Uber drivers may soon be required to have background checks and operational permits in the city of Lubbock, a move that in the past has prompted the company to pull out of some Texas cities.
Uber is a technology company that provides a mobile phone app connecting riders with drivers. The company launched in Lubbock in late June 2014. With Uber’s app, riders can ask a driver to pick them up and take them where they need to go, with all transactions done over the phone.
Councilwoman Karen Gibson has been working with city staff to update the city code of ordinances to account for ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft, which she said have been operating illegally in the city since their inception.
It’s an issue officials at Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport say they also hope to tackle, as Uber drivers currently aren’t being asked to follow the same rules as licensed cab and limo services, said Kelly Campbell, administrative director at the airport.
After multiple discussions since stakeholders — including representatives from Uber, local taxi companies, police and city officials — first met in July 2014, Gibson said she intends to introduce an amending ordinance at the second City Council meeting in April that puts similar restrictions on transportation network companies as to those already placed on local taxi and limo companies.
“It’s more of a blanket ordinance that encompasses everybody. If they want to operate under that blanket, they will be able to operate here,” she said. “This is necessary for public safety. We live in a college town, we’ve got moms and dads in Dallas sending their daughter here and they expect us to make sure it’s safe.”
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The city’s code states taxi and limo drivers must apply for an operator’s permit, furnish the city a sufficient performance bond, make sure the car is inspected, have a background check and minimum liability insurance of $50,000.
The amended ordinance will place transportation network companies like Uber and Lyft under the same guidelines as the other businesses.
“We’ve been following everything from coast to coast that’s been going on with these new market models,” Harris said. “We’re trying to find out a good way to address those types of industries within our code and allow them to operate, basically, legally.”
A spokesperson for Uber declined to comment to A-J Media until the company is able to review the ordinance.
But looking at cities that have passed similar regulations, Uber’s typical response has simply been to leave.
See here and here for more on the places Uber has recently abandoned. Of interest here is that the word “fingerprint” doesn’t appear anywhere in this story. That’s been a point of conflict in other cities, but it’s not the only one. In the first link from that previous sentence, I solicited a statement from Uber that said they had “made the difficult decision to cease operations in every city that has adopted new laws that require similarly duplicative regulations on drivers”, which was a reference to the Houston ordinance. They cited “Beaumont, San Marcos, College Station, and Abilene” as the cities they want others to emulate. That doesn’t sound like what Lubbock is doing, so we can expect Uber to respond as they have in cities like Corpus, which is to say they will close up shop. (Though now apparently COrpus is reconsidering.] We’ll see how it goes.