The real problem here is Uber/Lyft not accounting for this in their app. As someone who takes rideshare with a small child who needs a car seat, I've had similar issues.
A person with a dog will need extra time getting in and out, and the driver will need extra time to clean the car and remove any dog hair or other stains or spots. A person with a carseat like myself needs extra time to get into and out of the car while I strap in the carseat. I'm really good at it, but it still takes an extra minute or so to strap in the seat and then strap the child into the seat.
The apps need a way for me to say "I have a carseat" or "I have a service animal" and then give a bonus to the driver for picking me up. Incentivize the driver to want to come get me, and compensate them for the extra time. I'd gladly pay and extra "carseat fee" so that I don't get an unhappy driver who gives me one star just because they had to wait for me.
And in the case of the service animal, they shouldn't have the option to reject the ride and the rider should not get charged extra, but Uber/Lyft should have to compensate the driver for taking that ride as a cost the rideshare companies bear under the ADA.
I think you are giving service providers way too much leeway.
Service providers should offer their service to everyone, not just to "easy" customers. Service providers should not reject you because you are disabled, because you have a child, because you have a certain religion, or whatever else is the problem.
If someone is in the business of transporting people, they shouldn't be allowed to just pick the most profitable customers. Because if you allow that, everyone will try to undercut the competitors prices to get the "good" customers, and nobody will bother to offer services to the not so profitable customers.
There's nothing wrong with needing some special accomodations, and you shouldn't have to apologise to the driver for taking two minutes to fasten a child seat.
Oh you mean like a licensing system that requires drivers to pick up all passengers? /s
HAAS Act '37
NYC TLC '71
Operation Refusal '98
Not that NY has it exactly right, but at least there was some structure.
The entire business model of Uber is regulation avoidance. They did not "distrupt" any business they just did as you said and stole all the profitable easy routes/riders, avoided pricing regulations, and driver compensation regulations.
Just curious, have you ever actually taken many cabs in cities? Or Ubers?
I see this complaint all the time and I truly can't wrap my mind around it based on my own experience. The difference between yellow cabs and Ubers is night and day. I've had countless cabs drive away and refuse to pick me up because they didn't like where I was going, and that's never once happened with Uber (I'm sure it happens some behind the scenes but once I get matched with a driver it's very reliable).
There's even an entire industry in NYC of "gypsy cabs" in some of the outer boroughs, because the limited number of medallioned yellow cabs never go out there since it's not profitable enough.
I've nearly missed flights twice because of uber drivers canceling on me - 10-15 min after accepting the ride In Columbus, Ohio and Panama. If you've ever tried to get taxis in Panama you know they're worse though.
If I'm going to take uber to the airport, I'm careful now to leave an extra 30 min over the two hours I would normally plan for.
I got off a bus once, at night, by mistake, in what seemed like a very bad part of town. I was waiting for the next bus to carry me away but became uncomfortable with my surroundings and so tried to get an Uber to come first. I had four or five cancel on me immediately after getting assigned and wound up having to wait for the bus anyway. I've never experienced that before or since with Uber.
Taxi's do the same thing. Wouldn't come to the location I was in, hung up, told us we were in a bad neighborhood and shouldn't be there. Eventually the bus came, we didn't want to wait 60 minutes with luggage.
It's a convenient narrative, but if you ever tried getting a cab in the Sunset in 2005 you'd know that at least in some places Uber dramatically improved the ability to get equal opportunity transportation.
Uber certainly disrupted that industry. I would never get into a cab unless I absolutely had to. Now I'm not getting a new car once my lease is up because I uber everywhere I go.
While you have the right idea, the problem is that taxi laws are not enforced enough to deter ride-discrimination behavior. Plenty of times before Uber/Lyft I had cab drivers refuse a ride because they didn't want to drive outside of the city at the most lucrative hour, or they'd just refuse to stop.
Yep, I was talking about Uber/Lyft et al with someone recently and going over the point that these services are finding out that Taxi services charge what they charge and operate how they operate due to very good reasons on the whole.
