Lyft is looking for drivers – a tonic thing to discover at a time when it seems as though every effort is being expended to do away with them.
The ride-hailing company just announced it will be “partnering” with used car dealerships with the aim of helping prospective Lyft drivers find an acceptable car to drive.
Lyft will pay a finder’s fee to these dealerships for successful references – i.e., people who end up becoming Lyft drivers – and help them finance the car, too. This latter will be done via direct garnishing of the driver’s Lyft earnings, which will be transmuted into car payments.
Probably, this will be done on the Payday Loan model – which is based on the Vinnie-in-the-Alley model, which is the loanshark model. Exorbitant interest designed to keep the customer on the hook – and in hock – for as long as possible.
One issue with working for a ride-share company (whether Lyft or Uber) is that many of the people seeking such work are – if not poor – then not far from it. They lack resources. And they either don’t have a car – or they have a too-old car. The ride-sharing services generally require their contractor drivers to possess a vehicle that’s no more than a certain number of years old – and has no more than “x” miles on the clock – ostensibly for general liability reasons.
They don’t want to expose themselves to lawsuits arising out of wrecks attributable to worn out machinery. That’s reasonable enough. Of course, it would also be reasonable to simply require that a prospective Lyft driver’s car pass a mechanical inspection to determine its roadworthiness. This would aruably be more reasonable than arbitrary age/mileage cut-offs. A 15-year-old car with 110,000 miles that has been maintained properly and which is in great shape is a safer ride than a thrashed but three-year-old car with near-bald tires, iffy brakes and “only” 50,000 miles.
But because it is arbitrary, it’s a Catch 22 for the prospective Lyft (or Uber) driver. Most are either young and doing this as side work or they are in a pinch and doing it because they have to. Put another way, most don’t have newer cars because they cannot afford to buy them.
So how can they afford to finance them?
About two years ago, both Lyft and rival Uber announced plans to facilitate the financing (the leasing, actually) of new cars. But the Catch 22 reared its head. Leased or not, new cars cost too much to buy if you’re making Lyft/Uber money.
And the same goes for newish (and low-miles) used cars.
A rough working analogy would be a requirement that to work at McDonald’s one must come to work every day in a pressed Brooks Brothers suit with matching Bruno Magli shoes.
McDonald’s, in its wisdom does not insist upon such a thing.
Why Lyft insists upon a similar thing is enigmatic. Unless, of course, the object is to chain as many drivers as possible to debt servitude.
A much better option would be to cut out the middleman entirely.
Lyft and Uber, that is.
We are told this is a free country. If so, why shouldn’t a person be free to offer their services as a driver to anyone who freely wishes to pay for those services? Why is it necessary to get permission to do so? And to only be allowed to do so under certain conditions not prescribed by the person interested in hiring a driver but by a disembodied entity – “the government” – which somehow acquired parental supervisory powers over grown men and women, who never consented to this?
It is extremely odd. Well, it is odd if we begin with the idea that we live in a free country.
Of course, we don’t live in a free country. The evidence for this claim is all around us. The fact that a person can be punished for “illegally” using his own vehicle to provide transportation services to people who wish to pay him for his services is probative. That it is necessary to indenture oneself to a company such as Lyft or Uber (or a traditional taxi company) in order to be allowed to perform this service, under their terms and conditions – and not otherwise.
Not as a free man, an independent operator – but only as a worker drone. 
People – some people – will cry that “the government” must regulate economic activity between individuals, contrary to their consent – for their safety. This is obnoxious in the extreme but has been commonly accepted by a society full of people who embrace both servility as well as its imposition on everyone else.
Hailing a ride would be much less expensive – and much more profitable for the driver – if anyone who had a serviceable car could freely use it to transport people who wished to be transported by it, without having to fear being ticketed, impounded, fined, hoosegowed.
It would certainly be much freer – for all concerned.
This idea that such would be “unsafe” presumes general stupidity, including disregard of one’s own personal welfare – and actually encourages precisely those things by taking due diligence out of the hands of free people and putting it (ostensibly) into the hands of this thing called “the government,” which necessarily cares a great deal less about our safety than we do, as we are the one most affected by threats to the same.
Meanwhile, fostering a pathetic dependence on this thing called “the government” to do the things we ought to be doing for ourselves, which act encourages the very due diligence that government discourages, by taking it upon itself.
But at least Lyft is still looking for drivers – and that’s something.
