We're not talking about plane customers here, we're talking about the pilots. Finding trusted drivers in a situation where safety is important because people are in a unique position to trust that driver with their lives, with a startup that has to be extra-careful to prevent major controversies while they are under a heavy spotlight doing ambiguously legal things (or in the case of Portland a few days ago, just outright, unambiguously breaking the law and then trying to pass the legal buck to their drivers).

The notion that women are filing police reports and potentially going to court over something so serious is not really something I would describe as a simple way to ruin someone's life. Nor would Uber rejecting an application due to a sexual assault allegation really qualify to me as a life ruiner.

Law very often fails justice, particularly in sexual assault cases. When laws don't work, it's the job of a company to recognize when and how that failure occurs, and manage that risk. Uber failed to manage that risk, and most disturbingly, I can't even figure out if they care.

Exactly. When a person is put in a trusted position over another, we often have these higher standards.. teachers for example.

A cab driver -- who's capable of locking the doors and taking their passenger to wherever they want -- is in such a trusted position, and there should be a higher standard for those positions.

This doesn't mean they are being prevented from working. They're being prevented from working in this position. They are free to go do something else where other people aren't trusting their lives to them.

What if somebody who already is in a position of power/authority/trust is accused of something like that? That's what I meant with "easy to ruin people's lives" (e.g. Strauss-Kahn).

Well, here in the US at least, that very often leads to them losing their job. And I'm not just referring to rape--even more minor offenses... for example, teachers have been fired for their offensive facebook comments.

That isn't ruining their lives. They are free to go work elsewhere where other people's lives aren't put in their hands.

I'll be more specific. This man was accused of rape and worked as a cab driver, where other people trust their lives to him. Instead, he could work as a truck driver transporting goods.

That isn't ruining his life. Truth is, it would barely change.

How is ruining a teacher's teaching career the same as this? Most teachers spend a not insignificant portion of their time working towards the goal of becoming a teacher. That is now the case for someone learning to be a cab driver.

I completely agree with your point. Teachers do spend a significant amount of time, and yet we have these consequences for them. And yet here we have cab driver, who has spent virtually no time, and there are some who think he should have a right to this position.

Edit: I think the comparison of responsibility is appropriate here.. since a cab driver may have a minor, mentally disabled, or intoxicated individual in their care.

Getting a London black cab license is about as difficult.

I have no experience with the London cab system, but is getting a London black cab license really as difficult as going through a 4-year university degree program (+ whatever 'residency'-type work afterwards)?

[In any case, this is a side point. Most places don't have severe barriers to becoming a cab driver other than limit supply of licenses. And none of that even applies to Uber since they are ignoring that system.]

Getting The Knowledge is pretty hard. Half of the people who try still fail after spending years on it.

In order to qualify as a licensed London taxi driver, a trainee must learn the complex and irregular layout of London's ~25,000 streets (Figure 1) within a 6-mile radius of Charing Cross train station, along with the locations of thousands of places of interest. This spatial learning is known as acquiring “the Knowledge” and typically takes between 3 and 4 years, leading to a stringent set of examinations, called “appearances,” which must be passed in order to obtain an operating license from the Public Carriage Office (PCO, the official London taxi-licensing body).

from 'Acquiring “the Knowledge” of London's Layout Drives Structural Brain Changes' - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3268356/

Truckers are always away from their families. It is a very different life.

You've completely missed the point. There are other jobs a driver can do. He can deliver food or packages; transport goods locally; or drive buses or other public transportation.

There is NO way that "cab driver" is the only type of position he is capable of doing. And there are plenty of people qualified to drive a cab that are capable of doing it without raping anyone.

> When laws don't work, it's the job of a company to recognize when and how that failure occurs, and manage that risk.

OK, we can agree to disagree. Companies (and most other institutions) care much more about publicity and their reputation than about justice; the recent UVA "rape culture" scandal shows that pretty clearly that mob "justice" very often has nothing to do with actual justice.

> Erring "on the side of caution" in this case basically means denying someone a job, a livelihood, based on mere allegations that anyone can make

Congratulations! You've just repeated the argument that lead to the Catholic Church preotecting pedophiles and Jimmy Saville getting a free reign over children, mental health patients, and corpses!