There's a lot of institutional knowledge baked into the cab industry and Uber/Lyft thought they could figuratively reimplement the whole deal in a weekend.
Realistically, yes? If their allergies are such to the point that they cannot be physically in the presence of a service animal for any length of time, they may be required to decline the fare and the income.
We impose a lot of duties on people who are employed in the service of the general public. Humans are messy, unpredictable, inconsistent beings with unique needs so, yes, it is possible that two humans will be a mismatch for each other in the public sphere.
The law, and society in making that law, has generally decided that the right of a person with particular needs--such as a service animal or a carseat--outweigh the rights of someone to ply a trade in a customer-facing role. And, given the level of discrimination that people with those needs experience on a daily basis, I happen to think this is a fair trade-off. The person with the needs may not have a choice, or may have fewer choices, than the service provider.
I think you said yes to the parent comment but are not actually saying yes. Saying that "people with dog allergies cannot drive with Uber" is discrimination; allergies are also legally considered disabilities under the ADA[0]. Plus why would it be nessary if only a small portion of people have animals, and an even smaller portion need them for disabilities?
What should happen is allow drivers to get a doctor's note that marks their car as unstable for allergies (that way they can't make it up to discriminate). Also allow customers to mark themselves as needing to avoid animals or needing animal-friendly cars. You don't even have to show this information to either party: Uber can automatically choose the right car.
The law doesn't say every single driver has to pick up people that need service animals. It just says reasonable accommodations must be made.
But then it would be in the full right of someone with dog allergies to refuse service to someone with a service animal. Their being able to live completely trumps the person's ability to get a car. Then the customer who was refused service would probably feel discriminated against (because Uber did not make reasonable accommodations to prevent this) and we are back where we started.
So it’s not fair that some cars can’t accommodate all passengers of all sorts with any various disability, but it’s fair to deny employment to those with some sort of disability (animal allergies). Odd perspective.
Animal allergies (as opposed to asthma triggered by animal dander) is only considered a disability is it actively affects your ability to breathe or otherwise function in pretty basic ways. So, yes, under the ADA in the US, denying someone employment with allergies is fine but refusing to give rides to service dogs is not.
Of course, a simpler solution would be to have Uber choose an appropriate car that was willing to give rides to service animals.
Outside of service animals (actual service animals not "support animals") I think it should be perfectly fine to reject transporting peoples pets.
I also think it should be fine to have a "no children" policy, we have all kinds of business we do not allow children in, and personally i would like to see more business adopt a no children policy.
No, Uber simply needs to accommodate a passenger with a service dog, by assigning the closest non-allergic driver to them, and the driver not refusing service.
I would suggest that if the allergies are sufficient enough to reach disability, that instead of "Uber needs to assign the closest non-allergic driver" (because the ADA doesn't require that a passenger state that they have a service animal) ...
Rather, Uber needs to offer accommodations to drivers. Modification of the vehicle so that the driver and passenger areas are separate and the there is sufficient air filtration.
This way, Uber would be handling both disabilities appropriately with the ADA by providing the respective accommodations.
This sounds nice in theory, and, sure, it will solve the situation with a driver having a dog allergy.
But what about a more common and realistic scenario, where the driver doesn't have the allergy, but the next Uber passenger does (the one who gets into the car after the passenger with a dog leaves)? Do you propose to perform full sterilization of the vehicle after every passenger with a dog (and I mean an actual full sterilization, not just wiping the seats clean)? Because otherwise, the dog dander particles will still be present in the vehicle in some capacity, thus causing an allergic reaction in the next passenger who has allergies.
I think the challenge for Uber is that (despite being illegal) it still makes way more sense for a driver to pass up a $10 fare than spend 15 minutes in close proximity to an animal they're allergic to followed by however long it would take to sanitize your car afterwards. If drivers were employees, then Uber could just say "do it or you're fired" but as independent contractors the situation is much harder.
