A labor group representing Uber and Lyft drivers has filed a complaint with state regulators, alleging that Waymo is violating its permit by allowing unaccompanied minors to ride in its autonomous vehicles in the Bay Area.

Some San Francisco parents said they would trust Waymo over human drivers if regulators allow unsupervised teen riders.

https://abc7news.com/post/union-backing-uber-lyft-drivers-files-complaint-waymo-involving-teen-riders/18727861/

New Jersey airport ride share fees to double, as part of the Port Authority’s $45 billion 10-year capital plan. Uber and Lyft drivers fighting to stop it.

Airport pick-up fee increases will double as pick-up and drop-off fees are among several toll and fare hikes proposed in the Port Authority plan  

“It takes from the hardworking ride share drivers and the local outer-borough and suburban families who rely on Uber and Lyft and gives a free pass to the wealthiest Manhattan business travelers and tourists who benefit from yellow taxi exemptions,” he said.

The policy exempts private cars and company vehicles that use the airports from the access fee, he said.

The proposed fee would prompt travelers to avoid app-based ride share vehicles, reduce drivers’ trip volumes and cut the incomes of thousands of drivers, the Guild contends.

https://www.nj.com/news/2025/12/airport-ride-share-fees-to-double-uber-lyft-drivers-fighting-to-stop-it.html

thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts who drove more than 8 miles per week from July 2020 to July 2024 are expected to begin receiving checks in the mail soon, as a result of a settlement

Massachusetts state Attorney General’s Office reached settlement with the rideshare companies Uber and Lyft last year.

For years, the Attorney General’s Office litigated against the companies in an effort to ensure drivers receive a guaranteed minimum wage. Current and former drivers who were underpaid by the companies will be receiving checks.

All in all, close to $175 million will be distributed as restitution for drivers.

Uber paid $148 million, and Lyft paid $27 million.

Close to 70,800 drivers should receive checks, The Boston Business Journal reported.

Under the settlement, drivers now receive a minimum of $33.48 per hour for time spent driving to pick up passengers and bringing them to their destinations. This will increase annually by 3%, or the rate of inflation. The agreement also secured guaranteed paid sick leave, access to a health insurance stipend, and occupational accident insurance.

Last year, Massachusetts voters granted rideshare drivers the ability to unionize. The new App Drivers Union now has around 70,000 members and is a major player in the opposition movement against autonomous vehicles coming to the state.

https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/08/14/rideshare-drivers-will-soon-get-their-share-of-175-million-in-restitution/

Lyft and Uber to pay $328 million for withholding money from New York drivers, in one of the largest Wage Theft cases ever

The money will be distributed to cheated drivers who will get back pay along with mandatory paid sick leave and other benefits. Eligible drivers can file a claim to receive the money owed.

From 2014 to 2017, Uber deducted sales taxes and Black Car Fund fees from drivers' payments when those taxes and fees should have been paid by passengers, the attorney general's office said.

Uber misrepresented the deductions made to drivers' pay in their terms of service, telling drivers that Uber would only deduct its commission from the drivers' fare, and that drivers were "entitled to charge [the passenger] for any tolls, taxes or fees incurred," though no method to do this was ever provided via the Uber Driver app.

Lyft used a similar method to shortchange drivers from 2015 to 2017, deducting an 11.4% "administrative charge" from drivers' payments in New York equal to the amount of sales tax and Black Car Fund fees that should have been paid by riders.

Uber and Lyft also failed to provide drivers with paid sick leave available to employees under New York City and New York State law.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/uber-lyft-agree-pay-combined-328-million-withholding/story?id=104565542

Uber is allegedly charging users more if they have low phone battery, and Uber's app does allow the ride share company to monitor users battery levels

 

the 10 ride options Cameron offers for his Lyft riders

1. The Awkward Ride - You ignore this menu completely, then we will sit in silence for the remainder of the ride.

2. The Funny Ride - I tell you jokes or entertaining stories from my life.

3. The Silent Ride -

4. The Creepy Ride - I don't say anything but I keep staring at you in the rearview mirror.

5. The Karaoke Ride - We rock out to hits from the 80s, early 2000s or literally whatever you want.

6. The Bubbles Ride - We blow bubbles the whole time.

7. The Small Talk Ride - We talk about how crazy the weather's been lately and I ask if you caught the game last night.

8. The Therapy Ride - You vent to me about your problems and I listen.

9. The Drunk Ride - You throw up in my car.

10. The Cliche Ride - You ask me how long I've been driving for Lyft."

Upworthy.com came up with some more options I'd love to see added, though:

 The Pep Talk Ride - You need encouragement? I'll give you everything I've got to pump you up.

The Tour Guide Ride - I share interesting details about places we pass and offer advice on cool things to do around the area.

