More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks | Hacker News Reader

More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks

bostonherald.com

53 pointskevincennis46 comments

Background checks are useless when so much bad information is floating around...

Is being caught with a gram of pot a good reason to not have a job? Because in states where it is (or even, was, but is not now) illegal its often a felony. I have friends who live in legal states with MJ posession charges from when it wasnt legal. Still haunting them... seems like bullshit all around...

On top of that, here's a fun little story. There is a guy, born a month after me to the day, in the next closest hospital to where I was born, with the exact same first, middle and last name as me. In 2003, he got in a bar fight that spilled out into a parking lot, during the fight his pants where torn (not taken off) in a way that exposed his genitals. He was charged with a sexual crime and is now a sex offender.

You wanna know how often that comes up on low level background checks for me? You know how much it sucks having to preempt a BGC with a future employer with "you might see a thing that says im a sex offender, here's a nice PDF i've made explaining the issue..."

The thing about this that makes it suck so hard, is not only are background checks bleeding other people's information into mine... but the guy is a sex offender for no reason at all... I feel bad for the dude.

Thats why this system sucks, regardless...

I will take this with a grain of salt given the excessive criminalisation of ordinary behaviour. Even for horrible terms like "sex offender" we can not be sure if the guy was a rapist or someone getting a happy ending in massage parlour.

Or even someone caught peeing in public if you get caught having to pee in public you can get on the offender list even in cities with absolutely no public restrooms to mitigate the need for that.

The sex-offenders are just a minuscule part of the rejected (less than 1%). How is a history of violent crime ordinary behaviour? How are multiple serious driving offenses ordinary?

Due to the nature of how they must be enforced these crimes are defined vaguely and arbitrarily in relation to actual risk to safety.

Assault, a common violent crime, doesn't actually require the person charged to have caused harm - no intent to cause physical injury needs to exist, and no physical injury needs to result - simply proving that one caused "apprehension of imminent contact" in the victim satisfies the legal definition of assault. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault

Driving offenses are also arbitrarily coded for easy enforcement - speed isn't as closely related to risk as following distance. If you exceed 80 mph in VA then that's considered reckless driving (a jailable offense), while no minimum following distance is enforced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reckless_driving#Virginia

> How is a history of violent crime ordinary behaviour?

When you and me read the word "violent crime" we think of Joker with a bloody baseball bat beating up Jason Todd. For government a lady defending herself from rapist boyfriend could be violent crime. She was just too poor to put up a proper defence. I can show you plenty of people especially women from poor neighbourhoods who chose violence for perfectly legitimate reason but narcissist DA charged them and offer them 1 year guilty plea or potential 10 year jail.

I don't buy government's definition of "violent crime" to the slightest and refuse to treat the entire group as some evil people who can not even drive Uber.

> How are multiple serious driving offences ordinary?

Again it boils down to what "serious driving offence" means. A most of them are something which I would just laugh at. Failure to renew vehicle registration, excessive speeding, failure to stop and exchange information after a collision or property damage (most common for poor people).

While I would treat DUI as a serious red flag I will totally overlook failure to renew vehicle registration or failure to exchange information after collision.

Indefinite look back periods deprive people with decades-old convictions from doing honest work for honest pay. This is counterproductive to society.

The indefinite look back is only for certain disqualifying offenses. Most (many of which are still rather serious) are 7 years. http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dpu/transportation-network-comp...

Counterpoint: plenty of non-violent offecences there with unlimited lookback as well.

G.L. c. 272, §7 (Support From, or Sharing, Earnings of Prostitute)

G.L. c. 272, §12 (Procuring Person to Practice, or Enter a Place for Prostitution; Employment Office Procuring Person)

G.L. c. 272, § 16 (Open and Gross Lewdness and Lascivious Behavior)

G.L. c. 272, §53 (Indecent Exposure)

G.L. c. 272, §53 (Accosting or Annoying a Person of the Opposite Sex)

G.L. c. 272, §53A (Engaging in Sexual Conduct for a Fee)

G.L. c. 272, §105 (Upskirting)

Sexual assault is non-violent? These all sound like things that would reasonably disqualify drivers.

I disagree completely. Just what do you think the people you interact with every day are like when you don't see them? This is puritanism, nothing else.

I'm not sure I'd want to employ someone who's got a history of whipping out their nob and shaking it at people in shopping malls.

There's a documentary about the reality of prostitution called "Very Young Girls" that I suggest everyone watch. It dispels a lot of the myths around the realities of prostitution in America. By and large it is the manipulation of underage girls who end up victimized by their pimps, their johns, and society in general.

