San Francisco Goes After Uber, Lyft For Data On City Trips, Driver Bonuses (sfchronicle.com) 58
Carolyn Said, reporting for San Francisco Chronicle: It's a San Francisco truism: Every other car on the streets these days seems to bear a logo for Uber or Lyft -- and many are double-parked as they pick up or drop off passengers. Now the city seeks to compel Uber and Lyft to share details on how many cars are roving the streets, so it can ensure that they comply with local laws; assess their impact on traffic congestion, safety, pollution and parking; and ascertain if they are accessible for disabled and low-income riders. City Attorney Dennis Herrera on Monday subpoenaed Uber and Lyft to disgorge records on four years of driving practices, disability access and service in San Francisco. "No one disputes the convenience of the ride-hailing industry, but that convenience evaporates when you're stuck in traffic behind a double-parked Uber or Lyft, or when you can't get a ride because the vehicle isn't accessible to someone with a disability or because the algorithm disfavors the neighborhood where you live," Herrera said in a statement. The subpoenas seek information on "miles and hours logged by drivers, incentives that encourage drivers to 'commute' from as far away as Fresno or Los Angeles, driver guidance and training, accessible vehicle information, and the services provided to residents of every San Francisco neighborhood," Herrera's office said.
It's a tax play. (Score:2, Insightful)
They want taxes per mile like any other commercial vehicle pays(although usually at the state level not local). This is setting the framework
Re:It's a tax play. (Score:5, Insightful)
If they cared about double parked cars, they'd issue tickets.
If they cared about congestion, they'd put down the car counting strips and adjust signal timing.
If they cared about accessibility, they'd run more buses to residential areas.
I don't see a legal reason Uber or Lyft would have to give up that data. My standard policy is "fuck them" for both Uber and Lyft, but they should laugh at this "subpoena".
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I don't see a legal reason Uber or Lyft would have to give up that data. My standard policy is "fuck them" for both Uber and Lyft, but they should laugh at this "subpoena".
Exactly right. Progressive in SF means nothing more that to hinder business and to take away as much as they can.
One jealous city attorney has no business forcing a company to disclose company confidential information. This is why people absolutely hate SF. I'm really surprised business even want to be there.
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Except those businesses are hindering other businesses. When trucks can't make deliveries on time because of double-parked Ubers, and buses are constantly dodging people getting in and out of lyft cars and get stuck behind these drivers making illegal left-hand turns, and when cyclists are nearly killed on a daily basis because idiot tourists are opening the doors of their Uber driver into traffic and "dooring" them, then it's hindering the business of other people getting to THEIR business. I know this f
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Yes, but because there's so many more Uber/Lyft drivers on the streets now, it's more of a problem. It happens much more often. I see it with my own eyes daily.
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Because there's more Uber/Lyft drivers on the streets now. Before, if you were driving yourself, you'd have to actually park your car to get where you are going or take a taxi. There were fewer taxis, and while they would double-park, it was put up with because there were so few of them. Now many more people use these services, so it happens more frequently.
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If that is the case, then ticketing EVERYONE who is double parked will naturally disproportionately affect uber/lyft drivers.
We don't need laws that punish men who rape women. All we need are rape laws punishing all rapists. If it is true that more men are rapists, then more men will be affected by these laws. We don't need to bake that bias into the laws themselves.
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Actually, the real problem is that enforcement is EXPENSIVE. You're asking for an expansion of a burdensome and often ineffectual solution, which people in the field already know about, which is why they're investigating this problem more thoroughly to see if they can come up with a better means of accomplishing the desired end.
If enforcement is expensive, then you're doing it wrong. Law enforcement agencies all across the country use ticketing as a source of revenue. Giving out tickets should pay for itself and then some. If anything the real problem is when law enforcement gets so addicted to the ticketing revenue that they start continue to ticket even after the bad behavior is effectively disincentivized.
Your example was poorly chosen, rape was defined in many jurisdictions already defined as something only men can do.
If you have a little imagination, you can probably use my example as a case against poor legal definitions of rape as wel
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30% of traffic in SF may be cars circling the block while looking for parking [sfexaminer.com]. Since Uber/Lyft drivers don't park, they may be relieving more congestion than they are causing.
As "ride-sharing" becomes more popular, and there is less need for parking, the best way to reduce congestion is to eliminate curbside parking, especially on busy streets. This opens up an additional lane in each direction for traffic.
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Except those businesses are hindering other businesses. When trucks can't make deliveries on time because of double-parked Ubers, and buses are constantly dodging people getting in and out of lyft cars and get stuck behind these drivers making illegal left-hand turns, and when cyclists are nearly killed on a daily basis because idiot tourists are opening the doors of their Uber driver into traffic and "dooring" them, then it's hindering the business of other people getting to THEIR business. I know this for a fact because it happens to me daily here in SF. I see all this shit regularly.
