The report, titled “A License To Kill: How Uber’s Rush To Close Courthouse Doors And Roll Out Robocars Threatens Public Safety,” contends that Uber is financing legislation and ballot initiatives in at least five states that would make it harder for crash victims to seek damages and secure legal representation.
“Uber is trying to change the rules in all motor vehicle accident cases so that when its drivers or its robotaxis cause harm, victims have fewer rights and less access to justice,” said Justin Kloczko, the report’s author. “Limiting its legal liability at the same time the company is scaling new and largely untested technologies poses serious risks to the public.”
Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Ballot Measure With Sweeping Implications
In California, Uber is backing a proposed ballot measure that would fundamentally restructure civil liability in motor vehicle cases. The proposal would cap recoverable medical costs at rates closely tied to Medicare reimbursement levels — amounts that, the report argues, often fall well short of what hospitals and physicians actually charge, potentially leaving seriously injured victims without adequate care.
The measure would also effectively prevent many accident victims from obtaining legal representation on a contingency basis. Under its terms, attorney fees and medical expenses would be drawn from the same 25 percent pool — meaning that in cases with substantial medical costs, lawyers could be left with nothing. A victim with $250,000 in medical bills from a $1 million policy, for instance, would leave no financial room for an attorney.
Versions of similar legislation, adapted to local political conditions, have surfaced in New York, Indiana, Florida and Nevada, according to the report — a pattern the authors describe as a deliberate strategy to reduce legal exposure rather than address any coherent policy concern.
Weak Background Checks and a Pattern of Harm
The report also revisits longstanding criticism of Uber’s driver vetting process. Consumer Watchdog documented cases in California in which passengers, pedestrians and other drivers were killed or injured by Uber drivers who had prior violations — including DUIs — that the group says should have disqualified them. The liability limits Uber is seeking, the report contends, would reduce the company’s incentive to strengthen those checks.
Robotaxis Outpacing Safety Standards
Perhaps most pointed are the report’s findings about Uber’s autonomous vehicle ambitions. The company has announced plans to deploy as many as 20,000 robotaxis in partnership with the autonomous vehicle developer Nuro over the next six years. But Nuro’s safety record in California lags far behind that of competitors. Its vehicles required human intervention roughly every 700 miles, compared with nearly 20,000 miles between interventions for Waymo vehicles. In 2025, Nuro logged fewer than 160,000 autonomous miles in California; Waymo logged more than three million.
Experts say basic details about the Uber-Nuro program remain unknown. “We don’t know what safety standards, if any, Uber is adhering to,” Bryant Walker-Smith, an associate professor of law and engineering at the University of South Carolina, said earlier this year. “We don’t know the specs of the car. We don’t know about their internal testing.”
At recent Senate hearings, lawmakers raised additional concerns about autonomous vehicles being monitored by remote operators abroad — a practice critics have called “trans-Atlantic backseat driving” — with little regulatory oversight.
Transparency Gaps Compound Concerns
The report further notes that crash data collected by the California Public Utilities Commission was withheld from the public for years, and that reporting from 2021 through 2024 remains incomplete following what the group describes as successful lobbying by rideshare companies. Enforcement data from San Francisco, meanwhile, shows that ride-hailing vehicles account for a disproportionate share of traffic violations, including illegal U-turns, bike-lane blockages and bus-lane infractions.