Blind passengers need to have reasonable access to cars. If Uber wants to play in that market, they need to figure out how to accommodate those passengers. If the driver needs a screen, or a stack of N95 masks, to avoid allergies, that should be Uber's responsibility to provide.
If you can't fulfill your duties as an employee/contractor due to a medical reason, you should be able to document that reason. If a driver can find a doctor to testify that they are allergic to dogs, the conversation ends there.
Something that comes as a surprise to many Europeans on HN: healthcare in the United States is not free. Doctor's notes cost money. Uber drivers are, by definition, poor, and do not have health insurance.
Should drivers with life-threatening allergies be expected to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars extracting a deposition from a medical professional to avoid being killed by a dog?
Great, I guess we'll have to gate ADA compliance on overhauling the entire US healthcare system, first. Heaven forbid someone has to do work in the same environment as a blind person with a service animal.
Until we do, are there any other forms of work that you feel that an employee/contractor/etc. should be able to shirk by claiming that they have a medical condition, without providing a shred of evidence thereof?
A medical note for a chronic, life-threatening condition is a sufficient, and reasonable requirement, and is good from years to decades.
That is specifically and explicitly prohibited by the ADA. The service may not charge more for an individual with a service animal than an individual without.
I agree with people with service dogs should be picked up and blind people.
But my thoughts drifted to what if a driver without allergies picked up a passenger with a service dog, that driver would then presumably need to spend time vacuuming the car such that another passenger with allergies isn't also impacted?
That could be a reasonable accommodation. Another reasonable accommodation would be to send another car.
Imagine if the Uber driver himself had a dog, and showed up to pick an allergic passenger up. What would the reasonable accommodation be in that case? Depending on how severe an allergy is, no amount of vacuuming is going to make a ride in such a car pleasant for the passenger.
In the UK, a taxi/private hire vehicle driver can get an exemption if they are medically unable to take assistance dogs, or help passengers in a wheelchair.
I agree with you, but the issue is that the Uber driver doesn't have control over it. If the driver were in charge, they would make their policy that the ride starts on arrival of the passenger and ends on departure of the passenger. But Uber doesn't do that -- they start the ride when the car moves and ends it when the car stops at the destination. So the driver loads and unloads on their own time. They aren't compensated for differences in accommodations per passenger.
I try to make up for this by telling the driver to start the ride the moment I arrive and not end until I leave, but not everyone does that.
This is someone's personal property we're talking about. Should they forced to shuttle around drunken and incontinent people too? Why should anyone be coerced with being kicked off of a platform and losing (their possibly only) source of income because they don't want piss, shit, and vomit in their car?
> Should they forced to shuttle around drunken and incontinent people too?
Holy red herring, Batman. Are you serious equating drunk people with disabled people who need physical accommodations? The ADA does not have anything to say about mandating accommodations for drunk people.
Separately, people who are incontinent actually, you know, do things to manage their condition (like wear adult diapers as necessary). They aren't just randomly shitting everywhere. Your contrived examples are just downright offensive.
1. It was in response to the poster that put forward a proposition that any and all passengers must at all times be taken; let's not take the response fully out of context just to attack it with outrage.
Similarly, I charitably assumed by "drunk & incontinent" they mean, literally and as written, "those who are irresponsibly drunk to the point of losing control over their bodily functions"; not those who may have a permanent and manageable/managed medical issue.
2. In practical terms, if I may be blunt and practical for a second, a e.g. service animal shepherd:
a) Legally and morally SHOULD be allowed
b) ...Yet is absolutely equivalent to a vomiting drunk in terms of cleanup expenses (and in some ways worse - follow-up passengers may have severe allergy issues, or even the driver themselves!)
There's no easy "win" here. We have to acknowledge the necessity of regulating/providing for all; but also the non-zero impact on the actual real live person driving the car. They are human too!