Last time I checked, a truck driver that gets pulled over for speeding pays his own ticket, and gets the points on his license. A cabby that double parks gets his own ticket. An uber driver that double parks gets his own tickets. Uber and Lyft are platforms. They don't drive the cars, their contractors (or employees, in some views) do. It is not even alleged that Uber encourages breaking the law.
Uber and Lyft are ride-sharing platform apps. You not liking their business model does not make it illegal. If
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It sounds like Bangalor.
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Uber doesn't have information on who is double parked when, nor would that information result in people not double parking.
The same goes for Lyft.
Uber doesn't represent most traffic, nor does Lyft. So their traffic data can't be taken as representative of all traffic. A far better (and still incomplete / non-covering) source would be Google Maps. Should Google honor a subpoena for all location data?
No, of course they shouldn't. The city should do its job and address these problems directly and with the
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Give them marching orders to target Uber, Lyft, UPS, FedEx, etc. and then REFUSE to negotiate the tickets in bulk.
Eh? Large offenders get a bulk discount?!? Actually, for repeat offenders, the ticket price should exponentially increase.
Oh, and for the folks double parked somewhere that might hinder emergency crews, and the like . . . just confiscate their automobile for a week or two. Not the driver's license, but their car. For Über and Lyft drivers, this will mean taking away their livelihood.
Presto! You won't see any more double-parked Über and Lyft cars anymore!
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Yup, UPS/FedEx drivers get tickets non stop and they just send them to corporate who negotiates a bulk deal, paying pennies on the dollar (or worse), wiping out all tickets with no ramifications to the driver. This applies even to things that should be classed as moving violations and have actual impacts on the drivers themselves, because FedEx and UPS have money.
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Do Americans give out tickets for double parking? Last time I was there the right hand lane was effectively useless because you couldn't go a block without hitting a double parked car. Most of them with no driver, not an Uber (and I'm no fan of PonziTaxi).
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Uber should just hire illegal aliens to drive in SF, then they would be left alone.
Re: It's a tax play. (Score:1)
San Francisco Wants to enforce the traffic laws? (Score:5, Insightful)
I call BS on that.
At any moment in time it would take me probably less than 5 minutes to locate a delivery truck parked on a city street while being unloaded.
When I see that being curtailed I will believe the rest.
Inquiring minds want to know... (Score:1)
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Double Parked Uber (Score:1)
How is a double parked Uber different than a double parked Yellow Cab?
Oh right, it's not...
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How is a double parked Uber different than a double parked Yellow Cab?
The big difference is that taxi companies spend way more [washingtonpost.com] on political donations and lobbyists.
Enforce the current laws... (Score:2)
Would yo
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I would. it's a silly restriction designed to appease people's feelies. On one hand we can trust people to be responsible enough to navigate 3,500 pounds of steel going 60+ mph, but we don't trust them enough to use some discretion for using a phone.
(see also: cupholders, screaming kids in the back, make-up, radios, in-dash turn by turn navigation systems)
basically it's the new virtue signaling outrage issue. The real problem is distracted drivers.
Good luck legislating away every conceivable cause of dist
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And the numbers say that distracted driving is now the #1 ca
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and get over it. Whenever a city/state tries to mandate something that is the most common current cause of something bad it fails and just limits our freedoms more. In Mass we made it illegal to text while driving; why? well obviously because the odds of driving poorly are much higher while texting - which is very true; however just pull over people that are driving poorly. There is already a law for that.
This is very easy to do: the signal that a driver is driving poorly is that they crash into things. So, just give tickets to the people who crash into things.
Oh, wait, you'd like to solve the problem before the drivers crash and kill people? Oops, sorry, that's harder.
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Oh, wait, you'd like to solve the problem before the drivers crash and kill people? Oops, sorry, that's harder.
It is harder, which is why it is yet to be solved through policy.
Here's an idea. Not all crashes kill people. In fact most don't. We should be able to stop lot's of people after they crash but before they kill anyone.
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the odds of driving poorly are much higher while texting - which is very true; however just pull over people that are driving poorly.
You could use the exact same logic to argue that drunk driving should be legal.
Driving while texting may be worse [cnbc.com] than driving while drunk.
The convenience stays the same (Score:2)
Most of us are not even slightly inconvenienced by these things. The benefit does not dry up in the least for us. Particularly for the "disadvantaged neighborhood" which is a UMC euphemism
regurgitate, retch, upchuck, discharge, spew... (Score:1)
least-free city in America (Score:1)
The people of San Franshitsco sure do love rules. Now if only the could pass a rule to prevent the municipally subsidized crackhead population from pissing on the doorsteps of apartment buildings.
I regularly thank God for having delivered me out of that great sewer of humanity. One of my big regrets is having wasted eleven years of my life in the toxic Progressive hellhole that is SF. Oh, and the weather sucks too. And the culture makes LA seem positively intellectual.
You can see where this is going (Score:2)
.
Pretty evident that they hope to attack the companies on several fronts: wages paid, overwork, violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act, violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and discr