The Life Story Ride - We estimate how long your ride will be, set a timer, and each of us shares our life story for half the ride. (No questions, unless the ride goes longer.)

The Deep Questions Ride - We skip the small talk and get right to the big stuff—meaning of life, existence of God, our place in the universe, etc.

The High School Debate Ride - We pick a controversy, flip a coin to decide who will take which side, and debate regardless of our own personal views.

The Pretend Persona Ride - We each make up totally fake names and personas and converse as them so we can chat without actually getting personal at all.

https://www.upworthy.com/lyft-driver-list-rp?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3

Showtime has made a series about the Uber company founder

 

it's a shame all the great taxi driver stories from the 30s-70s are lost forever, as no one wrote them down. I think that until the tv show Taxi, no one realized what a treasure those taxi stories were

 https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/takesabeating

a good idea for Uber rides

update, Uber and Lyft get an extension on the amount of time they get to flip their business model in California, from contract drivers to employees, before the state shuts them down

A California appeals court extended the length of time Uber and Lyft will have to comply with an order requiring them to reclassify rideshare drivers as employees.


The temporary reprieve gives Uber and Lyft until 5 p.m. PT on Tuesday to file written statements agreeing to expedited procedures stated in the order.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/20/appeals-court-grants-uber-and-lyft-a-temporary-reprieve-in-case-over-driver-classification.html

Lyft has announced they suspending service in California as of midnight tonight. Uber is said to be close to making the same call. San Diego and San Jose Mayor urged an appeals court to stay an injunction that they said would lead to a statewide shutdown of Uber and Lyft's operations starting tomorrow

San Francisco-based ruled in favor of California Attorney General, and the city attorneys of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco in their lawsuit alleging Uber and Lyft have misclassified their drivers, preventing them from receiving "the compensation and benefits they have earned through the dignity of their labor," such as the right to minimum wage, sick leave, unemployment insurance and workers' compensation benefits.

So, the rideshare companies lost in court regarding Assembly Bill 5, with the judge ruling the companies must classify their drivers as employees rather than independent contractors in order to continue in business.

The San Diego and San Jose Mayor's joint statement called for a stay on the injunction, citing economic impacts to California's gig workers, and a loss of transportation options and delivery services for critical resources like food and medical care for California residents.

Uber and Lyft are also working to combat AB 5 by sponsoring Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that, if approved by voters in November, would allow rideshare drivers to work as independent contractors.

Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the bill, said following the ruling, "Uber and Lyft have been fighting tooth and nail for years to cheat their drivers out of the basic workplace protections and benefits they have been legally entitled to. They have enriched their executives and their bottom line, while leaving taxpayers on the hook to subsidize the wages and benefits of their drivers."

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/san-diego-mayor-says-rideshare-operations-will-end-in-calif-on-friday-if-appeals-court-doesnt-stay-injunction/2388716/

A California judge ruled yesterday that ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft must classify tens of thousands of drivers as employees instead of independent contractors

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and city attorneys from San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles sued Uber and Lyft in May for violating California's new law, Assembly Bill 5 (AB5). This law was intended to force gig economy companies to classify their workers as employees and therefore force them to offer benefits such as health insurance to those workers.

Both companies plan to file appeals in the 10-day window granted in the ruling. However, if this decision portends future legal losses for Uber and Lyft, the rideshare giants could be in a load of trouble. Demand for ride-hailing services is already down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The lawsuit alone could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in civil penalties aside from a requirement to pay restitution to drivers affected by the alleged misclassification. Furthermore, other states looking to enact similar measures to AB5 may see this as an opportunity to adopt their own gig economy restrictions.

Uber and Lyft will also be back in court in California as California's Labor Commissioner filed filed lawsuits alleging that the companies engaged in wage theft by misclassifying drivers as independent contractors. The lawsuits seek to recover wages allegedly owed to drivers that those drivers would have earned had they been considered employees.

https://www.thedrive.com/news/35584/california-judge-rules-uber-and-lyft-must-classify-drivers-as-employees

GoGoGrandparent, a transportation solution for older adults. Order rides automatically - no apps required.

Step 1:
CALL 1 (855) 464-6872 and wait to hear: "Thanks for calling GoGoGrandparent"

Step 2:
PRESS 1 to immediately request a car to your home
PRESS 2 for a car to where we dropped you off last
PRESS 3, 4 or 5 for a car to a custom pick up location (once you're registered please give us a call to set these up)
PRESS 6 to order a ride with an operator
PRESS 0 to speak with an operator about scheduling rides in advance or anything else

https://twitter.com/GoGoGrandparent
https://gogograndparent.com/
found on https://twitter.com/tred

I dig it when advertising creative people come up with a brilliant way to show how bad the world was before their product was invented

https://www.adweek.com/creativity/uber-thinks-inside-the-box-in-its-big-new-ad-about-car-clogged-cities/

autonomous technology and companies’ responsibility in ensuring the safe deployment of robo cars and collision prevention tech

The Truth About Cars wrote a very good article in response to the recent Uber robo car killing the woman crossing the road in the dark:

The victim, Elaine Herzberg, does indeed cross directly into the path of the oncoming Volvo XC90 and is visible for a fleeting moment before the strike, but the vehicle’s lidar system should have seen her well before that. Any claims to the contrary are irresponsible.

