Uber Continues to Fight State and Local Regulatory Efforts
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The taxi industry disrupting ride-booking service is picking and choosing where to lobby and where to fold.
The popular ride-booking service Uber continues to wage a series of legislative dogfights in various states and localities seeking to impose precautionary regulations on its business model and operations.
The latest efforts are in New Jersey, where on Monday the company launched a lobbying tour against state legislation that would require the service’s drivers to carry the same insurance, pay the same licensing fees and submit to the same background checks as Garden State cabbies and chauffeurs.
Drivers are the focus of the open-ended campaign showing how their livelihoods will be impacted if Uber is over-regulated or forced out of New Jersey, beginning in state Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto’s hometown of Secaucus.
The city also happens to be in state Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Nicholas Sacco’s legislative district.
"It's going to very much be looking at the drivers,” Uber spokesman Matt Wing told New Jersey Advance Media of the tour. "They're residents of the state. They're constituents."
Uber already left Anchorage, Alaska, and San Antonio, Texas, due to local regulations in those cities, and New Jersey’s taxi industry-backed bill passed through two Assembly committees and awaits a floor vote, as well as Senate consideration.
Ride-booking companies like Uber and competitor Lyft are typically cheaper than standard taxi services because they aren’t as regulated, a double standard they argue is fair since drivers are part-time and use their personal vehicles.
San Francisco-based Uber still performs background checks and has been working to eliminate an insurance “coverage gap” that critics have said leaves Uber drivers, their passengers, pedestrians and people in other vehicles at risk.
But those efforts haven’t stopped other states like Massachusetts from considering more regulations.
In the Bay State, Gov. Charlie Baker proposed a bill Friday that would require Uber drivers to undergo state-mandated background checks and obtain state-mandated insurance that he said "strikes the right balance between innovation and public safety with respect to transportation networking companies," reported The Republican newspaper in Springfield.
Florida’s House and Senate have until May 1 to reconcile separate versions of legislation requiring Uber drivers in the Sunshine State to undergo “level 2” background tests, according to the Palm Beach Post. The House version of the legislation addresses fingerprinting while the Senate version covers commercial insurance.
If the legislation is not reconciled, Uber will live to see another legislative session unregulated in the state.
Despite legislative battles in some states, both Uber and Lyft launched in Portland, Oregon, on Friday as part of a city-approved, experimental four-month pilot program.
Portland business licenses and vehicle inspections are required for drivers, but both companies’ pricing structures, which surge at peak times, were preserved. Cabs can set their own prices during the four-month trial.
Portland city commissioners said they generally disliked Uber’s tactics for gaining entry into the local market, KGW-TV reported, but the pilot program passed on a 3-2 vote.
"We're not voting on whether we like Uber,” Commissioner Steve Novick told the television station. “We're voting on whether to allow a particular business model to operate."
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