. . .
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Rent seeking, sharing, it’s all part of the theft model of business. Uber and Lyft should be shut down, but of,course they won’t. Gig economy is nothing more than sub minimum wage work. Someone in all of these cases is profiting, but it sure isn’t the workers delivering these services. If they would simply stop participating, it would all come crashing down, no matter how fawningly the financial press talks them up as the next big thing to gamble on in the market. Ultimately, these contractors who willingly get used are either stupid, or more likely, simply desperate – because of all the other theft in the economy, at almost every level.
I wonder who is profiting? The workers aren’t (And if they’re willing to work for a deficit, so be it! ); The companies aren’t: They’re losing many millions every year…so where’s all the money coming exactly? Stockholders lose, and will lose big-time soon…. Where is the profit? Only thing I can figure is that such things are being subsidized…if not by Uncle, then maybe by those who print the money and who call the shots behind the scenes, because someone wants these things to exist- for social control, obviously (Just like the push for unprofitable electric cars, which are benefiting no one- users nor producers- but which are certainly fullfilling an agenda…)- but ultimately, these various schemes are not benefiting anyone, nor making money…so where is the money coming from to keep them going?
What a world!
Businessmen are touted as visionaries, when all they do is lose hundreds of millions.
EVs are touted as “green” when all they do is transfer emissions to other locales, and increase the use of contaminants by requiring rechargeable batteries; car companies are moving to models in which they don’t actually sell cars; Ride-share services are just unprofitable taxi companies; and driverless cars are being pushed, when the technology to make them practical doesn’t exist.
I was reading how self-driving cars can’t really recognize traffic lights. They have to rely on the exact location and position of traffic lights on their route being mapped. They can’t deal with a temporary signal; they can’t recognize humans directing traffic; If they encounter a situation where the lights at an intersection are malfunctioning and just blinking yellow, their strategy is to just stop and then slowly inch out. What happens if two self-driving cars are doing this on intersecting roads simultaneously? Do they both just keep inching until they hit each other, or do they just sit there, deadlocked? What a ridiculous and cheesy system, for something where lives and property are at risk!
They have not thought these things through very well, or else they just have too much faith in technology. That, or it is all designed to fail…..
Here’s a little nugget of information that crossed my mind: using a car in taxi service is considered “severe duty use” according to car companies’ maintenance schedules and warranties, as well as insurance companies.
This means these things:
Number one: with severe duty use, your maintenance is much more frequent and more costly. Your car will need A LOT more oil changes, cooling system flushes, brake jobs, etc. This costs time and money. Your local Yellow Cab Company takes this into account, so it has a fleet in which cabs are rotated in and out of service, and has its own garage and mechanics to attend to those service needs. Furthermore, fares reflect these costs and spread them across the fleet. With Uber or Lyft, it’s all on you after all your other costs, and you make nothing when your car is in the garage.
Number two: Cars used in “severe duty service” are designed for the job. Think of the old Checker Cabs and later on, the “cracker box” and “jellybean” Chevy Caprices and Ford Crown Vics. They were rear wheel drive, I-6 or V-8 powered, body on ladder frame vehicles that due to their rugged construction, could handle the hard use of cab service on cratered streets. Many came with heavy duty taxi packages with reinforced frames and drive trains, more rugged suspension systems, and what used to be called “tropical cooling packages” with beefier radiators, and auxiliary transmission and motor oil coolers. Your typical Toyota Camry/Corolla or Honda Accord/Civic might not be up to the job.
Number three: if your car is used regularly in severe duty use, doing so may be against the terms of/void your warranty. You may never know this until your transmission conks out after hours in and hours out of taxi-like service for several years, you take your car in for a new transmission, and you find that your warranty doesn’t cover it because you used your car in taxi service, which is what Uber and Lyft technically are.
Number four: Your car insurance may not cover you if you use your car in taxi service. You may either have no coverage, or you may need to buy a different policy or rider to cover any accidents you have while driving for Uber/Lyft.
Like slaves, Americans beg for their chains.
The elites tell Americans that they don’t need freedom and Americans nod their heads and agree that they don’t need freedom.
Has anyone noticed the elites create a problem and then offer a solution?
The elites say North Korea must be invaded because they torture and have nuclear bombs, but no one points out that the US also tortures and has nuclear bombs. No one wonders if another war will add to the US debt, increase refugees, or lead to terrorism.
