Tag Archives: Transportation Network Companies

West Sacramento Family To Sue Lyft After Deadly Crash

by Vicki Gonzalez, KCRA 3 TV

Lyft car on city street

The Lyft driver swerved to miss a stalled vehicle on the road just after passing Riverside Avenue and lost control, hitting two trees. … CHP labeled the Lyft driver as being “the cause” of [one of his passenger’s] death, recommending involuntary manslaughter charges to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. … [The other passenger and the dead man’s mother] believe Lyft is responsible, as both have filed separate lawsuits against the rideshare company. … “I would like to see ridesharing companies like Lyft be held accountable for when something goes wrong,” [the surviving passenger] said. Read More ›

Uber And Lyft Have Devastated L.A.’s Taxi Industry, City Records Show

by Laura J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times

uber lyft sidecar vehicle

Since the ride-hailing services began operating in Southern California three years ago, the number of L.A. taxi trips arranged in advance has fallen by 42%, according to city records, and the total number of trips has plummeted by nearly 30%. … The decline mirrors what’s happening across the country. … In San Francisco, the corporate home of both Uber and Lyft, the number of trips taken per taxi dropped by more than two-thirds over a two-year period. Read More ›

Uber Agrees To Settle DA Suits Over Safety Practices

by Jason Doiy, The Recorder

Uber Technologies Inc. will pay up to $25 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the San Francisco and Los Angeles district attorneys’ offices over how it has touted safety measures. … Uber agreed to change the way it describes its driver checks and safety practices and to cooperate with the Division of Measurement Standards to certify that ride charges are accurate and fair. [The complaint claimed] the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company misled consumers by advertising the “safest rides on the road,” coupled with “industry leading background checks.” Read More ›

Garcetti Pushes Fingerprint-Based Background Checks For Uber And Lyft Drivers

by Laura J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times

Last year, The Times reported that four Uber drivers ticketed by [Los Angeles] airport police had criminal histories that would have barred them from becoming city taxi drivers. Last year, the top prosecutors for Los Angeles and San Francisco identified 25 Uber drivers with convictions for murder, assault, driving under the influence and other offenses. That information emerged as part of a lawsuit filed by the cities that alleges Uber misled consumers over background checks. Read More ›

State Legislators Call For Drastic Overhaul Of California’s Utility Regulator

by Melanie Mason and Jeff McDonald, Los Angeles Times

CPUC shield

Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) said his measure would decentralize the California Public Utilities Commission’s oversight of myriad utilities, including electricity, railroad safety and ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft. … Gatto, chairman of the Assembly’s utilities committee, would give the Legislature two years to divvy up the functions of the commission among other agencies, which Gatto said would result in a more logical assignment of responsibilities. Read More ›

Stolen Uber Accounts Worth More Than Stolen Credit Cards

by Harriet Taylor, CNBC

Uber map on smartphone

Uber, PayPal and even Netflix accounts have become much more valuable to criminals, as evidenced by the price these stolen identifiers now fetch on the so-called “deep Web,” according to security company Trend Micro. … A quick search for tweets with the hashtag #uberaccounthacked reveals a number of complaints related to “ghost rides,” in which users claim their Uber accounts have been charged for rides they did not take. These are often in far flung locations across the globe. Read More ›

California Regulators Fine Uber $7.6 Million

by Bryan Goebel, KQED/California Report

California regulators slapped Uber with a $7.6 million fine Thursday, voting unanimously to affirm an administrative judge’s ruling that found the ride service company in contempt for failing to meet reporting requirements. … The detailed information that Uber failed to provide in 2014 had to do with driver safety, access for people with disabilities and how it was serving neighborhoods by zip code. Regulators have said Uber defied the reporting requirements and that the zip code information the company initially submitted was “useless.” Read More ›

In Reversal, Some Drivers Ditching Uber And Lyft For Cabs

by Jon Brooks, KQED

Taxi on Lombard Street

[One taxi driver] drove on the side for both Uber and Lyft for about a year, but stopped around seven or eight months ago. The main reason: the extra cost and “wear and tear” of using his own car to do business. … Customers became angry at the inflated fares they had to pay during a surge pricing period and slammed [the driver’s] car door so hard he had to have his automatic windows repaired. But hadn’t those customers agreed to accept the surge price when they ordered the ride? “[Passengers] are still mad, even though they know in advance,” he said. Read More ›

Uber Seeks To Head Off Lawsuits With New Binding Driver Agreement

by Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle

Uber logo

One East Bay driver, who asked not to be identified because he fears retaliation from Uber, said he had not immediately understood that he could opt out of the [binding arbitration] provision. “That wasn’t obvious to me,” said that driver, who graduated from UC Berkeley and worked in a professional job for many years. … Retaliation by Uber against drivers for opting out of the arbitration clause or for pursuing First Amendment rights to criticize the company would be illegal, but numerous drivers commenting on social media seemed unaware of this. Read More ›

Uber Drivers Get Big Boost In Lawsuit Against Company

by Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle

Uber logo

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ruled that even drivers who accepted mandatory arbitration in their Uber contract should be included in the [class-action suit], saying that clause was unenforceable. That means the majority of the 160,000 people who have ever driven for Uber in California are now part of the class. … If the drivers win, [their lawyer] has said she’ll next seek a nationwide class-action. … The Uber class-action is the furthest along of a bevy of lawsuits against companies such as Lyft, Postmates, Instacart, Caviar and Handy in which gig workers are seeking the protections and rights of employees. Read More ›

New California Data On Ride Services Reveal Rise In Collisions And Incidents

by Bryan Goebel, The California Report

“If it’s normalized by miles driven, you’d expect the number of incidents to be somewhat stable over time,” [UCLA transportation expert Juan Matute told the CPUC]. “That would be indicative of TNCs being less safe as they scale up.” … In 2013, an Uber driver was charged with vehicular manslaughter for hitting and killing 6-year-old Sofia Liu as she and her family were walking in a crosswalk. … [Uber] was threatened in July with suspension and a $7 million fine by an administrative law judge for failing to meet all the [CPUC] reporting requirements. Read More ›

Uber Sued Over Alleged Rapes By Drivers

by Marisa Kendall, The Recorder, San Francisco

“Unfortunately, despite its self-proclaimed ‘commitment to safety,’ opening the Uber app and setting the pick-up location has proven to be the modern day equivalent of electronic hitchhiking,” the lawyers wrote. “Buyer beware—we all know how those horror movies end.” … The two assaults are part of a pattern of “similarly heinous, but avoidable attacks,” the Jane Does’ lawyers wrote. They claim more than 30 sexual assaults by Uber drivers against passengers have been reported in the media over the past two years.
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Uber Loses Bid To Force Arbitration On California Driver

by Joel Rosenblatt, Bloomberg

Uber logo

Uber is appealing the San Francisco federal court decision in a case that might force the startup to change its business model and erode its $50 billion valuation. … “I’m not going to fly in the face of a stark inconsistency in order to massage this into arbitrability,” [Judge Ernest Goldsmith] told lawyers during a hearing Monday. … “I can’t imagine that they’re going to continue with a contract like this,” Goldsmith said, referring to Uber. “It’s not a close case. It starts with the clearest contradictory language and just goes on and on and on.” Read More ›

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