Anyway, laws where there is a low probability of a serious (and over the top) punishment are bad. For one thing they don't work well as incentives. Worse, they are most likely to hit the disadvantaged, low status people who have less leverage to officials to look the other way.

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#32

Post by alpha_squared »

pdelbarba wrote: post #29
alpha_squared wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nearly all people on the sex offender registry actually did something that justifies being on there. Citation? I don't necessarily doubt it's true, but 'nearly all' can be completely relative. I'd like to see actual numbers for a statement like that.

As far as I'm concerned, just 1% is enough for me to question whether this is a reasonable metric and 10% would be "this is utter garbage"

Indeed, of the things I've read, the sex offender registry is quite flawed.[0]

[0] https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2013/09/02/the-wrongfull...

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#33

Post by nfriedly »

I'm not really that big of a fan of Uber, I think they've done plenty of wrong. But I just don't see it here.

If these people have a record, then presumably they've already been punished for whatever crime they committed. I don't see why Uber should be expected to punish them further beyond the requirements of law. Yet, FTA:

> The law did not call for state-run background checks to begin until next year, but in November, Uber and Lyft agreed to let the state conduct the checks beginning in January. That agreement did not include other ride-hail companies that operate in Massachusetts, including Fasten and Safr.

So, Uber and Lyft are going above and beyond the requirements of the law, and Uber is still getting blasted. It's almost like a Taxi company wrote the article.

Also see tn135's comment about the excessive criminalisation of ordinary behavior: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14045065

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#34

Post by MrLeap »

eridius wrote: post #24
bingomad123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will defend the right of sex offenders, people with suspended licenses etc. unless I know the specific crime for which they were convicted. A person pissing in a bush can become a sexual offender, an 18 year old kid having sex with 16 year old girlfriend can become sex offender. People might get their license suspended because of economic hardship. Putting all these people in same bracket as a brazen criminal is a…

What you're describing are really rare edge cases. Nearly all people on the sex offender registry actually did something that justifies being on there. And those people should not be put into a position of power over strangers at night. As for economic hardship, I don't see how that justifies getting a job as a driver when your license is suspended. It's literally illegal for them to drive at all like that. It doesn'…

Those `rare edge cases` you're marginalizing represent real people's lives.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article41364675.html

I gotta say, It's a struggle for me to read these threads and see people who share your callous comfort with the status quo.

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#35

Post by 1_2__3 »

tptacek wrote: post #28
gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: plenty of non-violent offecences there with unlimited lookback as well. G.L. c. 272, §7 (Support From, or Sharing, Earnings of Prostitute) G.L. c. 272, §12 (Procuring Person to Practice, or Enter a Place for Prostitution; Employment Office Procuring Person) G.L. c. 272, § 16 (Open and Gross Lewdness and Lascivious Behavior) G.L. c. 272, §53 (Indecent Exposure) G.L. c. 272, §53 (Accosting or Annoying a P…

Sexual assault is non-violent? These all sound like things that would reasonably disqualify drivers.

I disagree completely. Just what do you think the people you interact with every day are like when you don't see them? This is puritanism, nothing else.

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#37

Post by clairity »

fataliss wrote: post #17
clairity wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that isn't a utilitarian approach but a conservative one. i'd argue that nearly all drivers who failed massachusetts's background check would likely provide very similar quality rides as current uber/lyft drivers. the utility to all of those now-working people certainly wouldn't be outweighed by the disutility of a potentially small (and probably statistically insignificant) rise in bad rides. people make mistakes, b…

Checking each single applicant's offenses and determining wether it's relevant or not for their driver position takes a lot more time/money. If you want an automated process that guarantees the security of your customer aka the passengers as much as possible for the lowest cost possible you just eliminate anyone with "qualifying" offense. This is not more conservative than it is efficient.

no, if efficiency were your primary concern, then you would work to lower the adverse action rate of 11%, because typically you need to manually review each potential adverse action to avoid violating the FRCA when you reject the candidate. "clear" records require no manual review (obviously) so are more efficient than finding adverse records.

by contrast, uber & lyft are able to do background checks with less than a ~2% adverse action rate.

it's debatable that background checks make passengers safer, so getting rid of background checks altogether would be the most efficient of course.

checkr (https://checkr.com/) has built a nice little business doing background checks despite the inefficiencies.

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#38

Post by tptacek »

MrLeap wrote: post #34
eridius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing are really rare edge cases. Nearly all people on the sex offender registry actually did something that justifies being on there. And those people should not be put into a position of power over strangers at night. As for economic hardship, I don't see how that justifies getting a job as a driver when your license is suspended. It's literally illegal for them to drive at all like that. It doesn'…

Those `rare edge cases` you're marginalizing represent real people's lives. http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article41364675.html I gotta say, It's a struggle for me to read these threads and see people who share your callous comfort with the status quo.

They are in fact rare cases, and the cases where those people are denied the desired opportunity to drive for Uber are even rarer. More people are raped --- set aside sexually assaulted --- in taxi cabs every year than are denied this opportunity.

It is obviously a real problem that people are placed on sex offender registries for peeing in bushed. But the commenter above isn't required to address every real problem in pointing out that there's a good public policy reason to avoid having people convicted of real sexual assault offenses driving cabs.

Re: More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

#39

Post by synicalx »

gruez wrote: post #25
anon1121 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The indefinite look back is only for certain disqualifying offenses. Most (many of which are still rather serious) are 7 years. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dpu/transportation-network-comp...

Counterpoint: plenty of non-violent offecences there with unlimited lookback as well. G.L. c. 272, §7 (Support From, or Sharing, Earnings of Prostitute) G.L. c. 272, §12 (Procuring Person to Practice, or Enter a Place for Prostitution; Employment Office Procuring Person) G.L. c. 272, § 16 (Open and Gross Lewdness and Lascivious Behavior) G.L. c. 272, §53 (Indecent Exposure) G.L. c. 272, §53 (Accosting or Annoying a P…

I'm not sure I'd want to employ someone who's got a history of whipping out their nob and shaking it at people in shopping malls.
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