The 1% says the minimum wage must be increased, but no one questions if higher minimum wages will slow the economy or increase prices.
Our overlords say sodas must be banned because sodas are unhealthy, but no one remembers that no one died from drinking sodas 20 years ago.
The ruling class says a wall must be built to stop illegal aliens, but no one thinks that the US used to have open borders. No one wonders if a wall will be used to keep Americans in, not to keep illegal immigrants out.
The 1% says airbags must be added to cars, but no one mentions that airbags kill people.
The elites say we must have electronic voting machines, but no one asks if electronic voting machines can be hacked.
The 1% says companies must have bailouts to prevent a recession, but no one mentions that the economy will recover without bailouts.
The ruling class says doctors must have licenses, but no one wonders if regulations increase health care costs.
Our overlords says guns must be banned, but no one points out how will you protect yourself without a gun.
The globalists say protests must be banned, but no one questions how can people resist tyranny without protesting.
The ruling powers say newspapers must be shut down to prevent fake news, but no one wonders if the government would tell the truth without a free press.
The 1% says carrying cash or depositing less than $10,000 in your own bank account must be illegal to prevent drug use, but no one questions how can you live when everything is a crime.
The elites say drugs must be banned, but no one points out that alcohol prohibition led to more crime.
The ruling class says Fascism and Communism are the American way, but no one mentions that the US fought Nazis and Commies in the past.
The 1% says that we must have a trade war to help the economy, but no one mentions a trade war made the Great Depression worse.
Our overlords says we must buy car insurance, but no one wonders how many drivers have a vested interest in crashing their cars.
The ruling powers says we must have food stamps, but no one mentions that private charities can provide welfare.
The elites say that the US must close mosques and have TSA groping, CIA torture, kill lists, and NSA wiretapping to stop terrorism, but no one points out that the US has a Bill of Rights.
The 1% says we must have pilot licenses, business licenses, driver licenses, and fishing licenses, but no one points out that there was a time when people could fly, run a business, drive, and fish safely without state permission. No one says documents can be forged and officials can be bribed.
Americans are so enslaved now that patriots who warn about the dangers of tyranny will be slammed for criticizing the beloved overlords of Americans.
Americans are such enslaved zombies now that they will say they live in a free country while they get sent to the concentration camps and are pushed into the ovens.
Every country has the government it deserves.
http://f2bbs.com/bbs
ahh, that’s the way aha aha they like it aha aha, that’s the way, aha aha they like it. Non-thinking idiotic\tv watching fools. I hang my head, I hang my head.
Hi Free,
Great stuff, as always! I’d only add that all you’ve written is done while mouthing “freedom.” The German Nazis and Soviet Communists did the same, of course. And now, so do Americans.
Freedom – the real stuff – is simple. You either are – or you are not. There is no gray area. Only degrees of enslavement.
If another man can legally use violence – actual or implied – to coerce your obedience to his will, to do this – or not do that – or to strong-arm you into handing over money and to impose conditions upon what you may do with yourself and the things you own – then you are a slave to that extent.
Americans do not like to hear this. But the facts are the facts, however unattractive.
It would be obvious if an individual man – your neighbor, for instance, enslaved you as per the above. Demanded money, threatening violence if not handed over. Attempted to tell you what you may and may not do with yourself, your property. Etc.
But when that man is not a specific man but this thing called “the government” it somehow becomes an acceptable thing to enslave others, who no longer see themselves as such.
It’s very odd, this blind spot. This intellectual soft spot.
Actions which almost every normal person immediately perceives as moral wrongs when done by a man – an individual, acting on his own authority (that is, whatever force he can bring to bear) somehow are no longer considered immoral when done by men acting as agents of this thing called “the government,” acting on behalf of its supposed authority.
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe that they are free”.
Never before has that quote been more appropriate than in present-day America.
“Actions which almost every normal person immediately perceives as moral wrongs when done by a man – an individual, acting on his own authority (that is, whatever force he can bring to bear) somehow are no longer considered immoral when done by men acting as agents of this thing called “the government,” acting on behalf of its supposed authority.”
That’s Thomas Hobbes’s theory of government, outlined in “Leviathan.” Hobbes called government a “mortal god” and its job was to “overawe” men who would otherwise exist in a “state of perpetual war of all against all.” For Hobbes, government can do no wrong, because government defines what right and wrong are.
