Safety officials at the California Public Utilities Commission thought they had a powerful case against Uber for endangering the public.
In 2019 they discovered that Uber had allowed luxury limousine companies to provide hundreds of thousands of rides for Uber Black, its premium car service, even though these firms had given Uber blatantly false documents or employed drivers not fully insured or enrolled in mandatory drug testing and driving record reviews, the officials later alleged in a legal brief.
As their investigation continued, the safety officials learned that in almost two dozen cases, drivers for these unauthorized subcarriers had allegedly assaulted passengers or engaged in other misconduct, they said in the brief, some of which could have been prevented had Uber properly vetted the limousine firms.
