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Tracking is key
And this is why the newer, app-dispatched ride services are far superior to the old hackney system.
Because the drivers are tracked.
Otherwise, the police would have to rely upon the victim to remember the plate number or medallion number of the vehicle. Or other vague description of the perpetrator. Certainly not impossible. But easily forged or stolen. When you hail a cab on the street, nobody but the two of you know. When you hail a vehicle through an app, there is an electronic trail in case of trouble.
umm
All Boston licensed cabs are tracked by gps in case of this type of crime occurs.
Tell us, anon (not verified)
would you care to post your IP address here? I ask because once again, it's a common practice amongst Uber OT1's that monitoring sites like these and posting nice things about Uber is just another in the sleazy tactics that Uber is now famous for.
Oh please
It's true. Had she gotten into a random cab, she may not have gotten the name or plate number. With Uber, they knew exactly who picked her up. Awful that this happened, but there isn't much anyone could do to avoid it. He passed his background check...sometimes people commit crimes they haven't committed in the past.
Haven't committed...
... or at least havent yet got nabbed for...
Someone passed a background check, maybe not the driver
Last I saw, Uber wasn't requiring the same level of background check cab drivers get, including fingerprints.
I wonder if the cops have determined
if any of the now four incidents of sexual misconduct by some of the now thousands of TNC drivers in the Boston area this month alone could have possibly been committed by one of those guys driving fake cabs? You know, because Uber picks up at the Black Falcon Pier, so they're much more ethical than some poor old cab driver who doesn't play the Black Falcon unless a ship is in on a Saturday.
I wonder what Travis Kalanick will have to say in this week's installment of blame the victim theater? Or maybe this will suffice, eh?
One other difference.....
Hackney drivers in Boston have criminal background checks, not sure if UBer does, but I don't think they do.
According to their website, they do
http://blog.uber.com/driverscreening
Yes, they do
Uber does conduct background checks on their drivers. They also charge each ride a buck extra for conducting background checks on their own drivers.However, in an entirely unanticipated move, we now have springing up guys who will lease you daily or weekly a late model Prius or Highlander so you can go out and do your Uber! Not taking into consideration the growing trend of some guys to put whomever they feel like behind the wheel of their vehicle just to keep that vehicle going, so that occasionally you don't really get the guy who is listed on your app. You may get his cousin or neighbor. Uber's response? None.
So now, in an effort to keep up the longstanding tradition of sleazy cab owners, we now have sleazy Uber owners.
You'll forgive this little bit of information,as I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about because I've never ridden in the back of an Uber car.
Yes they do
I can even show you a copy of mine. They send it to you.
Does it show dismissed/CWOF or not guilty cases?
So if OJ Simpson applied, could he get a job? (Not counting his latest stuff)
Massachusetts dismisses all first time OUIL cases with fines, and I can't remember if that shows up on criminal histories or not.
I'm sure
And I'm sure all of those criminal background checks scour the records of the drivers from Somalia, Cape Verde, Haiti, etc. Riiiiiiight. Let's not kid ourselves that these background checks uncover everything about the drivers.
They do not
When I hired part-time college students for kids programs in Boston, we were not allowed to start anyone working until their CORI and SORI turned up clean.
Surprise, surprise, when you've been living in Massachusetts at (insert large freshman dorm address here) for six weeks, your CORI and SORI turns up clean.
Do they have a different CORI for cab drivers?
One that scours the records of recent immigrant drivers?
I'm betting that they don't.
They do actually.
The police can see the actual court record, and reports, so that rape from cape cod that got dismissed because the victim moved to California shows up on the police investigation, but wouldn't on the CORI.
Just a different background check that's all.
According to a NECN article
At least one was a fake driver, not the actual driver that was arranged for the pick-up.
That isn't uncommon.
And probably the biggest problem so far that I've seen, are drivers using their friends uber cars to illegally pick up people. It isn't common, but one of the few criminal loopholes that I've seen used.
You don't think this happens with cabs?
Cabs at least used to lease out for 24hrs at a time. Guys in my house would split one, and take shifts.
They were all licensed, but only the guy who took out the cab was listed as the driver for that lease time.
If they have a hackney license they are yes....
fingerprinted, asked about reports, criminal records, immigration history, FBI III histories, NCIC record and firearm checks, etc.
It wasn't someone using a friend's car
It was a random guy. According to this NECN article, in one case the actual driver contacted her to say he had arrived, after she had gotten in the other car.
http://www.necn.com/news/new-england/Police-Warn-of-Rideshare-Services-A...
Not to say that people aren't using other people's cars, just that in one case the person got in the wrong car.
Sad as this is, this is not surprising. It happens with taxis, why wouldn't it happen with other services? I wish more women were taxi/Uber/Lyft/whatever drivers.
Just about when I expected this to happen...
For the past few months, my wife and I have been wondering when something like this was going to happen.
Maybe 20 years ago, there was a shared-ride company that started picking people up at Logan Airport, claiming that they had found some sort of a loophole in the regulations for taxis and limousines. They got a lot of publicity in the media, and I saw their vehicles -- which were very distinctive -- all over the place. And after they flew high for a year or two, they crashed and burned very quickly, when some of their customers were violently assaulted.
The apparently similar incidents at Uber have happened just about on schedule.
UberX User
I take UberX at least once a week, if not more often.
You can slam Uber/Lyft all you want, but in my experience, the drivers have always been prompt, polite and courteous.
I live in Roslindale and like to go out, have a few pops and not worry about driving home. Trying to get a cab from James's Gate to Rossie? Yeah, good luck with that...Uber, OTOH, has been great for this - I can get a reliable, safe ride home, where I know the make/model and tags of the car picking me up and I get the driver's name and photo. If a car tries to pick me up that doesn't match the description from my Uber, I ain't getting in.
It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that there are some sketchy folks either pretending to be rideshare drivers who want to prey upon women or who are actually rideshare drivers and prey upon drunken women.
You have an odd definition of
You have an odd definition of the word "slam". It isn't a "slam" to observe that a particular incident happened. It's a "slam" if you claim WITHOUT SUBSTANTIATION that Uber(addconsonentofchoice) is particularly vulnerable to this sort of incident.
By the way, just how would these hypothetical "sketchy folks" impersonate an Uber driver? Do you think they just randomly drive around looking for victims and saying, "I'm your Uber driver" until they connect with someone who actually ordered a ride? Doesn't that seem just a wee bit prone to conspicuous disconnects, to the point where we would have heard about it?
Not actually conspicuous given the typical setting.
If you're downtown in a bar area at closing time, there are lots of people out on the street looking for rides. It's not that crazy to have someone pull up and ask if you need a ride. It's not like these guys are driving into suburbia on a Wednesday afternoon, pulling up to a random house and hoping someone inside is waiting for an Uber.
I can see that easily happening
Friday night, bars let out in Boston, there are going to be people waiting for Uber. Unless the person checks the license and photo with the driver, they can mistakenly get in the wrong car.
All of the UberX drivers I've
All of the UberX drivers I've had this week have said "Are you xxx?" when I was about to get in, confirming that they are looking for me, since they show my name on their side of the app. I think this might be a new policy (and a very good one at that).