This is 180 degrees opposite of John Locke’s theory — upon which this country was founded. Locke believed that all men were presumed to be free to exercise the natural rights to “life, liberty, and property.” Government was merely a hired agent to help us preserve our pre-existing rights; therefore, it had not right to abridge them — kinda like armed Brink’s guards, whose job is to safeguard someone else’s money and have no right to reach into the back of the truck snatch a few thousand bucks.
The U.S. started out as a Lockean nation… now I’m afraid to say that it’s become a very Hobbesian one.
“Overawe”! That is EXACTLY it! That’s why they try and convince us that they put men on the Moon; why they have to build the tallest buildings; the most powerful weapons; and make us believe that they can surveil and keep track of our every move, and know everything about everything…. They lay claim to being the god who must be obeyed above all else- and their black-robed priests behind every court bench, and armed dictator/enforcers will make sure you do obey, or do penance- unless of course you have an indulgence(license).
Hi Nunzio, I prefer to refer to those so-called robes as black dresses.
Brian, I refer to them as “skunks with no stripe”. Ok, I take it back. That is a bit rough on skunks.
The company town model.
Everywhere you look in the USA, there it is. It’s main driver is debt.
Uber and lyft in their original form allowed a person to cash out his vehicle while still owning it. That is those desperate for cash but owning a vehicle outright could trade some wear-and-tear and some of their time for some cash at a discounted rate. But financing a vehicle and driving for the company that’s just pure company town model indentured servitude.
In the CA they do it through home prices. You don’t want to work 80hrs a week on salary with no OT pay? Well then you’ll lose your job and you’re seven figures in debt on that house….
They slavery ended in the 19th century. It just changed forms. Became more efficient.
I was talking to a guy here in KY.- a former taxi company owner, and former state
trpooper, who eggsplained how the taxi licensing laws in this state were set up in the 20’s …..to facilitate the transportation of bootlegged alcohol by state-favored bootleggers [i.e. big contributors] during prohibition.It amazes me that Uber/Lyft can find anyone to drive for them. It’s bad enough if people already own a suitable car. After the fuel, maintenance, greater wear-and-tear on the car, and higher mileage which will reduce the car’s longevity or future value, etc.- drivers are essentially working for less than “minimum-wage”- but add to that the expense of buying a car specifically for such service, AND interest, and it gets to the point where one is not just working to pay for the car, but probably actually subsidizing it!
Yet there are no lcak of drivers….
What a business concept! Imagine starting a business, and wanting to maintain certain standards; then having your employees provide those standards, at their expense. You’d say “Who would possibly go for that?”. But this is America- where people have been dumbed-down to the point of being inferior to chimpanzees….so they live in a police state and think that they are free….and where they need not that anyone enslave them, for they will do so voluntarily.
It’s not just uber/lyft either. I have a friend that delivered pizza in addition to working in a restaurant. At one of our game nights, he was talking about how it didn’t seem like he was getting ahead of his bills. He had gotten a newer car to make working “easier”, or though he thought.
So I said, what are you spending vs making on those pizza deliveries. Well, he hadn’t even thought about that. The pizza place was basically paying him sh*t to deliver their pizzas. It was his gas, his car and wear and tear, his time. The restaurant was paying the restaurant minimum (the $2 something an hour), half of what they charged the customers ($2.50 per order out of the $5) and that’s it. He would get tips, sometimes (people tip like crap around here), but after the restaurant started charging for delivery the tips were rare, and the pizza place was pocketing half of the delivery charge.
So he, another friend and I figured out his costs. Turns out, he was LOSING money delivering pizzas. In order for a pizza guy to make a living at pizza driving, the pizza place would have to provide the car and gas, at minimum. Which of course no pizza place does.
He never delivered another pizza. Sold the “new” car too.
I’ve never heard of any job which requires one to use their own vehicle, which could actually be profitable….except for traveling salesman. I guess there are a LOT of people out there who are bad at math, ’cause these places- be they messenger companies; pizza joints; ride-shares, etc. seem to have no problem finding a never-ending supply of people who will work for free.
If they’re not paying ya by the mile or hour to drive THEIR vehicle…you ain’t gonna make no money.
Hi Nunzio,
This whole gig economy it seems to me works on the fact that people ARE so dumbed down and stupid they dont get it. Similar to the experience Richb described, my brother was also driving for Lyft in SF. He leased a fairly new Camry, used it like crazy, in 3 years ran up close to 100k miles, and made the monthly payments, and spent the rest on his hipster lifestyle and other ventures hes working on. BUT the monthly payments were calculated based on an average use and wear and tear, and with the assumption that the user would keep up a decent standard of maintenance. Neither of which the average hipster millennial type who drive for these companies understand or are bothered with.
