AUSTIN, Texas: On-demand ride companies Uber and Lyft suspended their services in Austin, Texas, after a stinging loss in a weekend vote where they had spent heavily to repeal a city ordinance requiring them to conduct fingerprint background checks for their drivers.
The defeat in Austin could encourage other cities to back the fingerprint-based criminal background checks, knowing they can survive a bruising political battle, analysts said. Voters in the city of about 900,000 people said by a margin of 56% to 44% they wanted fingerprint checks to stay.