The LegalRideshare Podcast Podcast By LegalRideshare cover art

The LegalRideshare Podcast

The LegalRideshare Podcast

By: LegalRideshare
Listen for free

About this listen

LegalRideshare's co-founder & lead attorney Bryant Greening talks with Jared Hoffa about gig worker related news, issues and events that happened during the week.

LegalRideshare was launched nearly a decade ago after Uber and Lyft drivers messaged attorney Bryant Greening with questions about accidents and didn't know where to turn. To understand this new industry, Bryant signed up to become an Uber driver to step into his clients' shoes.

Fast forward to today, LegalRideshare is entirely focused on gig worker accident and injury cases. We've served thousands of clients around the country and secured millions for drivers and gig workers.

Questions? Concerns? Free consultations at LegalRideshare.com

Copyright 2025 by LegalRideshare Economics Leadership Management & Leadership Politics & Government Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
Episodes
  • Pricing, Tesla Accidents and Travis Kalanick

    Pricing, Tesla Accidents and Travis Kalanick
    Jun 27 2025
    New pricing punishes drivers, Tesla's bumpy start and Travis returns. LegalRideshare breaks it down. STUDY: NEW PRICING HURTS DRIVERS Uber's new dynamic pricing is hurting drivers. The Guardian reported: Research by academics at New York's Columbia Business School concluded that the Silicon Valley company had implemented “algorithmic price discrimination” that had raised “rider fares and cut driver pay on billions of … trips, systematically, selectively, and opaquely”. The Columbia paper, which focused on 24,532 trips made by a single US Uber driver, concluded that the introduction of the new algorithm had allowed Uber to “significantly increase its take rate — the per cent of rider fares net of driver pay captured by the company — from about 32% at the start of upfront pricing to upwards of 42% by the end of 2024”. Last week's University of Oxford research found that, since the launch of dynamic pricing, Uber's median take rate per UK driver had “increased from 25% to 29%, and on some trips … is over 50%”. TELSA'S MISHAPS Telsa's robotaxis are off to a bumpy start. The Verge reported: Some are relatively minor, like failing to recognize a reversing UPS truck while trying to pull into a parking space or driving over a curb. Others are more worrisome, like briefly driving on the wrong side of the road or dropping passengers off in the middle of a busy intersection. Several incidents involve “phantom braking,” in which the vehicle stops suddenly for seemingly no reason. Tesla's camera-only perception system has long had problems with phantom braking, appearing to misinterpret shadows, road marking, or other environmental factors, which triggers the vehicle's automatic emergency braking. The Reddit list includes three incidents of phantom braking. But the above list suggests that not everyone's experience was so seamless. Also, the only way we know about any of these incidents is because robotaxi customers are documenting their rides and posting them on social media. Texas doesn't require any incident reporting or data sharing from Tesla — though the state did recently approve a new permitting system that could prove to be more difficult for the company to navigate. One provision allows state regulators to revoke permits if a company's autonomous vehicles are deemed a safety risk. Keep in mind, these are the incidents that cropped up among a small fleet of 10–20 vehicles in just three days of semi-public availability. Musk has said he wants thousands of vehicles on the road within months, and perhaps “a million” by the end of next year. Imagine what the list looks like at that point. UBER IN TALKS WITH TRAVIS KALANICK Photograph: Danish Siddiqui/Reuters Travis returns to Uber…sorta. NY Times reported: Uber is in talks with Travis Kalanick, the ride-hailing company's co-founder who was ousted in a boardroom coup eight years ago this month, to help fund his acquisition of the U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese autonomous vehicle company, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The company, Pony.ai, was founded in Silicon Valley in 2016 but has its main presence in China, and has permits to operate robot taxis and trucks in the United States and China. The talks are preliminary, said the people, who were not authorized to speak about the confidential conversations. Mr. Kalanick will run Pony if the deal is completed, they said. It is unclear what role, if any, Uber would take in Pony as an investor. If the deal goes through, Mr. Kalanick, 48, will remain in his day job running CloudKitchens, a virtual restaurant start-up that he founded after leaving Uber in 2017. He would also work more closely with Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as Uber's chief executive after Mr. Kalanick's ouster.
    Show more Show less
    20 mins
  • Uber Shuttle, Chicago Ordinance and Waymo Prices.