His car basically one day stopped working. He had no clue so took it to Toyota. They quoted him a number of things to be repaired, and a bill he couldnt come close to paying in cash. TO make matters worse, he had hardly paid anything off on the 7 year lease for the car, and the KKB value (without accounting for the repairs) was a fraction of the outstanding balance.
Luckily for him (and the whole hipster millennial gig economy ecosystem) because our overlords are printing so much money, nobody knows what to do with it. And Toyota offered to take the car, give him a new corolla, add about 20 dollars a month to the payments, and reset it to 7 years of payments. So now he has a corolla, with a loan and the outstanding balance from the previous loan, with the assumption that the corolla will last 7 years and he will make the payments…… Again…. basically going back to the company town model….
Economically, it seems all these services have done is allow the companies such as uber and lyft to get around employment law and save on balance sheet as they dont have to borrow huge amounts to finance a fleet. Which is why they are so valuable. All of the revenue of a taxi operator, larger scale, none of the hassle or liability…… win win…. unless your one of the poor bastards who drives it….
Hi richb,
Your friend wasn’t losing money delivering pizza, he was actually paying the pizza place for the privilege of delivering pizza for them. Financially speaking the result looks the same, but in my experience if you tell people that they’re paying for the privilege to labor for someone else it generally has a more profound effect.
good point! (comment too short to post rolls eyes)
In Chicago it’s pretty common for a place to have their own delivery vehicle. It’s a specially designed vehicle for keeping the food hot. Often based on a small pickup. The biggest pizza place in the area I used to live in has a fleet of pizza trucks for deliveries and catering. Even a little place could have a single truck. Even some suburban places do.
Brent, your comment for some reason made me think of when I was c. 10 years old. My best friend’s[at the time] parents owned a small luncheonette and also did catering. I went with them one time, to help carry stuff, when they packed up a bunch of food, including a 6′ hero, into their Pinto wagon, to cater a party at the local IRS facility! I can still remember the aroma of that fare! They made some darn good food, and were more than generous with the portions!
Hi Nunzio,
This whole gig economy it seems to me works on the fact that people ARE so dumbed down and stupid they dont get it. Similar to the experience Richb described, my brother was also driving for Lyft in SF. He leased a fairly new Camry, used it like crazy, in 3 years ran up close to 100k miles, and made the monthly payments, and spent the rest on his hipster lifestyle and other ventures hes working on. BUT the monthly payments were calculated based on an average use and wear and tear, and with the assumption that the user would keep up a decent standard of maintenance. Neither of which the average hipster millennial type who drive for these companies understand or are bothered with.
His car basically one day stopped working. He had no clue so took it to Toyota. They quoted him a number of things to be repaired, and a bill he couldnt come close to paying in cash. TO make matters worse, he had hardly paid anything off on the 7 year lease for the car, and the KKB value (without accounting for the repairs) was a fraction of the outstanding balance.
Luckily for him (and the whole hipster millennial gig economy ecosystem) because our overlords are printing so much money, nobody knows what to do with it. And Toyota offered to take the car, give him a new corolla, add about 20 dollars a month to the payments, and reset it to 7 years of payments. So now he has a corolla, with a loan and the outstanding balance from the previous loan, with the assumption that the corolla will last 7 years and he will make the payments…… Again…. basically going back to the company town model….
Economically, it seems all these services have done is allow the companies such as uber and lyft to get around employment law and save on balance sheet as they dont have to borrow huge amounts to finance a fleet. Which is why they are so valuable. All of the revenue of a taxi operator, larger scale, none of the hassle or liability…… win win…. unless your one of the poor bastards who drives it….
Hi Ya, Nasir,
That is why labor laws and such are so odious: If they hadn’t existed, people would come around to reality much sooner/at some point- as many ride-share drivers inevitably do….but thanks to most people being covered by those laws, they never come around to reality; never have to take responsibikity for themselves- so we end with what we have today, where people just sign-up to do something without even analyzing if it’s worth it- they just expect that Employment Fairy (Who resides in Shit-hole On The Potomac) has made it so that they will automatically be compensated for accepting any offer of employment.
