#152: Uber Dodges Bullet in Maryland

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2017

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The holidays are a time to eat, drink, and be merry. That last one might have been an issue for residents of Maryland if ridesharing had disappeared on December 23, two days before Christmas. That's because state regulators had until December 22 to decide whether Uber and Lyft would have to fingerprint their drivers as part of background checks. If fingerprinting were mandated, the two companies would have ceased operations in Maryland, just as they did in Austin (Episode #79). Fortunately for Maryland, state regulators chose not to impose a fingerprinting mandate, and residents had access to convenient ridesharing options over the holidays. How did Uber dodge this bullet? Why is fingerprinting such a big deal? Elsewhere, people in upstate New York still can't use ridesharing. Why the hell not? Our favorite sharing economy analyst Jared Meyer joins the show to discuss. For more, see Jared's op-eds in The American Spectator and Reason.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartzropper. On today's show, we're talking about Uber
0:08.2	because we needed an excuse to have Jared Meyer back on the show. Longtime listeners of this program
0:12.9	know he is our resident ride sharing and sometimes other sharing economy topics expert. That wasn't
0:19.1	English. So Jared, welcome back to the show. I've introduced you many
0:22.4	times as research fellow at the Manhattan Institute, but that is no longer accurate. So what is
0:26.4	your new job? I'm a senior research fellow now with the Foundation for Government Accountability.
0:31.4	And are you basically doing the exact same shit as you were before? No, we're working a lot more
0:35.3	on the state level and working on removing regulations that
0:38.5	keep people out of work and depending on government. But in terms of your role on this podcast,
0:43.0	literally nothing has changed. Yes. Okay, great. Awesome. So you're still adjunct podcast,
0:47.6	whatever the hell. We'll come up with something. I mean, you know, one of our coworkers just
0:50.9	joke that we should be paying for your health insurance at this rate. But anyway, right before Christmas, when you were all doing your last-minute Christmas shopping
0:59.1	and either looking forward to seeing your family or dreading it, I was actually looking forward to see my family.
1:05.8	Maryland almost lost Uber and Lyft, and there wasn't that much coverage of this? I mean, people like you and me
1:12.1	who live for tech policy saw this, but what the hell happened? Yeah, believe it or not, Uber and
1:17.5	Lyft almost left Maryland on December 22nd. I mean, this is crazy. This is a large state in terms
1:23.7	of population. Yeah, I was about to say, it's not that large. Yeah, let's be real here.
1:27.6	Stop exaggerating.
1:28.7	But they had about 30,000 Uber drivers alone and then add on people who only drive for Lyft.
1:34.1	And we're talking about all those people overnight would have been without a job.
1:37.3	Yet you didn't see the coverage that you saw, let's say, when Uber and Lyft were about to leave Austin.
1:41.7	And I found it kind of surprising, so I wrote a few articles
	...

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