No more idling – it’s time to fingerprint ride-hail drivers

What will it take to finally pass legislation requiring ride-hail drivers to be fingerprinted?

The issue comes up with each new alleged assault involving an Uber or Lyft driver in Massachusetts.

In 2014, a Boston man was charged with sexually assaulting a woman who had called the Uber driver to take her to her home in Cambridge.

In 2018, an Everett man was charged with raping a woman he had picked up in his Uber in the South End.

Also that year, an Uber driver was charged with raping a woman who had summoned him to drive her home from Quincy. He fled to Ghana after making bail.

And last week, an Acton man allegedly kidnapped a woman in Brighton by trapping the passenger inside his Uber.

There’s now a renewed push for fingerprint background checks for ride-hail drivers.

As the Herald reported, the head of the New England Livery Association is urging State House legislators to quickly take up a ride-hailing bill that would require the Bay State to conduct fingerprint background checks of the state and national criminal history databases.

We’ve been here before. Massachusetts passed mandatory background checks for ridehail drivers in 2016, but fingerprinting was nixed.

Three years later, following another alleged rape by an Uber driver, Rep. Michael Moran renewed the call for fingerprinting with his bill “An Act requiring the fingerprinting of TNC drivers.”

It’s 2021 — this has to be the year something is done.

Moran’s bill would make transportation network company drivers compliant with the same protocols adhered to by taxi operators.

Every cab driver in Boston has to pass a fingerprint background check before they’re allowed on the road, said Rick Szilagyi, executive director of the New England Livery Association.

“Fingerprinting is the gold standard for background checks,” Szilagyi told the Herald on Tuesday, noting that former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said so years ago.

“The onus is on the TNC to ensure safety, and anything they can do to ensure safety is what they should do,” Szilagyi added.

When a passengers steps into a licensed taxi, they know the driver has been vetted — a background check performed and fingerprints taken. They have to renew their hackney licenses with the police department.

Ride-hailing services have been touted for cost and convenience, with costs rising with traffic “surge pricing.”

The premise is that with so many available vehicles, operated by ordinary people working a side gig, one can have a car at your location in mere minutes.

But convenience can’t trump safety, and repeated incidents of alleged assault and rape can only undermine the reputation of these services.

It would seem to be in the best interests of ride-hailing companies to provide customers with the peace of mind a thoroughly vetted and fingerprinted driver can provide.

That TNC companies insist background checks are enough to clear drivers, without fingerprinting, is baffling.

Moran’s bill was referred to the Joint Committee on Financial Services last session. It needs to pass now.

“We believe that public safety is the foundation that our transportation industry must stand for,” Szilagyi wrote to legislators.

“We hope that your Committee will schedule a public hearing quickly to get the public discussion on this public safety issue moving.”

For the sake of passenger safety, we can’t afford to kick the can down the road.