Uber’s autonomous hardware should have seen the woman even in pitch black.

The approach was straight and Herzberg was already in the street, having crossed at least one lane before impact. Lidar is supposed to be the golden goose for autonomous technology, allowing for digital imaging beyond what the human eye is capable of. But it completely failed in this instance

It raises questions about the preparedness of autonomous technology and companies’ responsibility in ensuring their safe deployment. For the most part, it’s been a bonanza for tech firms and automakers wanting to test on the open road.

The government has offered almost no oversight in the hopes that self-driving cars will get here sooner. But critics have suggested this is wildly irresponsible, as it operates almost entirely upon a company’s good faith.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration only mandates a “Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment” of autonomous vehicles. Thus far, only two organizations have bothered produce one — General Motors and Google’s Waymo.

While it would be prudent to hold companies to a higher standard than the federal government seems willing to do, autonomous vehicles may still be the best defense against drunk or utterly inept driving.

 That said, they may also set the stage for a dystopian future where manual driving is illegal, companies endlessly advertise to you in-car, and hackers can assume total control of your vehicle. The point is that practically every subtle aspect of the tech is being ignored while the market attempts to get it ready lickety-split.

 None of these issues are being addressed and safety checks have fallen by the wayside.

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/03/uber-tempe-video/#more-1617988

here is the location, at the time of the collision, and days later, to show you what a dark video was on the Uber dash cam, vs what you or I would see there in person

thanks Bruce!

Pedestrian killed by self-driving Uber car in Arizona, clearly, people who don't want to be bothered by driving should get a taxi or a horse instead of a self driving car.

The victim, Elaine Herzberg is visible for a fleeting moment before the strike, but the vehicle’s lidar system should have seen her well before that. Any claims to the contrary are irresponsible. That is the sole function of the collision prevention system, and it's technical superiority in the dark is unmatched by any human eye.

The approach was straight and Herzberg was already in the street, having crossed at least one lane before impact. Lidar is supposed to be the golden goose for autonomous technology, allowing for digital imaging beyond what the human eye is capable of. But it completely failed in this instance — either because the hardware failed to pick the woman up or the software simply did not recognize her. Neither the car, nor Vasquez, attempted to apply the brakes as it approached Herzberg, and those failures ultimately proved fatal.

Uber is suspending its self-driving car operations after a pedestrian was struck and killed by one of Uber's self-driving vehicles in Arizona overnight. Police said Monday the vehicle involved in the fatality was in autonomous mode at the time, with an operator behind the wheel. It was heading north in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe when it hit a woman walking outside a crosswalk.

Not that the crosswalk location relative to a pedestrian is a legit reason for an Uber self driving car to kill anyone or anything, but the news is certain that it's important to add the dead woman was jay walking. Effing assholes.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tempe-pedestrian-killed-self-driving-uber-car-police-say/
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/03/uber-tempe-video/#more-1617988

Women are at the crux of proving that they get paid less for the same work... and finally, a research paper (Why aren't more students doing these, and releasing the results for publication) that shows at Uber, they do, because they aren't working as much, nor as fast

5 economists — two who are employed by Uber; two Stanford professors, and a chairman of the University of Chicago economics department worked together to draft a research paper on the women's pay issue, at Uber.


Women drivers make 7% less per hour than men, because, they drive slower.

Men drive more frequently during the week, and last longer at Uber.

77% of women at Uber quit after 6 months
65% of men do

The research paper is called “The Gender Earnings Gap in the Gig Economy: Evidence From Over a Million Rideshare Drivers.”

The pay at Uber works mathmatically, not based on looks, gender, or age.

Uber pays drivers based on a relatively simple, transparent formula that takes into account how long your ride is in miles, how long the ride takes, and potentially, a surge multiplier where sometimes there’s, excessively high demand. 

So the fare itself is determined by an algorithm, which is gender-blind. The dispatch itself is gender-blind. And pay structure’s tied directly to output and not negotiated.

The result you know know, and why. But, here's a theory that the UC economics chairman had, which turned out to find no ground.

He thought they would find the pay gap would slightly favor women, they had worked fewer hours per week so they had a chance to cherry-pick the better hours during the week, and if there was discrimination on the platform, it would be due to riders preferring female drivers to male drivers.