I may rather clean up after a service animal; but it might well take me far longer, and thus incur a higher real cost on business - it's all very circumstantial. There are shepherds (a common service animal) that will saturate a closed vehicle with hair in 2 minutes - front, back, between the seats, under the carpet, on the ceiling, everywhere. And the hair gets tangled in the fabric weave so you need special rotary brushes or hours of painstaking manual work to remove. Whereas some vomits, disgusting as they are, are 3 min with a cloth and bucket.
Anyhoo - point being, there are desirable things we as society want to see; but we shouldn't be blind as to impact/cost that those goals have on those who are on point to actually enact them; and at the very least they should have our empathy, if not ideally an attempt to compensate/accommodate/compromise.
It stopped being their personal property the moment they started using it to run a business. Now its business property. They don't have to allow unruly/drunk/etc customers, but there are grounds its not ok to discriminate on when running a business.
In this case, I think people need to realize what they are signing up for. If you deliver pizza it's a given you will start reeking of pizza. Uber is notoriously used for designated driving, and anyone surely knows by adult hood that having diarrhea isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and basic probability would tell you eventually will get a customer with diarrhea or someone who is about to throw up their tequila. Luckily Uber has some protections for you in the cleaning fee charged to the offending customer, but with Uber's excellent way around lobbying, that's about all the protections to your vehicle you can ask for with this gig.
Uber and taxi drivers are allowed to refuse drunk passengers, but they are not allowed to refuse passengers with disabilities (thanks to the ADA). It's a completely different situation.
This is not the only issue. It is an extension to a bigger issue, cancelling rides.
There are many time I have Uber driver cancelling my ride from the airport because my destination is not the big metro center, rather, just outside of it. The driver was quick to accept the request, then called and then cancel the ride. Of course, the driver would said the customer "request the cancellation".
This wasted so much of people's time.
Please don't tell with all those smart people Uber have in their payroll couldn't figure out this. Or they simply ignore it.
This wastes time and cost 5$. More than once a driver has not been able to find me at the airport (despite me giving directions as to where I am) and then cancelled the ride. This weekend I needed a ride after I missed a flight, the driver shows up and after 15 minutes of me walking around the garage looking for them the ride is cancelled and I get a 5$ charge. I’m sure you can dispute this, and they’ll likely side with you, but it’s 5$ and I’d bet they bet on most people thinking their time is worth more than 5.
I dispute this every time it happens, because it counts against your rider score and can stop you from getting rides in the future, or doom you to being matched with low-ranked drivers.
This should be easily solved if the system were working correctly. That is independent contractors were able to make bid on ride request. Undesirable destination? Customer just has to offer price someone is willing to offer a service at. At some price point someone is willing to do the job.
The whole point of granting taxi medallions in the first place was to provide a semi-monopoly on the service, in return for requiring taxi drivers to act like a public utility. There’s a societal benefit to being able to get a ride from wherever, to wherever for a pre-determined fare, without having to worry that your destination is a “bad neighborhood” or your skin is the wrong color or your guide dog might not be allowed.
We should not let ride sharing services just gut this aspect of hired car service.
So we should ban them from operating without medals? You can't have it both ways... And I don't understand why shouldn't free market apply to them as well. Or maybe start applying it to all labour. Demand that all workers can be hired at certain price level for any job...
You CAN have it both ways. We can still hold the business to requirements that we set, that represent a baseline of public acceptability, with or without medallions.
"The free market" isn't an answer to everything. We decide as a society that some forms of market pricing are not allowed. For instance, I can not pay children to work for me. I can not pay a woman less than a man. I can not pay an old person less than a younger one. I can not refuse service to someone who has a disability. These are social choices that we make, and I would argue that we SHOULD make, to restrict the free market in ways that benefit society as a whole.
Good point. Please note that I wrote: "There's nothing wrong with needing some special accomodations". I did not say you need to accomodate everything.
If someone is drunk enough that he's going to piss and throw up in the car, it might be a better idea to call an ambulance instead.
But to be honest, if you are in the transportation business, someone is going to fuck up your car sooner or later, and you really need to take potential cleaning costs into account. That's just part of the job.
Don't want your car to get dirty from driving people? Then don't offer to drive people.
