COLUMBUS (AP) – A bill that would create one set of statewide regulations for ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft is headed to Ohio’s governor.
The passage of the legislation on Wednesday comes as Uber plans to expand its Ohio workforce by adding 10,000 more drivers in the state next year.
The measure would require ride-sharing companies to apply for a permit with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, and mandate that drivers carry $1 million in insurance covering work for such companies.
The legislation allows the coverage to be less when drivers aren’t ferrying passengers.
Among several measures approved at the end of the General Assembly’s 2015 calendar is a bill to prohibit a public employer from asking about an applicant’s criminal history on a job application form.
Lawmakers also passed a resolution that repudiates Connecticut’s claim that another aviator beat the Wright brothers as first in flight.
The measure cleared its final hurdle on Wednesday when state senators unanimously approved it. The Ohio House passed it earlier this year.
Ohio is formally responding to a 2013 Connecticut law that honored aviator Gustave Whitehead as being two years ahead of Dayton residents Orville and Wilbur Wright’s 1903 flight off Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
The Ohio resolution’s sponsor has suggested that Connecticut is changing history without evidence and Ohio must respond. Backers argue that aviation historians have examined and dismissed accounts that Whitehead flew a powered, heavier-than-air machine of his own design on Aug. 14, 1901, “or on any other date.”