Instead, they found, among other things, where people pick up is more important for contributing to the gender gap than the when.
There are differences between when men and women drive.
Men are much more likely to drive the graveyard overnight shift, which could have more people coming home from bars or whatnot.
 But women are actually dramatically more likely to drive the Sunday afternoon shift when football is on. Maybe women are more willing to go drive for Uber then.

Men are far more likely to have been driving on Uber for over two years. Women leave the platform much more often than men.  Relevant to income, the longer a driver is with Uber, the better at figuring out when and where to drive they get, how fast to drive, and how to strategically accept or cancel rides that they think are a bad match. Ergo, women make less because they don't gain the experience men who stay at Uber longer, accumulate.

On top of that,  even for those who are on the platform for the same amount of time, the average man drives about 50 percent more trips per week than the average woman, and that illustrates the experience effect for those who have been on the platform the same number of months.

So, digging into the factors that cause 7% difference on average between men and women,
30 percent of the pay gap can be explained by returns to experience.
20 percent of the gap can be explained by time and location of work.
50 percent of the gap, is speed... men are actually completing more trips per hour than women.

By the way, the University of Michigan transportation research unit, they looked at a big, nationally representative sample of police-reported crashes, and they did seem to find that females, on average — on a per-mile driven basis — have more crashes than males.

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/what-can-uber-teach-us-about-the-gender-pay-gap/

Yellow Cab drivers are losing it on the San Diego / TiJuana border, when people chose to take Uber! The taxi drivers on the Mexico side assaulted these people - warning, taxi drivers are getting actually combative to potential customers

Of course, nothing good happens after midnight, we know that. But taxi drivers attacking people who are going to Uber? Shit is getting illegal right there.

This happened to family and friends of an acquaintance of mine. https://www.facebook.com/Souzathesecond/posts/1875480272705928

JFC, I just posted a warning to all of you to not let drunk women take an UBER home alone. Ain't anyone paying attention?

Yesterday's news from LA, 24 year old young woman drunk off her ass gets an UBER ride to Hollywood, but passes out in the car on the way.

The male driver stops at a hotel and rapes her.

He has 5 felony convictions for narcotics possession and narcotics sale. UBER doesn't screen for felonies.

She wakes up the next morning not knowing where the hell she is, but knowing what happened

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-sex-crime-uber-20170626-story.html

So take a moment, prevent this from happening again. Even if you ain't related.... make sure they get home safe.

Posting because I care and wish you and your family the best lives possible, which means looking out for each other, and keeping an eye out for trouble we can prevent

only 3 weeks ago I posted http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/06/male-taxi-drivers-feeling-sting-of.html

male taxi drivers feeling the sting of competition in Halifax... and just don't get the obvious. There is a real reason they are avoided and why women passengers prefer women drivers - and the news proves it

Halifax's newest airport car service has all-women drivers, a memorable name and number, and even a jingle.

Longtime airport driver Crissy McDow started the new company last week after talking to other female drivers who agree there's a demand for this type of business.

Lady Drive-Her is starting up just months after a city taxi driver, Bassam Al-Rawi, was in court for sexually assaulting a female passenger who was found unconscious in the car by a police officer. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/bassam-al-rawi-sexual-assault-taxi-halifax-appeal-acquittal-gregory-lenehan-1.4132838
and just after a Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador jury had to decide on the guiltiness of a on duty uniformed police officers sexual assault case when he picked up and drove a drunk woman home from downtown in his police cruiser.  http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/jury-deliberating-snelgrove-sexual-assault-trial-1.3997432

Clearly drunk women are targets of men who will risk their careers and time in prison where they are likely to be raped on the typical North American courtroom bias that finds drunk women at fault for being involved in sex while intoxicated, and lets the men go free - whether they are taxi drivers or police.

But the limo drivers in Halifax are feeling the lack of business, and Lucien Jebailey, and Rick Watts complained to the news that they feel discriminated against because they are middle eastern and male. Well, tough shit, suck it up guys. You still live in world of male privilege and if you lose some business due to the human race's history of mistreating women creating an all female business model not taking any shit from men anymore, you're only getting payback for society's evils.

Same thing holds true for taxi and limo companies losing business to Uber and Lyft. The world of passengers is finally reacting to the ills in the taxi industry.

Time to get the message, learn a lesson, and get a real job. A taxi driver's career is in jeopardy. You've been warned.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/lady-drive-her-female-cab-airport-taxi-women-passengers-1.4148300

For everyone else, help your fellow humans, be the boy scout, be the soldier protecting the vulnerable, be the hero. Don't let women get taken advantage of, don't let them get ruffyied, don't let them drive drunk. It's your sister, your mom, your daughter that you're going to prevent from a horrible experience if you step up. Your brother, your buddy, your shipmates are hoping you'll intervene and keep his sister or his mom safe when he can't.

I'm upping my effort, and if you don't understand why, up yours