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LAX Cracks Down On Ride-Sharing
Arrivals at LAX (Photo by ckramer via the Creative Commons on Flickr)
LAX has been cracking down on ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft picking up their passengers from the airport.
Since December, Los Angeles World Airports police have cited 200 drivers for ride-sharing services and made two arrests, according to Brian Sumers at L.A. Airspace. Most of the drivers cited are UberX drivers.
This is just another arena where cabs are already following all sorts of regulations that ride-sharing cabs are flouting. Ride-sharing services were legalized in California last fall, but LAX still sets and enforces the rules for pick-ups on its property. Cabs pay a $4 fee per ride to do pick-ups from LAX, and typically, they may only wait for fares at LAX once every five days. They have a TCP number from the state. Ride-sharing services (except for some of the fancier Uber cars) mostly ignore those rules, and up until recently, they've pretty much been getting away with it.
The good news for passengers is that it's totally legal to get a ride to LAX however you'd like. And even if you do call Uber or Lyft to pick you up, police are cracking down on drivers not passengers. Just don't be surprised if your Lyft driver shows up without a trademark pink mustache on the front, or your Uber driver asks you to put your own luggage away and sit up front: they're trying to go incognito.
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