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Comment by dcosson | Hacker News Reader

But how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system, and are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era?

It seems a lot like the Uber/taxi fight - I imagine at some point somebody painted a car like a taxi and kidnapped some riders, and we needed a way for riders to be able to trust that the driver is safe to ride with so licenses/medallions came about. Now with the internet and verified identity of drivers, turns out we don't need it anymore and Uber has built a safe way to get into a stranger's car.

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> Uber has built a safe way to get into a stranger's car

The people who have been attacked by Uber drivers wouldn't agree with that statement. I think Uber/Lyft/etc. are largely safe, but their standards are pretty low, and for a long time they weren't even doing proper criminal background checks on prospective drivers. Agreed that the old taxi system was entirely broken and needed to get shaken up, but Uber was hardly a responsible darling in all this.

While I also agree Uber is no darling, the proper comparison would be between driver-on-passenger assaults for ridesharing services versus traditional taxi. How do they stack up?

It's not immediately obvious which one would be safer. In theory ridesharing yields a more extensive data/evidence trail (driver identity, passenger identity, GPS history, etc), making assault much harder to get away with; this would seem to be a better deterrent than relatively anonymous cab rides.

I did a bit of googling and can't find any hard numbers that compare the two types of transport from a driver-on-passenger assault POV. I would welcome cited figures anyone else might have.

When you say "doing proper criminal background checks", do you mean "making sure no one who has re-entered society after serving their sentence is allowed to work for them"?

Countries with good rehabilitation also do this, certain types of sexual crimes have high recidivism rates despite the best efforts. There's rehabilitation and there's realism and protecting the public, there's a balance.

On my local Nextdoor someone posted recently about a trial being finished and warning that his wife had been sexually assaulted in a nearby area. The actual newspaper story was a little heart-breaking, on the one hand the guy clearly had been trying to improve and felt remorse, on the other he's a menace to women, he literally walked up to the women and put his hand up her skirt.

Like this guy?[1]. I'm sure he's a changed man.

While they may have "served their debt" would a taxi firm or someone like Uber really want to hire a serial rapist?

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys

Yes, I was precisely referring to this particular person. Thanks for the honest debate.

There are a lot of careers in which criminals can and should be given a chance to reenter society without unacceptably compromising public safety. Driving taxis is not one of them.

> how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system

How long ago is 2008?

> are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era?

Sure seems like it to me.

How about Wells Fargo, 2016? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_account_fraud_scan...

I don't think you have a clear idea of what you are talking about in terms of regulation.

As mentioned earlier, Sarbanes-Oxley regulations on public company reporting (which is what is being discussed here) precedes the 2008 financial crisis. There are different regulations that came into place on banks after the 2008 crisis like the Basel III capital requirements that attempt to solve a different problem.

2008 could not have happened without Freddy and Fanny. Government shares a huge amount of responsibility.

The housing bubbles happened outside the U.S., they lost market share as the bubble ramped up, and they did not own the riskiest loans.

Why do you think 2008 could not have happened without Fanny and Freddy?

Yes, agreed. See my other comment upthread.

2008 had absolutely nothing to do with the regulations normal public corporations operate under while they are public. Stop bringing it up in the context of SOX because it's irrelevant and goes to show more than anything that the onerous regulation is ineffective because it came out before 2008.

>>But how long ago did these slimebags abuse the system, and are we sure it's still a problem in the modern era?

Of course it is. The system rewards greed, which is a strong incentive to bend the rules or even break them if one thinks they can get away with it. That is why tight controls are necessary, even if they are costly.

ain't lot of those rules came up after Enron. That was pure fraud and not that long ago.

Also, Uber's behavior isn't helping the cause in anyway.

How does license help ?

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