Everyone was taught it is dangerous to hitchhike with strangers.  Yet this is exactly what people do when they use Uber or Lyft to summon a ride. Uber and Lyft want their passengers’ trust and money, but the companies want no legal accountability when one of their drivers rapes, robs or murders a passenger.

It is a pleasant fiction to believe that getting into an Uber or a Lyft vehicle is no different than getting into a taxicab.  Unfortunately, the evidence indicates otherwise. Traditionally, cities heavily regulated taxicab companies operating in their cities. Those regulations inevitably included a requirement taxicab companies fingerprint their drivers to check criminal records.  Why fingerprinting? Because fingerprinting is the gold standard for checking a person’s criminal record.  The use of names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and other alternative identifying information is far less reliable because it can too-readily be faked.