California’s ride-hailing regulator has repeatedly promised to release safety data on Uber and Lyft — most recently voting last August to do so. It still hasn’t, leaving the public in the dark about the scope of driver assaults and whether the agency has done its job.
Category: Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data
A months-long investigation by the San Francisco Public Press revealed that the California Public Utilities Commission — the agency charged with regulating the state’s ride-hailing firms — has kept reports on thousands of accidents involving Uber and Lyft under wraps.
In scores of court cases, meanwhile, the companies have successfully kept evidence about collisions allegedly caused by their drivers secret.
As a result, the public, and even local government officials, have been kept in the dark about the massive industry’s road safety record.
In the wake of Seth Rosenfeld’s reporting, politicians have called for more transparency and the commission has proposed repealing a shadowy confidentiality clause.
Posted inNews, Public Safety, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
Local Planners Say State Failed to Track Safety Incidents on Uber and Lyft
The state agency responsible for ensuring Uber and Lyft rides are safe failed to consistently track the number of accidents, assaults and drunk driving complaints that occur on them, according to a new study by San Francisco traffic planners.
The California Public Utilities Commission did not even consistently collect the most basic industry information, such as ride requests and miles driven, the report from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority shows.
Posted inCalifornia, Economy & Business, Government & Politics, Labor, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
Uber, Lyft Must Adopt Measures to Prevent Sexual Assaults, California Regulator Rules
Nine years after becoming the first agency in the nation to legalize ride-hailing — and after thousands of publicized sexual assaults on Uber and Lyft rides — the California Public Utilities Commission for the first time is requiring the industry to adopt comprehensive measures to prevent such attacks.
In a previously unreported vote last month, the commission issued a decision requiring that all ride-hailing firms train drivers to avoid sexual assault and harassment, adopt procedures for investigating complaints and use uniform terminology in their annual reports to the agency so it can accurately monitor them.
Posted inCalifornia, Economy & Business, Government & Politics, Law & Justice, Open Government, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Utilities
How California Utilities Commission Undermines the Public Records Act
Despite vows to become more transparent, the California Public Utilities Commission has systematically violated the public’s right to know about its handling of deadly disasters and corporate scandals, according to court records and First Amendment attorneys.
Applying century-old laws meant to fight corruption, the commission has effectively limited court enforcement of the state’s public records act. But a state appeals court on May 3 is hearing a lawsuit challenging that practice and could bring more transparency to the commission.
Posted inNews, Public Safety, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
Utilities Agency Admits More Problems in Tracking Ride-Hailing Assaults
The state agency responsible for ensuring that rides with Uber and Lyft are safe has acknowledged that it failed to consistently monitor passenger complaints about rapes and assaults for years. The California Public Utilities Commission confirmed in an unpublicized ruling that it had let the ride-hailing giants use varying definitions of sexual assault and harassment in their mandatory reports to the agency since at least 2017.
Posted inNews, Public Safety, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
Officials Demand Reform on Uber, Lyft Assault Reports
Two key elected officials have criticized the California Public Utilities Commission’s inconsistent collection of information on passenger complaints about assaults and threats on Uber and Lyft rides and called for reforms. A leading researcher on sexual assault added that the commission’s methodology was out of line with accepted practice and that it suggested a “lack of concern” about monitoring the incidents.
Posted inPublic Safety, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
California Failed to Consistently Track Ride-Hailing Assault and Harassment Complaints
The agency responsible for regulating the ride-hailing industry in California has failed to collect consistent data on complaints of assaults, threats and harassment on Uber and Lyft rides, a San Francisco Public Press investigation found.
Posted inFrom the Newsroom, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data
Seth Rosenfeld Wins Local Freedom of Information Award for Report on Ride-Hailing Safety
A regional journalism organization recognized freelance investigative reporter Seth Rosenfeld with a freedom-of-information award this week for his Public Press series exposing secrecy and lax state regulation of the burgeoning ride-hailing industry. Rosenfeld spent five months in late 2019 and early 2020 digging into the cozy relationship between the California Public Utilities Commission and the companies it purportedly regulated, Uber and Lyft. In “Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data,” launched online in January 2020 and as a print edition cover story, Rosenfeld found that for six years the commission withheld from public view annual safety reports detailing the industry’s troubling record of crashes and injuries, with sometimes deadly consequences.
Posted inCalifornia, Economy & Business, Law & Justice, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
Uber, Lyft Lose Shield on Safety Reports as California Regulator Rescinds Secrecy Rule
Uber and Lyft can no longer keep their safety reports quite so secret. Their California regulator reversed a rule shielding that data from public view.
Posted inLaw & Justice, Public Safety, Ride-Hailing’s Dark Data, Transportation, Utilities
CPUC Proposes Repealing Secrecy of Uber, Lyft Accident Data
In a dramatic reversal, the agency that regulates the state’s massive ride-hailing industry has proposed that annual safety reports filed by Uber and Lyft should be presumed public. A San Francisco Public Press investigation published Jan. 7 found that the California Public Utilities Commission, the primary regulator of the state’s ride-hailing industry, has permitted the firms to file the reports confidentially on the basis of a single sentence inserted into the regulations as footnote 42, without prior public notice amid heavy industry lobbying.