ADA also says these accommodations need to be readily achievable. Considering the income level of people working at rideshares, it's really not achievable and extremely unfair.
Uber has tens of billions of dollars. They have to be able to achieve it, as this ruling shows. They cannot violate the ADA. Playing the whole contractor charade may help them to get around minimum wage laws but it's not gonna help them get around the ADA.
Saying that Uber doesn't have to comply with ADA because they pay their employees (sorry, contractors) nowhere near enough money seems like one of those "two wrongs don't make a right" situations.
I think the ADA would argue that allowing these people to enter your car is perfectly achievable. If you throw up in an Uber you get billed a cleaning fee.
We’re talking about letting a guide dog into your vehicle. It’s not like they were asked to transport toxic waste - it’s a guide dog. How is that remotely unfair??
If they're ferrying passengers for compensation then they absolutely should follow the law (including ADA). If they don't want to deal with all types of passengers then they don't have to be in that business.
I’m wondering if you’re trying to make a different point than the one I seem to think you made. To me, it sounds like you’re comparing people who choose to become intoxicated with differently abled people. If I choose to get so drunk that I’m vomiting, kick my dumb ass out of your vehicle. But if I’m sight impaired and have a guide dog?? If you kick me out of the vehicle, you’re not only an asshole but you’re an asshole who deserves to lose everything you worked for!
I must have read your comment wrong. Sorry if I misrepresented you, but I can’t figure out where I’ve gone wrong.
I think you are giving service providers way too much leeway.
The problem is that Uber is getting work from the driver in order to meet Uber's obligations but without compensating the driver. The extra work required to e.g. clean the interior of the car after a service dog has been transported should be paid by Uber to the driver.
It's always the case that some trips are more profitable than others: for example there is another passenger to pick up immediately at the same place you dropped the last passenger off at. So while it matters that in total Uber driving is profitable for the driver it is not necessary that the 2% or so of the trips with blind passengers are.
Correct. If the drivers are treated as independent contractors and account for vehicle costs and paying themselves at least minimum wage for all working time, the profit margin on rides is quite slim, potentially to the point where the additional time to clean the car means a driver makes less than minimum wage. Were it an actual company, that would be illegal. Under Uber's model, it's "they are an independent contractor, we just match them with rides and handle billing."
Uber does provide training that says drivers must accept service dogs. However, if there are issues, they are uncommon enough and the likelihood of a driver getting sued is low enough that a driver may just drive away.
My gut tells me that drivers should be employees, or limits should be placed on using single-person independent contractors to provide a service like this. It's not going to solve every problem and the traditional "taxi" mentality is going to remain, but I remember the early days of Uber when drivers could not reject too many rides and stay on the platform, and it did seem to solve some of the management problems with drivers. Heck, maybe the answer is to contract the work out to car management companies with real HR departments like the airlines do with regional jet flying, so that Uber can insist on their high quality product and performance metrics and drivers can be employees.
>>Because if you allow that, everyone will try to undercut the competitors prices to get the "good" customers, and nobody will bother to offer services to the not so profitable customers.
They're not a charity. If you want to help the less fortunate, then donate directly to them.
Or if you believe that helping the less fortunate should be something people should be required to do, under pain of imprisonment, then advocate taxing people, and using that revenue to directly subsidize the less fortunate.
There's no reason the mandatory charity should fall entirely on service providers. It's not even an efficient way to help the less fortunate. If they received cash subsidies instead, then service providers would crop up that specialize in servicing people who have their disability, and would provide a far higher quality of service per dollar spent.
The idea is that larger companies in the space (like Uber) should be the ones subsidizing the drivers. Just like we could have offered complex taxes and subsidies to encourage banks to invest in local communities, but instead we just passed a law. Or simply required private insurers to supply insurance regardless of preconidtions.
Uber, Bank of America, and Blue Cross are big enough they can handle mixing the more and less valuable customers themselves, and don't need a government program.
