Tuscaloosa has recently become involved in a debate many other cities are dealing with: ridesharing. Uber, a California-based ridesharing company, expanded to Tuscaloosa and was providing its services in the city. However, Uber has several problems: the drivers don’t have business licenses, they are not licensed taxis, there are issues with insurance coverage of the divers and passengers, and Uber drivers do not go through the same background checks that other taxi drivers have to go through.
The city agreed that they would waive or amend several municipal ordinances to get Uber to stay, but they refused to compromise on several other issues. They were not minor issues, either. The city is not unreasonable to expect corporations that provide a taxi substitute to adhere to standard regulations. If you don’t think Uber is a taxi company, go through some of the requirements that taxi companies and drivers have to go through.
The problems with Uber’s services became extremely obvious when the city actually started enforcing their ordinances. The police stopped an Uber driver who had a suspended license, an open bottle of peach vodka and a quarter pound of marijuana. That driver had passed Uber’s background checks. Uber’s supporters claim that it is in the company’s self-interest to make sure that their drivers are fully qualified, but that’s not quite true. The company is hurting for drivers and so they actually have an incentive to let people who wouldn’t pass the background check for a taxi work for them, such as the arrested Tuscaloosa driver.
That one incident here in Tuscaloosa was not an isolated incident either. There was a passenger in San Francisco whose Uber driver attacked him with a hammer, and there is a good possibility that he will lose vision in one of his eyes. The Better Business Bureau also gave Uber a failing grade based upon 90 customer complaints, mostly from their pricing policy.
It really should not be too much to ask that there be assurance that Uber drivers aren’t driving on a suspended license like the driver who was arrested in Tuscaloosa. Taxis provide services to many vulnerable people, such as people getting a ride back to their house from a bar. Additionally, making sure the ride that a person is using would be completely insured in the event of an accident should not be a deal breaker for a company. The convenience of the Uber app does not mean that we should forgo common sense measures such as background checks done by the police and guaranteed insurance coverage.
Matthew Bailey is a third-year law student. His column runs biweekly.