And everyone else suffers, ’cause why offer lucrative opportunities, when so many are willing to work for free?
AND the really amazing thing is: These companies STILL can’t manage to turn a profit; have no assets; and yet there stock sells for absurd amounts! If that doesn’t portend how bad the coming crash will be…..
This is what truly amazes me – how is it these guys are still not making money……. its amazing.
Starting to realise that profit is not what it was once meant to be – ie buy for 5, sell for 10. Its more about starting something, making a big deal, getting some noise on twitter / snapchat whatever, getting a couple million registered users (or faking them using click farms or whatever), getting on the media, flipping the shares, ideally listing, making a “profit” for yourself on that, and building really assets on the side and being a million miles away when the thing implodes….
Or, all this infrastructure being built for a reason and eventually will become part of some sort of overall matrix where every aspect of ours will be monitored and controlled (if it already isnt)….. who knows…
Even Amazon hasn’t earned a profit.
The city that lands Amazon HQ 2 isn’t getting a prize. Its going to cost taxpayers billions when Amazon finally collapses.
It all runs on the Trump model. I name it after Trump as he was the first person I saw operate the debt business model successfully. I also call it the startup model because that’s where I first encountered it personally.
The model is to create a company or project for which investors and loans are made. Pay yourself a lot of money as an employee of the company. Make a go at it. It will either succeed and make you rich, it will fail and you’ll do well or even be rich from the large salary, or someone will buy it from you and make you rich.
I’ve found the secret to wealth in the modern USA is to get in the flow coming out of the federal reserve tap.
Yassir, Nasir! The part about the infrastructure/matrix: Isn’t that EXACTLY what happened with the internet? It started out as something that offered great freedom and convenience, and where everything was “free”- and there were tons of “businesses” all cashing in on the dot-com economy…but since ya can’t make any money giving everything away for free, most went bankrupt after they served their initial purpose (They weren’t consciously a part of the matrix- just useful idiots who bought into the trend)….and now that everyone is dependent upon the internet, is used as a means of surveillance and control, complete with self-censorship; and is fast becoming just another means of propagation for the mass media- only now with tracking and spying on the viewers.
The controllers must be rolling on the floor laughing, seeing that it is SO easy to get everyone from Joe Sixpack to business moguls to do their bidding and build their infrastructure of control as if on cue.
And so too with many of these other things. We already see the way things are heading towards ride-sharing/car-sharing- now even being pushed by the car manufucturers….so Uber and Lyft are just to get people acclimated to the idea- otherwise YOU KNOW it would have been already legislated out of existence.
That’s the way “they” operate: Gradualism; and in such a way that it seems “organic”- as if we asked for it, rather than that they demanded it. That is the model they use time and again.
How else could all of these companies survive, not only not making a profit, but actually losing millions of dollars per year? Where is the money coming from?
If for some unknown reason I would go to NYC, I’d wait around to get Ben’s CashCab. I know a fair amount excepting pop culture, but I am willing.
All laws are corporate/profit protection laws.
To paraphrase Bastiat (I believe)
If people are too stupid and evil to not be permitted to make their own decisions as to how to live their lives; why is it that all the ideas of politicians, bureaucrats and social do-gooders considered Good? Are they not also members of the human race?
No, they aren’t. What they are, hasn’t been determined yet, but “human” isn’t one of them.
It’s all about the bell curve. Back when I lived in Fraser Colorado, it was common to see hitchhikers. I used to give them rides. My mechanic was a few miles away from home so if I dropped off my vehicle I’d either walk or ride my bicycle home. Every time I’d walk, within a mile or so of the shop someone would pull over offering me a ride.
Never once felt nervous or worried.
A few minutes of friendly conversation, sharing gas money, instant Karma, whatever. Either way it is what people do in small towns, at least in the mountains of Colorado. I don’t know if hitchhiking is illegal in Colorado, I’m pretty sure it is on the east coast. Uber and Lyft call themselves ride sharing services in order to skirt the laws forbidding Jitney buses. But the original idea was they were just bringing computers to hitchhiking.
Sorry hit post too soon. The bell curve is that the overwhelming majority of us are pretty good people who aren’t going to be a problem to anyone anywhere. But those people on the edges of the curve, on both ends, they’re the problem. The isolated victims and the antisocial predators. These are the problem, not the rest of us. In the city because of the concentration of people you’re far more likely to encounter one of these extremes. But out in flyover country that’s just not the case.