I don't have time to look up the answers because of work, but I'm genuinely curious if anyone knows. It seems like these are reasonable questions to ask, and could lead to a constructive conversation about the role and necessity of regulation.

Many things that keep you safe every day are due to regulation, not hindered by it.

The first question is, why should we care if the driver is liable? If the driver wants to share the liability with the employer; we have a system of enforced agreements for that, it's called contracts.

But regardless, that didn't answer my question. When someone is killed, there's a trial to judge who is responsible for the tragedy. If the judge/jury thinks that Uber is (in part) responsible, we don't need regulations to force them to pay. If they don't, why should they pay?

Regulations seem like a way to replace the justice system with blind rules.

Many things that keep you safe every day are due to regulation, not hindered by it.

Who says I want to be safe? Why do you need to force that decision on me?

I can understand that you and others want to be safe. But the solution is easy: you keep a program with all those checks and certifications and you provide a nice symbol that only those drivers can use on their cabs (everyone else would be prosecuted for fraud).

Then drivers can choose to take the certification, and people can easily choose if they want to only use certified taxi services or not.