Uber Just Can't Stay Out Of The News, For All The Wrong Reasons

Uber just keeps on rolling. They literally can barely go a day without another revelation of their illegal and unethical activity.

Late last year, Uber began testing its autonomous vehicles in both San Francisco and in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, Uber did not have the proper license to do those tests in California and was instructed to cease by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Uber ignored that request, of course, and carried on until the DMV revoked the test cars’ registrations. But the test initially made news when one of the autonomous vehicles was captured on video running a red light. Uber initially blamed that on driver error and suspended the driver but then announced it would conduct a more thorough investigation. Now the New York Times is reporting that, in fact, it was not driver error at all and that, all told, the test vehicles ran a total of six red lights during the trial runs in San Francisco.

Then, today, RECODE reported that another engineer that Uber looked to have poached from Google’s autonomous vehicle program has been forced to resign from Uber after it was revealed he was forced to leave Google due to a sexual harassment complaint. The revelation comes on the heels of an open letter from Susan Fowler of her experience with rampant sexual harassment that was tolerated not only by the management but also by the HR department. Because of that story, it would have probably been impossible for the engineer to continue at Uber. Without the Fowler letter, is there any doubt that Uber would have shoved this report under the carpet and let the engineer continue with business as usual.

But, even with all this, the serial criminal enterprise that is called Uber continues to roll on.