NewsWatch
Keeping a critical eye on Uber,
Lyft, Sidecar, et al
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Police: Uber driver arrested after attempting to murder police officers
An Uber driver with an extensive criminal record has been arrested for allegedly attempting to shoot and kill Montgomery County Police officers with a homemade gun. Jonathan Hemming, 52, of Gaithersburg, is now facing two counts each of Attempted First Degree Murder and Attempted Second Degree Murder, plus an additional 17 assault, drug and weapons charges.
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Ex-Uber driver accused in additional rape cases
A former Uber driver suspected of raping a passenger in February was arrested again after El Cajon police turned up six more alleged victims in the suspect's past, including a 13-year-old who was videotaped in a sex act, authorities said. John David Sanchez, 52, of San Diego, was booked on 20 sex-related charges that include nine counts of sexual assault on an unconscious or intoxicated person. Other counts involve sex acts with the girl, shown in a video.
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Uber driver charged with attempted murder had an 'extensive criminal record'
It seems like an Uber driver is charged with a violent crime nearly every day. It's not a stretch-just three days ago, we reported on a driver who was arrested for strangling a college student in a dorm parking lot. Now here we are again. A 52-year-old Uber driver from Gaithersburg, Maryland has been charged with two counts of first degree attempted murder for trying to shoot police officers with a homemade gun.
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Uber drivers arrested for drinking and driving
Just five years since the app launched and two years since it came to Wilmington, Uber has become one of the most powerful businesses in the country by changing the way people get around. But the recent drunk driving conviction of a Wilmington Uber driver - who was busted while he had paying passengers in the car - has raised questions.
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Los Angeles city officials' position evolves on fingerprint background checks
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and other government officials apparently have changed their position and now support the common-sense idea that Uber and Lyft drivers should undergo the same fingerprinting and background checks that the city requires of taxi drivers. Garcetti, along with Councilman Paul Krekorian and Council President Herb Wesson, said so in a letter to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The letter sought the CPUC's permission for Los Angeles to start a pilot program that would ban Uber and Lyft drivers from working in the city unless they were fingerprinted.
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Late arrivals: Uber drivers who missed filing deadline are still bashing proposed lawsuit settlement
When lawyer Veena Dubal heard last month that Uber drivers seeking to be recognized as employees rather than independent contractors might settle their class-action lawsuit before it went to trial, she cried. Dubal, an associate professor at the UC Hastings College of Law where she researches employment matters and worker classification, isn't involved in the lawsuit. She's not an Uber driver. She would have no financial gain either way. But as someone who has advocated for workers who have been misclassified, the proposed Uber settlement hit a nerve.
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Uber appeals Pennsylvania utility regulator's $11.4M fine
Ride-hailing company Uber is asking state utility regulators to reconsider the record-setting $11.4 million fine they issued against it. The Public Utility Commission fined San Francisco-based Uber in April for operating in Pennsylvania for six months in 2014 without the required approval. The commission is looking at Uber's appeal, which contends the fine amount is unreasonable, considering the lack of evidence that its services did harm.
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Uber and Lyft are threatening to leave this major city
Proposed regulations could drive Uber and Lyft out of America's third largest city. The ride-sharing giants warned Chicago's City Council during testimony that proposed regulations requiring their drivers to obtain a chauffeur's license are too cumbersome. The companies recently made good on a threat to abandon the Austin, Texas market after losing a similar licensing and regulation battle there.
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Man claims 'interview' with Uber was just free data-mining
Traditionally, I shy away from stories that are based largely on hearsay, but this one is too strange to turn down. Roadshow came across an Imgur post, wherein a gentleman claims to have gone in for an interview at Uber, and all they did was pick his mind for ideas and opinions before cutting him loose and never contacting him again. I got in contact with the man, a certified IT specialist from Pennsylvania, who I will keep anonymous for the sake of any future job prospects.
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Uber knows too much about you
Uber has your home address. It has the addresses of the places you want to get to. It knows when you're going to church, to your boyfriend's house, to the union hall, to the doctor's office. And if you're a driver for Uber, it's tracking you for hours and hours each day. We talk a lot about NSA surveillance, National Security Letters, warrant canaries, facial recognition technology, a police van disguised as a Google Maps vehicle, the war against encryption, and government-mandated backdoors.
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To avoid regulations, Uber describes itself as either, neither and nor
Uber is a traditional employer recruiting employees. Or Uber is a non-employer facilitating the work of independent contractors. Or Uber is a technology company supplying an app to small businesses. It depends on which lawsuit you read. The company, valued at over $62 billion, changes its description of what it does depending on what best allows it to avoid regulatory scrutiny..
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Good riddance, gig economy: Uber, Ayn Rand and the awesome collapse of Silicon Valley's dream of destroying your job
The New York Times' Farhad Manjoo recently wrote an oddly lamenting piece about how "the Uber model, it turns out, doesn't translate." Manjoo describes how so many of the "Uber-of-X" companies that have sprung up as part of the so-called sharing economy have become just another way to deliver more expensively priced conveniences to those with enough money to pay. Ironically many of these Ayn Rand-inspired startups have been kept alive by subsidies of the venture capital kind which, for various reasons, are starting to dry up.
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Seventh Circuit goes it alone - upholds NLRB decision holding that class and collective action waivers in arbitration agreements are unlawful and unenforceable
The long-running teeter-totter battle between National Labor Relations Board and employers regarding the lawfulness of class and collective action waivers in employment arbitration agreements continues. Joining the fray is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which issued the first federal appellate court decision to agree with the NLRB's position that mandatory employment arbitration agreements that require employees to waive the right to engage in class or collective actions in court violate the National Labor Relations Act.
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Uber pilots 'upfront pricing,' masks surge rate
In an effort to push more of its customers to carpool, Uber is experimenting with a version of its ride-hailing application that displays the maximum cost riders will pay to get to their destination.
Termed "upfront pricing," the tech-driven transportation giant's tweaked pricing screen now shows the total cost for the cheaper carpool option, called UberPool, alongside the slightly pricier UberX fare, during the booking process. The test is currently running in a handful of markets where Uber's carpool option is available, including San Diego, Miami, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Seattle.
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On this Memorial Day 2016, Advocates for Fairness in Transportation pauses to express our deepest appreciation to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who made the ultimate sacrifice so we might live in freedom, and we renew our commitment to support our troops, their families and our veterans.
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