By Robert Kittle
A Senate subcommittee unanimously approved a bill Tuesday to allow Uber and other ride-sharing companies to operate in South Carolina. Earlier this year, the state Public Service Commission banned Uber, but later agreed to allow the company to operate temporarily while lawmakers decide how to regulate it. A House subcommittee passed a similar bill Tuesday afternoon, but the House version requires Uber drivers to have adequate insurance.
Uber is a ride-sharing app that allows someone who needs a ride to connect with a driver willing to provide it. An Uber customer downloads the app to his phone. When he wants a ride, the app will show him which drivers are available and in the area and the customer can request a specific driver. The app provides a picture of the driver and details about his vehicle. The app makes it easy to pay the fee because the customer has already provided his credit card information to the company.
USC student Caitlin Bischoff says, “I’d say I’ve used Uber a couple dozen times, ‘cause it’s just very convenient. You just press it on your phone, request it right where you are. You don’t have to talk to anyone.”
Taxi companies have been complaining to state regulators and lawmakers that Uber and other ride-sharing companies should be regulated the same way they are, since they’re transporting someone from point A to point B for a price, just like they do. They think Uber and similar companies should be required to go through the same licensing, inspection, and insurance requirements that taxi companies do.
But Uber South Carolina general manager Michael Black says, “We do not view ourselves, obviously, as a taxi business. We’re providing a software application that connects drivers with riders that are in need of a safe and reliable ride.”
Sen. Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, is the main sponsor of the bill that passed out of subcommittee. He says, “If one individual wants to give someone else a ride somewhere and someone else wants to pay him and they agree on a price, why should government get in the way? Some folks feel uncomfortable with Uber and I’d say, ‘Well, don’t use them.’ Some people feel more comfortable with a traditional taxi service. Call a cab. It’s just an option that I believe people ought to have.”
He says the biggest problem lawmakers need to work out is what kind of insurance requirements to impose.
Oyango Snell, regional manager for Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, told senators on the subcommittee that Uber and any other ride-sharing companies need to have the right commercial insurance coverage. If they don’t, it will raise insurance costs for everyone.
“When you look at the holistic cost, and that is the cost of rising claims, that is the cost of litigation, that is the cost of more administrative procedures, I do know who’s going to bear that cost: all of South Carolinians,” he told senators.
Black says Uber is committed to clients’ safety. It does extensive background checks on its drivers at the local, state, and national levels, looks at Social Security history for any other states drivers lived in, does a motor vehicle records check, and also checks to make sure drivers are not on sex offender registries.
He says drivers also have insurance coverage. “We have a blanket commercial insurance policy in place that is provided by us, so we believe there is sufficient, more than sufficient coverage,” he says.
But taxi driver Kyle Lacio told senators that insurance covers Uber drivers only when they’re “on app,” which means driving someone who used the app to request an Uber driver. If, for example, someone got an Uber ride to a doctor’s appointment, instead of going through the app to get a ride home he might just tell the Uber driver dropping him off to pick him up in an hour. The Uber driver could then provide the ride without going through Uber, which means more money for the driver, but it would also mean Uber’s commercial insurance wouldn’t cover an accident.
