RIDEGURU
Lawmakers in North Carolina are introducing a bill forcing rideshare companies to make their drivers use lighted signs, local TV station WSOC reports.
The bill, named the Passenger Protection Act, was drawn up following the case of 21-year-old student Samantha Josephson, who was murdered in March after she mistakenly got into a stranger's car believing it to be an Uber.
Comments
Anyone can buy lighted signs, including the fake drivers. They instead need to push a bill to require passengers to verify license plate of the car they are about to get into and maybe to click a box in the app that they verified the license plate.
What law would require a passenger to check the license plate? So if I don't check the license plate, I am breaking the law? That's scary, because this may shift the fault towards my side if I am being attacked or kidnapped!
I hear you though. I agree with the spirit of the law. Just not the practicality.
Amen LG congress needs to ban poor decision making
I wonder if these lighted signs will be specially made? Though of course there will become a black market of Uber lighted signs...
There already is.
Utterly foolish. Anyone can purchase a sign on Ebay - as I have purchased lit Uber and Lyft signs myself - and yes, i'm a driver.
But as far as facial recognition is concerned, what about the 100's of times I've picked up a passenger where the ride was requested by someone else, often a friend or lover.
The solution is simple - the passengers need to check our license plate before they enter the car. PROBLEM SOLVED!
Uber loves their facial recognition software to verify driver identity.
How hard would it be to require passengers to snapshot "verify" the vehicle license plate in order to confirm the ride? Such would force riders to take responsibility for verifying their driver, and would help verify the passengers identity to the driver. It would also cut down on loading in dangerous areas by forcing people to load somewhere safe to stop and snap.
I love this idea, though I can see some problems with drunk passengers trying to snap a picture of the license plate 😂
TBH, I think the burden needs to be on the rider to verify. Why should Uber have to verify that the rider verified? Snapping a pic would add a level of friction to the whole transaction and doesn't make it any safer, since the user can just look at the plate on their own.
Snapping the license plate number:
1. It confirms that the passenger is at the correct vehicle. The whole "how do I know this is the right car" problem becomes a moot point; One can display a Uber light purchased on eBay, but you're not going to get past the license plate verification;
2. It confirms to the driver that the person outside the vehicle is, in fact, the correct passenger and it records the exact time that they arrived at the vehicle; you no longer have to worry about people claiming you drove the wrong person.
I don't think lighted signs really help. It's an inferior solution to the one that already exists: check the make/model/color and license plate # when the car pulls up! Uber and Lyft both make this information readily available in the app.
This bill has its heart in the right place, but I think the effort would be better spent on a public service campaign to get people into the habit of checking the car info when it pulls up.
As LG-PA pointed out lighted signs are easily spoofed.