They eventually pass the cost down to consumers. Even profits, redirected from shareholders, to these projects, indirectly costs consumers in the form of reduced investment that would otherwise enchance productivity and bring down consumer prices.
I'm arguing that we shouldn't be forcing private companies, large or otherwise, to fulfill social justice agendas, because it creates an unstable business environment where firms can be encumbered by any conceivable regulatory barrier to participating in the marketplace. It's also mixing concerns, leading to less optimized and well thought out social interventions. For example, forcing banks to lend in high-credit-risk neighbourhoods turned out to be a huge mistake, as this article from 21 years ago presciently warned:
If we do decide to force society to collectively help the less fortunate, it should be out of general revenue, in the form of cash subsidies.
If a disabled person gets $1,000 a month, they may use it for more rides, or they may find their money can go further if they instead pay to have service providers do home-visits to their place. Or they may rent special exo-suits that let them operate like a non-disabled person. Letting the affected party decide will let them maximize the return they get from the resources being allocated to the cause of helping them.
I disagree with that. There's enough offerings on the market to cover everything. Companies should be able to differentiate their offerings and target certain categories of the population. If something doesn't fit you - don't use it.
I stopped using Uber when I got a child. I didn't have the app installed for 4 years now. Simply because they don't offer a service with child seat.
I'm not bringing my own child seat, no way.
Instead, I'm using bubs taxi in Sydney that will come with child seat and other stuff that may be necessary when you travel with a toddler. They target families with kids. If we to follow you "obligation" on the companies to serve anyone, there would be no bubs taxi for me to use.
>>Service providers should not reject you because you are disabled, because you have a child, because you have a certain religion, or whatever else is the problem.
What about the incorrect political beliefs, are you saying I have to transport a Republican? or a Nazi?
I understand what you are saying, but reality doesn't agree with this worldview. The reality of the situation is that some people need more help than others, and this help does cost more money/time/labor. I think overall it is a better experience if the marketplace for these services prices in the extra labor necessary for this help.
Perhaps the government could subsidize the lost time. However expecting workers to do more work for less pay is not in line with human nature.
Having children is expensive, and parents should be factoring in paying extra to do things.
The problem you are outlining is that picking up non-special needs customers is the most profitable way to be an uber driver. If there was a bonus for picking up "special needs" passengers, the incentive problem could be fixed. Right now, "special needs" passengers just get worse service, and it will always be this way unless human nature fundamentally changes or they gain a way to signal to drivers that it will be worth the driver's extra time.
Because they're legally allowed to be underpaid contractors. The law should be changed to fix the root cause, not to change this side effect. Uber drivers aren't barely making min wage because they have no incentives to pick up disabled people ...
By "fix the root cause" you mean shut down uber right? because if all the "solutions" I have seen just in this thread were required (everything from Uber outfitting every car with Hypoallergenic compartments, to paying drivers extra for different types of customers (with out charging extra to the customer ofcourse) ) then the cost of the ride would be so prohibitively expensive that no one would use the service
People seem to have this mythical belief that uber can pay every driver to drive a brand new car, at 100/hr, providing the best service for every customer every time all for 1/2 the price of a taxi
However, that is how regular taxi services work... and they're profitable. They don't ignore the ADA. They allow service animals. They help with wheelchairs and storing them appropriately - even if that requires more time for the driver. That extra cost of service is spread out across all customers and its a non-issue.
Uber's business model of trying to disrupt the taxi service by ignoring regulations is at issue here. With the ADA, they've encountered an issue that the court is not letting them ignore.
>>However, that is how regular taxi services work... and they're profitable.
That really depends on the location, and many are not profitable and in some area many only service some parts of the town / city.
Sure if you are in a large city like NYC, LA, Chicago etc, then it would be different but if you start getting out of the top 50 cities the profitability starts to drop
Also clearly taxi's are not providing the service at the value demanded of users or Uber would not exist
If Uber cannot afford to pay their drivers minimum wage, they should raise more money and operate at a loss for longer or raise fares or shut down. Any of those three solutions seem to work. And those are basic, there are others.