I'm not really that big of a fan of Uber, I think they've done plenty of wrong. But I just don't see it here.

If these people have a record, then presumably they've already been punished for whatever crime they committed. I don't see why Uber should be expected to punish them further beyond the requirements of law. Yet, FTA:

> The law did not call for state-run background checks to begin until next year, but in November, Uber and Lyft agreed to let the state conduct the checks beginning in January. That agreement did not include other ride-hail companies that operate in Massachusetts, including Fasten and Safr.

So, Uber and Lyft are going above and beyond the requirements of the law, and Uber is still getting blasted. It's almost like a Taxi company wrote the article.

Also see tn135's comment about the excessive criminalisation of ordinary behavior: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14045065

> “Thousands of people in Massachusetts have lost access to economic opportunities as a result of a screening that includes an unfair and unjust indefinite look-back period,” an Uber spokeswoman said today. “We have an opportunity to repair the current system in the rules process so that people who deserve to work are not denied the opportunity.”

Given all of the negative press about Uber lately, you'd think they'd give some more thought before publicly defending the right of sex offenders, people with suspended licenses, and people with multiple serious driving offenses to work as taxi drivers.

I will defend the right of sex offenders, people with suspended licenses etc. unless I know the specific crime for which they were convicted. A person pissing in a bush can become a sexual offender, an 18 year old kid having sex with 16 year old girlfriend can become sex offender. People might get their license suspended because of economic hardship.

Putting all these people in same bracket as a brazen criminal is a bad idea.

Yes but that is a different issue that has little baring on this case.

If you would not be able to pass a CBC and hold a taxi license you should not be driving people around.

If you think edge cases are an issue then it's an issue with the criminal justice system not background check.

There will always be extreme cases because you need to draw a line at some point.

You might find it acceptable for an 18 year old to have sex with your 16 year old child, how about 19? 20?

Public urination can land you on the list but it's pretty rare compared to actual sexual assault cases.

Uber's entire business model is pretty much to cut in on traditional licensed taxi services by lowering the entry requirements for their drivers, on the assumption that customers prefer that risk/cost tradeoff. If you are more risk averse, you're not their customer - you use a traditional taxi.

I am personally fine to ride with a driver who was convicted of anything as long as he has served his/her time. I consider the debt paid and believe in second chances.

If traditional Taxi drivers want to use "our drivers are safer than Uber" as a competitive advantage then let them be but I don't see why Uber should be forced into some arbitrary check as long as the riders know their options.

Probably safe to say that those fringe cases aren't representative of the full slew of 8,000 people here.

What you're describing are really rare edge cases. Nearly all people on the sex offender registry actually did something that justifies being on there. And those people should not be put into a position of power over strangers at night.

As for economic hardship, I don't see how that justifies getting a job as a driver when your license is suspended. It's literally illegal for them to drive at all like that. It doesn't matter why it's suspended, people for whom it is illegal to be driving should not be given a job as a driver.

> Nearly all people on the sex offender registry actually did something that justifies being on there.

Citation? I don't necessarily doubt it's true, but 'nearly all' can be completely relative. I'd like to see actual numbers for a statement like that.

As far as I'm concerned, just 1% is enough for me to question whether this is a reasonable metric and 10% would be "this is utter garbage"

Indeed, of the things I've read, the sex offender registry is quite flawed.[0]

[0] https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2013/09/02/the-wrongfull...

At a guess, I bet the register has large fractions of serious criminals and also your "rare" edge cases.

The probability that someone doing one of these minor things getting on the register might be low. But the number of people doing them in the first place will roughly compensate.

Anyway, laws where there is a low probability of a serious (and over the top) punishment are bad. For one thing they don't work well as incentives. Worse, they are most likely to hit the disadvantaged, low status people who have less leverage to officials to look the other way.

Those `rare edge cases` you're marginalizing represent real people's lives.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article41364675.html

I gotta say, It's a struggle for me to read these threads and see people who share your callous comfort with the status quo.

They are in fact rare cases, and the cases where those people are denied the desired opportunity to drive for Uber are even rarer. More people are raped --- set aside sexually assaulted --- in taxi cabs every year than are denied this opportunity.

It is obviously a real problem that people are placed on sex offender registries for peeing in bushed. But the commenter above isn't required to address every real problem in pointing out that there's a good public policy reason to avoid having people convicted of real sexual assault offenses driving cabs.

I think it is upto the ridesharing company to set the standards and not an arbitrary bureaucrat. In fact I believe people like you and me might be able to invent better methods of detecting people of dubious characters and can deny them job.

