This Week in Rideshare: Business, Voters and Masks.

Uber offers new options, voters cool to Uber’s proposal, and riders get banned. LegalRideshare breaks it down.

MONDAY 9/21/20

Uber’s self-driving division is slipping. At least that’s what the investors are saying. Bloomberg explains:

“In recent months, the company’s two largest shareholders, SoftBank Group Corp. and the venture firm Benchmark, have privately encouraged Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi to find more investors for the division, which is expected to exhaust its funds by the end of 2021, and re-evaluate its strategy, according to people familiar with the situation.”

TUESDAY 9/22/20

Uber for Business makes a pandemic shift. Techcrunch explains:

For starters, the company is introducing Employee Group Rides. Group might be an overstatement, as it involves two employees in the same area sharing an Uber for the purpose of getting to or from work. It works in a similar fashion to the way Uber Pool worked, except it only involves matching employees at the same company.

The second option is called Business Charter, and this involves Uber connecting the customer to a third-party fleet partner, who can pick up multiple employees and bring them to the office.

WEDNESDAY 9/23/20

After the ride-hailing giants poured millions to sway voters…it doesn’t seem to be working. KQED explains:

The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll finds that Proposition 22 is favored by 39% of likely voters, while 36% oppose it and 25% are undecided.

“In general, a proposition like this, polling just 39% [support] … would probably be at least a slight underdog in terms of its chances for passage,” said IGS co-director Eric Schickler, a UC Berkeley political science professor.

THURSDAY 9/24/20

“No mask, no ride” has lead to over 1200 rider deactivations. USA Today explains:

Uber has removed more than 1,250 riders from its platform for not adhering to its mask wearing rules, the company says. And it is expanding its tools to identify those who are intentionally defiant moving forward.

Heeding the advice of health officials, Uber kicked off its “No Mask. No Ride” policy in May, in a bid to curb the spread of the outbreak while better protecting drivers and riders. Now, the app sends you a reminder to put on a mask when you request a trip.

FRIDAY 9/25/20

It looks like e-scooters and E-bikes have gotten a boost since the pandemic. Forbes explains:

Electric bicycles (e-bikes), electric scooters (e-scooters), motorized skateboards and other small personal transportation devices have seen a huge spike in use on roads and sidewalks across the country during the past decade, and since the Covid-19 pandemic, the move to rely less on public transit and more on public distancing measures has fueled that growth.

The number of trips on them rose to 84 million in 2018, double the number from the previous year, which has increased the potential for crashes. Hospitals reported triple digit spikes in e-scooter injuries and hospital admissions, researchers said, noting that while most scooter injuries occured after falls or collisions with infrastructure, “interactions between scooter riders and vehicles are more likely to be deadly.”

LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, bikeshare and e-scooter accidents and injuries.