What if it treats 95% of of the population decently and makes a profit?
Anyone knows that getting to 80% is easy, getting from 80-90 is normally $$$$ and getting to 99.99999999999995% which is what the thread it about is $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
> The apps need a way for me to say "I have a carseat" or "I have a service animal"
In the UK (and EU?) those are 'protected characteristics' that it'd be illegal to discriminate against. I suppose you could ask 'for information purposes', but you'd have to be prepared to defend yourself, proving that it didn't affect the service received.
> and then give a bonus to the driver for picking me up.
Like that. Of course people are free to think 'this driver was an unusually nice guy to me and went above and beyond to help with my wheelchair', or whatever, but it absolutely couldn't be required of the customer. You can't have a 'parent or guide dog user' surcharge.
This attitude that everything is the service providers problem is why service for the disabled is shitty. It does take longer to get into a car, etc, and that does cost a hungry driver more money.
The extra cost should be born by society, which is where the requirement comes from. If we think the disabled should ride for the same price we should make that part of medical coverage and pay the driver for the extra time spent.
As is, any sensible driver will ditch these fares with any means possible. More work, less money, and generally bitchier customers. The next time your fare comes up they'll pull over and take a bathroom break rather than responding.
If we want something, we have to pay for it, not try to stick someone else with the bill.
> This attitude [...] is why service for the disabled is shitty.
Is 'this attitude' mine (GP's)? As far as I'm aware I simply described the legal reality.
The point is that the driver may not 'ditch these fares', and that Uber (et al.) simply bares any difference as the cost of doing business.
They are not allowed, by law, to discriminate between a disabled passenger who 'takes too long', an able-bodied speedy passenger, and an able-bodied passenger who 'takes too long' for unforeseeable reasons, so it is just what it is (the 'forseeable' as the 'unforseeable').
It's society's attitude. That we can fix a problem by making it someone else's problem. In the end it costs all of us more because we're still stuck fixing it but also dealing with the consequences of bad and badly enforced laws.
We want a minimum wage so we go after the only person paying someone, the boss, and demand that they pay more. If instead we paid a (temporary) UBI to bring up the compensation it wouldn't all fall on the business owner and we wouldn't have to force them to do it.
We want morbidly obese people to be welcome on airplanes but we forbid the airline from charging them for all the seats they consume.
If we want people to pick up the disabled, and not shirk the task, then we shouldn't stick them with the cost.
We should act like adults and pay (directly) for what we want, what we feel is right - trip subsidies for medical reasons.
As far as I can tell a business is allowed to have a surcharge for carseats and dogs. However it seems reasonable that those should be waived for people who need either because of a disability (at least that seems like a 'reasonable accommodation').
Of course without anything in place there is effectively no accommodation whatsoever which seems to be one of the things that lead to this penalty (with probably more to come if more people are treated badly because of a disability).
> In 2014, The National Federation of the Blind in the US sued the ride-sharing app over guide-dog regulations.
> The case was settled in 2017 when Uber agreed to ensure its drivers knew they were legally obliged to provide service to people with guide dogs.
So Uber have clearly failed to train their drivers to treat disabled passengers in the right way. There are definitely lots of problems that could be solved with a better UI but this isn't one of them.
I mean, I'd call it a UX issue, where the U here is both the driver and the passenger. There is no way for me to tell the driver I have a car seat, and there is no way for the driver to get extra compensation for it. Now that they've added tipping I can at least tip them extra, but they don't know that until after they give me a bad rating for "wasting their time".
Several years ago, Uber had a big problem in eastern Canada where parents of young children would show up without a car seat. In Ontario law at the time, taxis were considered public transportation so children did not need to be put in car seats, but Uber was considered private vehicles - they were required to.
Op is saying implementing that is a minor inconvenience for Uber. If they wanted you to be able to tell the driver, it would take them a couple of weeks.
I'd say OP is wrong. The Uber UX is localized into many languages. It probably takes them quite an effort to make any UI change, especially ones that require localization.
