Did you ever wonder if Liberal ‘solutions’ just create BIGGER problems?
Here’s your answer!
It’s a limited data set, but it does line up with other reports.
Before Uber came to town in 2014, Austin Police Department’s data showed that the city had an average of 525 drunk driving arrests per month. When these numbers were revisited a year after ridesharing came to Austin, drunk driving arrests had dropped by five percent. This trend continued the following year when the number of drunk driving arrests dropped by an additional 12 percent, bringing the average number of arrests to about 438 per month.
In May of 2016, the same month Uber and Lyft made the decision to leave Austin, the monthly rate of drunk driving incidents was down to an average of 358. However, within the first few months of Uber and Lyft’s absence, the number of DUI arrests increased by 7.5 percent from the previous year. In the month of July alone, the city had 476 drunk driving arrests.
…With the affordability and convenience provided by ridesharing services, it makes it much easier, and safer, for potential drunk drivers to tap their smartphone screens and have a ride come to them within minutes. No longer needing a search for cash or an argument with a cab driver about accepting a credit card, ridesharing has made it so simple to make the right decision after having too many drinks at the bar.
Though the Austin Police Department was hesitant to draw any concrete conclusions from the rise of DUIs in such a short amount of time, they did issue a statement saying the “data set is too limited to draw any conclusions. However, any time we experience an increase in DWI it is cause for concern.” — Foundation For Economic Education
Do you remember the rationale for running ride sharing Uber and Lyft out of town?
Protecting the monopoly of taxi unions
Increasing public safety. Right? Sure. And we’ve got a bridge to sell you.
It seems there’s no new product or service that meddling liberals won’t figure out a way to regulate out of existence under the pretense of knowing what’s best for you.
Over the weekend in the liberal bastion of Austin, Texas, a handful of pro-regulation voters opted to keep in place a host of petty, irrational, and burdensome regulations the city council imposed on ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft in December. In response, the companies suspended operations effective Monday, making Austin, despite its tech-savvy reputation, the only major U.S. city without ridesharing.
…The editors of the Austin American Statesman claimed that the real issue at stake was not whether Uber and Lyft should have to fingerprint their drivers, but whether “it should be corporations or Austin’s elected leaders that write the rules for doing business in the city”—as if taxi cab companies haven’t been writing their own rules in Austin for decades. Just like in most cities, it’s hard to imagine a more corrupt collusion of local government and special interests than the local taxi cab cartel, where three cab companies hold every city permit and a single company, Yellow Cab, owns 68 percent of them.
…The editors of the Austin American Statesman claimed that the real issue at stake was not whether Uber and Lyft should have to fingerprint their drivers, but whether “it should be corporations or Austin’s elected leaders that write the rules for doing business in the city”—as if taxi cab companies haven’t been writing their own rules in Austin for decades. Just like in most cities, it’s hard to imagine a more corrupt collusion of local government and special interests than the local taxi cab cartel, where three cab companies hold every city permit and a single company, Yellow Cab, owns 68 percent of them. —the Federalist
So, in the interest if ‘safety’ (which ACTUALLY was protecting their own political interests) they have made policies that are LITERALLY costing lives, and opposing a service that takes drunk drivers off the road.
Same old pattern. Our ‘betters’ telling us how to live, and making life worse for everyone.
