"Can't afford $50/driver for background checks, but can afford $5 million to fight the requirement? Do they have 100,000 drivers in Austin? That would be about 1 in 9 people in the city..."
Exactly, they are protesting a bit too much. Don't know about Lyft but here in the UK, especially in London, there's been no end of stories about Uber using sex pests and those with criminal records as drivers because of inadequate driver vetting procedures. Therefore, this move by the the city of Austin seems quite a reasonable response to insufficient background checking.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
