
More than 8,000 ride-share drivers flunked Mass. background checks - kevincennis
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2017/04/more_than_8000_ride_share_drivers_flunked_mass_background_checks
======
jmcdiesel
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...

------
tn135
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.

~~~
legulere
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?

~~~
thatcat
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](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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reckless_driving#Virginia)

------
chrisco255
Indefinite look back periods deprive people with decades-old convictions from
doing honest work for honest pay. This is counterproductive to society.

~~~
anon1121
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...](http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dpu/transportation-network-
company/disqualifying-conditions.pdf)

~~~
gruez
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)

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

~~~
1_2__3
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.

------
nfriedly
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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14045065)

------
eridius
> _“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.

~~~
bingomad123
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.

~~~
eridius
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.

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

[http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article41364675.html](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.

~~~
tptacek
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.

~~~
bingomad123
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.

------
peterwwillis
_> 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.

~~~
anon1121
No, they were rejected because they don't currently have an active license.

~~~
masto
[http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dpu/transportation-network-
comp...](http://www.mass.gov/eea/docs/dpu/transportation-network-
company/disqualifying-conditions.pdf) 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.

------
staticautomatic
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.

~~~
clairity
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.

~~~
fataliss
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.

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

------
jknoepfler
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.

------
rocky1138
What is Mass.?

~~~
URSpider94
The state of Massachusetts in USA. MA is the official abbreviation, but
locally people use Mass. pretty frequently.

------
elastic_church
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.

~~~
thenipper
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/...](https://www.google.com/amp/www.gq.com/story/the-uber-killer/amp)

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

