Uber gears up for robotaxis, drivers get paid, and NYC fights lockouts. LegalRideshare breaks it down. UBER/LYFT PREPARE FOR ROBOTAXIS Robotaxis are here and the rideshare giants are gearing up. The Wall Street Journal reported: Both companies will have driverless cars — from Alphabet's Waymo and others — on their apps this year. In the coming months, riders in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta will be able to hail a Waymo through the Uber app. Lyft plans to offer May Mobility's driverless taxis in Atlanta. Uber and Lyft once invested billions of dollars in developing their own self-driving cars. Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick used to say the company needed to lead the pivot to driverless technology or risk becoming irrelevant. Both companies gave up on the costly endeavor during the pandemic, selling their self-driving units. Now they are competing to be the platforms on which the robotaxi technology developed by others will operate. Uber announced more than five U.S. robotaxi partnerships in the past five months, covering Los Angeles, Dallas and other cities. Uber struck a deal with Waymo that will allow customers in Austin and Atlanta to hail the company's driverless taxis only through the Uber app, a move that will prevent the driverless carmaker from taking market share in those cities. Waymo will continue to operate its own app in other cities. $328 MILLION SETTLEMENT Drivers in New York are owed $328 million, but they have to act fast. NBC4 reported: New York Attorney General Letitia James is encouraging rideshare drivers who believe they were underpaid by Uber and Lyft to file claims on or before January 31, 2025 to receive the funds they are due under settlements reached by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). In November, James secured $328 million in back payments for drivers after an OAG investigation found that Uber and Lyft withheld funds from drivers and failed to provide valuable benefits. Now, the attorney general has extended the deadline to file claims for those settlement funds to January 31, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. and is calling for all rideshare drivers to check their eligibility and submit a claim online before the deadline. New Yorkers who drove for Uber between 2014 and 2017 or for Lyft between 2015 and 2017 may be eligible to receive money from the settlement funds, which are being distributed in full to current and former drivers. Drivers who believe they may be eligible and have not yet filed a claim, or who previously filed a claim but did not receive a response, are encouraged to file a claim online as soon as possible. NYC FIGHTS UBER/LYFT LOCKOUTS NYC has a plan to fight Uber and Lyft's lockouts. Bloomberg reported: New York City is trying to close a loophole that Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. have used to deny drivers millions of dollars in pay with a raft of new measures that would effectively raise their rates by roughly 6.1%. The commission has vowed to introduce changes to its minimum pay formulas for Uber and Lyft drivers after a Bloomberg investigation in October showed the companies have systematically locked drivers out of their platforms to game those calculations and save millions in future pay. In its proposal, the commission said the lockouts have prevented drivers from “working and earning the daily income they were expecting to earn” and are “in clear conflict with the intent of local law.” Chief among the changes the commission is proposing is the way it sets so-called utilization rates, a gauge of the time drivers spend actually making trips versus waiting to be matched with riders. Those rates, which are part of the formula for driver pay and are currently supposed to adjust annually, were designed to ensure drivers were compensated for both trips made and the time spent en route to passengers and waiting for work. LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.