> The most common reason for rejecting a potential driver was a suspended license [on their record]

A previously suspended license flunks the background check? I've had mine suspended for failing to pay a parking ticket that was never mailed to me. Kind of a lame reason to never be able to drive for lyft or uber.

No, they were rejected because they don't currently have an active license.

Source? I found no direct quote of what caused the rejections, or if suspension even directly caused the rejection. However:

"The bill creates a two-part driver background check system, one by the transportation network companies themselves that is then followed by a check by the state. Drivers would be screened every six months. Drivers must not appear on the National Sex Offender Registry; not had a conviction in the past seven years; and must not have more than four traffic violations or any major traffic violation in the preceding three-year period."

"Operating after Suspension of Drivers License" is a major traffic violation in Massachusetts.

"Employing unlicensed motor vehicle operator; permitting person with suspended or revoked license to operate motor vehicle" is also a major violation, and could happen if, for example, the owner of the vehicle was intoxicated and ask someone who wasn't intoxicated to drive.

http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dpu/transportation-network-comp... Last page. License suspended in the past 7 years.

I just finished dealing with threatening letters from the DMV telling me that my license was suspended because I cancelled my insurance 6 months ago. It turned out to be a race condition with my insurance company's software miscommunicating the dates of a policy change. If I had been out of town or received the notice three days later, I'd have this on my record, and I never did a damn thing wrong.

It's crazy that Uber would make such a fuss about this and characterize it as merely a matter of depriving putative drivers of income. Yes, there will almost certainly be instances in which the indefinite look-back period or criminal history criteria would lead to an arguably unfair outcome for a particular driver. However, surely that would be an issue for only a very small proportion of people. Even if it isn't, I can't help but take the utilitarian approach and err on the side of caution.

8000 employees for uber in a single state is not a small proportion.

I suspect they got many people who can't become Taxi etc drivers due to these issues and lack higher paying skills.

that isn't a utilitarian approach but a conservative one.

i'd argue that nearly all drivers who failed massachusetts's background check would likely provide very similar quality rides as current uber/lyft drivers. the utility to all of those now-working people certainly wouldn't be outweighed by the disutility of a potentially small (and probably statistically insignificant) rise in bad rides.

people make mistakes, but people change constantly. we should encourage positive change in people, not discourage it. allow people to do legitimate work despite past mistakes, rather than compounding the punitive effects of their mistakes and thus encouraging more bad behavior (often out of despair or desperation).

uber has made many mistakes, but i agree with them here. let these people work.

Checking each single applicant's offenses and determining wether it's relevant or not for their driver position takes a lot more time/money. If you want an automated process that guarantees the security of your customer aka the passengers as much as possible for the lowest cost possible you just eliminate anyone with "qualifying" offense. This is not more conservative than it is efficient.

no, if efficiency were your primary concern, then you would work to lower the adverse action rate of 11%, because typically you need to manually review each potential adverse action to avoid violating the FRCA when you reject the candidate. "clear" records require no manual review (obviously) so are more efficient than finding adverse records.

by contrast, uber & lyft are able to do background checks with less than a ~2% adverse action rate.

it's debatable that background checks make passengers safer, so getting rid of background checks altogether would be the most efficient of course.

checkr (https://checkr.com/) has built a nice little business doing background checks despite the inefficiencies.

Another reason it isn't a utilitarian approach is because not allowing reformed criminals to work causes recidivism. If people have no way to make an honest living once they serve their time, they are virtually guaranteed to commit more crime. The attitude of "Don't hire criminals, it isn't safe" makes society as a whole less safe.

great, we've successfully defended the status quo where people who commit crimes in the United States can't get jobs, and are therefore incentivized to become recidivists.

What is Mass.?

After consulting with my 4th grade teacher, we have come to a consensus that it is the state of Massachusetts.

The state of Massachusetts in USA. MA is the official abbreviation, but locally people use Mass. pretty frequently.

Look, until the next Marilyn Manson is driving in ride sharing programs and randomly killing people that were otherwise contributing to society, I'm not going to care and will be perfectly content not caring about the illegitimate dragnet of sex offender status.

I care WAYYYY more about the driver masquerading as a local but doesn't know the roads for my daily commute.

They're going to be replaced by machines waay before a more comprehensive and relevant background check framework is established anyway, so stop trying to marginalize people trying to make a buck.

You know Marilyn Manson is a rock musician and not a spree killer right?

Edit: also what you describe has happened: https://www.google.com/amp/www.gq.com/story/the-uber-killer/...

Meant charles i think, the serial killer, and my point stands

Reply on news.ycombinator.com