Adding to its flooding kitty of troubles, Uber could now be staring at a fine of close to $1.13 million from ride-hailing regulators in the state of California. The widely popular cab aggregator has been accused of slacking at work, thus, failing to promptly suspend or even investigate drivers under influence during their service hours (i.e who had drunk or drugged driving complaints filed against them by passengers).
Several reports, including Reuters, mention that California has “zero-tolerance” rules in place to govern complaints of driving under influence. The ride-hailing giants need to strict about the implementation of this policy and include it within their apps and online to provide passengers with an option (call or messaging) to lodge complaints against drivers violating the same.
The state’s regulations further mention that ride-hailing giants are to immediately suspend the driver and look into complaints they have received against these drivers. But, Uber’s been alleged of not upholding the policies and could be fined for the same.
In a legal filing, the consumer protection arm of the California Public Utilities Commission stated that Uber hadn’t taken appropriate action w.r.t 151 complaints, out of the 154 which were filed during the one-year period between August 2014 to August 2015. All these complaints involved intoxicated drivers who were in direct violation of the state’s zero-tolerance regulations.
And Uber neglected these policies, only looked into and conducted a follow-up investigation in about 21 cases reviewed by the CPUC. The regulators also found conflicting data which shows that the drivers were logged on, marked as available for hours even when they had been suspended from Uber’s platform.
The California state regulators further mention in the legal filing that:
Failure to suspend a driver promptly after receiving a zero-tolerance complaint is a serious violation of the [ride-hailing] rules because it places passengers and the public at immediate risk.
In other occasions, 64 drivers continued to be operational and ferry passengers within an hour of a DUI complaint being lodged by a previous rider. This can be seen as one of the prominent flaws in the approach towards the zero tolerance policy is that the driver on a ride-hailing platform, such as Uber and Lyft, will not be suspended until the rider’s complaint has been reviewed and identified by the company individually.
But, if you look at the complete statistical picture, Uber received 2,047 complaints about drunk driving in the state of California from August 2014 to August 2015 (the aforementioned time duration). And the ride-hailing giant mentions that it deactivated 574 of those accounts, as has been outlined in their Community Guidelines. So, this means the state’s data, which has taken into account only 154 complaints, can be viewed as incomplete. Uber’s Guidelines state that the driver is deactivated from the platform, permanently, once they’ve received several unconfirmed complaints of drug or alcohol use.
Talking about the CPUC’s legal complaint, an Uber spokesperson said:
We have zero tolerance for any impaired driving as outlined in our Community Guidelines. This report relates to complaints in 2014 and 2015 and we’ve significantly improved our processes since then.
As for the fine, which looks like pocket change for the $68 billion ride-hailing giant, the state regulators found in a partial review that Uber was in violation of the law in 151 complaints. Thus, they are recommending a $7,500 fine for each violation, which amounts to more than $1.13 million in total. The CPUC’s nine-page investigative findings are now “subject to examination by an administrative law judge,” reports Reuters. Any further proceedings will be conducted by the judge who will recommend his action, if any, to a five-member commission.
This is, however, not the first time Uber has run into regulatory haggles in the state of California. The ride-hailing previously found it difficult to find common ground for operating its autonomous vehicles on the streets of the state. It was not accepting the state laws, which required it to gain a permit for operations, thus it moved its tests to the state of Arizona. But, the company has come around & recently started its self-driving operations, but with a minimal fleet, in California after securing the necessary permits.
