Uber and Lyft are Returning to Texas after a Legislation Passed

Listen to this article

In the month of May 2016, Uber and Lyft reportedly pulled out of the city when citizens in Austin voted on requiring fingerprint-based background checks from ridesharing drivers and ban on picking passenger in traffic lanes. Now, both companies are scheduling to restart operations on next Monday in the city. The current step was take due to legislation was passed in the current month forwarded by the Texas Lawmakers. This bill has override local ordinances such as Austin regulated that ride-sharing services and it only needed signature of Governor Greg Abbott to become law. The new bill (HB 100) will override at least 20 local ordinances of the State that require ride-sharing companies to collect criminal background and sex offender checks for their drivers, but it would allow them to use their choice.

The internal checks of Uber have failed to find out criminal records of drivers when last month Massachusetts imposed massive background research rules. At least 8 thousand drivers were disqualified due to sexual/violent crimes, reckless or drunk driving. Undoubtedly, these advanced checks displaced greedy drive such as Uber drivers who have sexually assault passengers. After the activation of drivers from Uber and Lyft, both companies should have to compete with local operators. Some companies such as Fare and Fasten along with the nonprofit ride-sharing service “Ride Austin” complied with the rules of Austin. These rules were passed by the city to improve the standards of ride-sharing drivers to match taxi drivers.