    Uber Shuttle, Chicago Ordinance and Waymo Prices.
    Jun 13 2025
    Uber makes a bus, a new ordinance in Chicago and Waymos costs more. LegalRideshare breaks it down. UBER SHUTTLE…IS A BUS Uber invented a bus. Gizmodo reported: The ride-hailing company recently announced Route Share, in which shuttles will travel dozens of fixed routes, with fixed stops, picking up passengers and dropping them off at fixed times. Amid the inevitable jokes about Silicon Valley once again discovering buses are serious questions about what this will mean for struggling transit systems, air quality, and congestion. But Kevin Shen, who studies this sort of thing at the Union of Concerned Scientists, questions whether Uber's “next-gen bus” will do much for commuters or the climate. “Everybody will say, ‘Silicon Valley's reinventing the bus again,'” Shen said. “But it's more like they're reinventing a worse bus.” Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven't fully recovered from COVID-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of pre-pandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. So it's easy to see why companies like Uber see a business opportunity in public transit. New Chicago Ordinance A new Chicago ordinance is up for debate. Chicago Tribune reported: Rodriguez's ordinance would raise driver pay during rides to $1.50 per mile and 62.5 cents per minute in July 2026. It would also establish a $7 minimum driver payout for each trip. The City Council's Workforce Development Committee, chaired by Rodriguez, is set to discuss and vote on the measure Thursday. If it passes, it could face a final vote from all aldermen next week. In addition to pay raises, Rodriguez's ordinance would require fare breakdowns be shared with both riders and drivers. It would also add driver safety measures — like requiring passenger identities to be verified — and would reconfigure the driver disciplinary process by giving drivers a seven-day notice ahead of suspensions and details explaining why they have been deactivated. Both Uber and Lyft blasted the potential forced pay hike Monday. Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin likened the ordinance to laws in New York City that have “forced thousands of drivers out of the app for hours at a time.” WAYMOS ARE EXPENSIVE Waymos cost more than Uber or Lyft and riders are fine with it. TechCrunch reported: Obi, an app that aggregates real-time pricing and pick-up times across multiple ride-hailing services, has just published what it's calling the “first in-depth examination of Waymo's pricing strategy.” The company found Waymo's self-driving car rides to be consistently more expensive than comparative offerings from Uber and Lyft — and it doesn't seem to matter. The report, shared exclusively with TechCrunch, is based on a month's worth of data collected between March 25 and April 25 in San Francisco, California. Obi pulled nearly 90,000 “offer records” from Waymo, Lyft's “standard” offering, and UberX in order to compare price and ETA. It then compared ride requests from the same times and routes. Obi found Lyft offered the lowest average price at $14.44. Uber was next at $15.58. Waymo's average price across the month's worth of data was $20.43. The company found that 70% of users who had taken a Waymo ride said they preferred a driverless car to a traditional rideshare or taxi. Despite that enthusiasm, Obi found that safety is still a big concern for riders. Of those surveyed, 74% said safety is their biggest concern about robotaxis. Nearly 70% of respondents said they think there should be some form of remote human monitoring of the rides (something that is already a common practice). LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, robotaxis, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
    Show more Show less
    21 mins
  • Shared Rides, Tesla Rental, and Rideshare Fees.

    Shared Rides, Tesla Rental, and Rideshare Fees.
    May 23 2025
    Lyft gets cheaper, Tesla goes rental and Chicago cracks down. LegalRideshare breaks it down. LYFT SHARED RIDES Lyft is bringing back shared rides. Bloomberg reported: Lyft Inc. is bringing back cheaper shared trips at airports, reversing a decision made two years ago to discontinue the ride option as it seeks to compete with rival Uber Technologies Inc. in courting inflation-weary consumers. Lyft is currently piloting shared rides at eight US airports, including Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with those trips receiving as much as a 20% discount compared with a regular Lyft, said company spokesperson Jill Gonzalez, confirming an inquiry from Bloomberg News. Two passengers at those airports going in a similar direction can be picked up in the same car, according to a screenshot posted by a driver on the social media site X. Lyft and Uber have been introducing affordability-focused product updates to respond to worsening consumer sentiment, which has soured on concerns about the broader economy. A Gridwise report in February showed that a majority of customers would curb or cut out ride-hails if Uber and Lyft prices in the US increased further beyond a 7.2% jump in 2024. RENT-A-TESLA Elon Musk says there's no need to buy Uber. Business Insider reported: Musk told CNBC that he envisions a world where, instead of calling an Uber, you can call an autonomous Tesla to get you to your destination without a dedicated driver. Musk's proposed business model would allow Tesla drivers to rent out their cars for autonomous ride-hailing, “just like” one can rent out a spare bedroom through Airbnb. Representatives for Tesla and Uber did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. Tesla has not yet unveiled the commercial version of its Full Self-Driving software, called FSD Unsupervised. This software will be used in its robotaxi fleet and does not require a driver behind the wheel like its personal vehicles. When asked by Faber whether Tesla needed to make any improvements or changes to its technology or fleet in order to prepare to launch a large-scale robotaxi service, Musk demurred. “I don't think we're missing anything,” Musk said. “Tesla has all the ingredients necessary to offer a vast self-driving fleet.” CHICAGO COMBATS OVERCHARGING Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago After the ongoing issue with Uber's congestion fees, the city and organizations are fighting back. Block Club Chicago reported: Backlash to Uber overcharging customers a city congestion fee has revived local and state efforts to regulate the rideshare industry. A state bill requiring companies to provide an itemized list of fees before a purchase — or include it in the total advertised price — sailed through the Senate and a key House of Representatives committee Tuesday. And on Wednesday, a City Council member pledged to hold a hearing into Uber's overcharging of the city's Downtown congestion fee — while rideshare drivers rallied for more workplace protections. The state bill stalled previously as lawsuits with food delivery apps were settled over hidden fees. But Block Club's reporting on Uber wrongfully charging the city's $1.50 per ride Downtown “congestion” surcharge outside of permitted hours has convinced more lawmakers to support the bill this time around, said Rep. Bob Morgan, its chief sponsor in the House. It is now heading to a full floor vote in the House. Uber admitted in April it had errantly applied the congestion surcharge on rides to and from Downtown taken outside the city-permitted surcharge hours of 6 a.m.-10 p.m. daily. Uber began refunding customers earlier this month, but the company still won't say how much is owed to Chicagoans in total. LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, robotaxis, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
    Show more Show less
    16 mins
No reviews yet