Tuesday, November 4, 2014

#Ubergate 2 #Yasskygate New York City Taxi & Limo Commission "Final Report" on E Hail Pilot Program documents failure, not success and it gets mealy-mouthed on Safety.

Originally posted 10/23

After more than a year of encouragement less than 6,000 out of 40,000 yellow cab drivers and  an even larger number of FHV drivers have ever used an e hail app. 27% of ehails have resulted in a trip. Ehails were shown to constitute a tiny fraction of New York's transportation infrastructure in the report dated last June but released last week.
In a related article I made a factual error in stating that the one year pilot project had reached its supposed termination date last December. Commissio  Chairman David Yassky, who now works as a paid consultant for  Lyft, one of the e hail operators was hell bent to close the trial period out in December and declare the pilot program a smashing success when he slammed the brakes and did a 180° turn on the day of the vote. He backed off after I submitted written testimony and of course blogged about it.  The anniversary passed in April. 
This Final Report makes a nonsensical reference to public safety- a drop in passenger safety complaints against drivers. Most of these complaints are against drivers who use hands free blue tooth phones while carrying passengers. The use of any cell phone is forbidden by the TLC as a safety measure. This number has gone down because of very stiff penalties being enacted along with vigorous enforcement by TLC and NYPD officers and is not related to the main safety issue surrounding e hail driver apps.
That issue is distracted driving - generally when there is no passenger in the car. See my article in the Guardian:            Gu.com/p/3hytp .
I suppose a vote on the final status of the apps will be coming up soon. Although I subscribe to TLC notices I have failed to receive several. I will be submitting my recent blog posts in written testimony.

This accident is for illustration only. No claim is being made that an e hail app was involved.

Six year old Shirley Lee killed by a passengerless Uber driver who was distracted by his Uber driver app. Google ubber denies responsibility. And so, after a failed end run a "Final Report" shows e hail failure and a studied ignoring of the main safety issue by ranking regulators who went on to be employed by those they have dilligently protected  to the point of being evasive and mendacious.
#Ubergate 2 #Lyftgate2 #Yasskygate
#uber #lyft