Also, the change I'm proposing changes the fee structure as well. I'm sure they do deep analysis any time they change the fee structure. It would probably take a ton of effort to add what I suggest.
I think they should do it, but it probably doesn't come up often enough to be worth it.
Not every feature is launched everywhere. If they want to test out a new feature they probably pick a single market and try it out there I'd bet.
> I think they should do it, but it probably doesn't come up often enough to be worth it.
That's the thing, it's not worth it to the people that are not affected by these situations. To those that are, it's life changing. Which is part of the reason ADA appears to side so heavily with those with disabilities. A tiny inconvenience to a driver means a blind person can make it to work on time. The driver should of course be compensated for their time and any cleanup required should also be covered - that's a no brainer.
Totally understand the fear of dogs or allergies, but people systematically abuse those situations which further reduces ease of access for those with real disabilities. Emotional support animals on planes for example - plenty of people need them but a lot of others just used it to get their animal on the plane.
This feels like a misrepresentation of the kind of effort required. For a company of Uber's scale such an effort barely registers. And they could go live with the change in selected markets in the interest of minimizing it even further. But at the end of the day this isn't a matter of effort but of reward, and Uber probably sees none.
> For a company of Uber's scale such an effort barely registers.
You have that backwards. For a company of Uber's scale, this is a major initiative. For a small company they can just code it up and put it in the app.
It depends how they company is set up, but what I propose would require buy in from the finance group since it would change the revenue model, the UX group, the localization group, and probably legal for regulatory compliance.
You can trust me on this one, as I've seen this process in the past in this kind of company and from the right vantage point: it stopped at "is it bringing us more revenue within the strategy we outlined for the next X years?".
Uber has all the resources needed to implement this, they don't need to outsource, they don't need to commission studies, they have all they need upfront because it's the same skills and resources that make them money now. If they saw an opportunity they wouldn't have left money on the table.
Oh I'm sure it would cost them more money in the short term. It would probably improve customer satisfaction though. Or driver satisfaction. Both of which would have longer term effects on revenue. So it's a question of whether or not they optimize for those things.
I don't think any large tech company is capable of shipping a feature that quickly. Even for a feature as narrowly scoped as this, going from ideation to deployment in a few weeks seems completely unrealistic. There's just way too much involved aside from raw lines of code.
Uber itself might be, the business it is in certainly isn't... Which is kinda dichotomy with many modern tech companies. The platform might be such, but in the end the product they are selling very much isn't.
When I drove for Uber, we received email messages every couple of months reminding us of the rules concerning service animals and people who need physical assistance getting in and out of the car.
I seem to recall that if you had the right kind of car you could mark yourself available for wheelchairs and other things. I was forever picking up people with walkers and helping them in and out, though I know some drivers never ever wanted to touch a passenger unless they were dead drunk and had to be dragged out of the car and deposited on the front lawn of the destination address. (Been there, done that.)
Maybe it's regional. Everything about Uber seems to be.
> I seem to recall that if you had the right kind of car you could mark yourself available for wheelchairs and other things. I was forever picking up people with walkers and helping them in and out, though I know some drivers never ever wanted to touch a passenger unless they were dead drunk and had to be dragged out of the car and deposited on the front lawn of the destination address. (Been there, done that.)
Uber had/has WAV (Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles) on request.
There's also a lot of taxi companies who are being sued for misclassification, so I don't really think their actions hold much value as a model for legal compliance.
And the drivers don't want to be employees or they'd be stuck driving for one company with a set shift.
We need to fix contracting which means fixing access to affordable (ie, the same actual cost the company would pay) medical. The problem for Uber drivers is that the money they make can't pay for coverage because companies get highly discounted rates.
> I have a hard time believing any generalization about such a large group of people.
It's the self-selected group of people who have chosen it. Much different than a random sampling.
Uber drivers have pretty clearly chosen being a contractor, and if you listen to them they say they like the freedom - require it even. You can usually moonlight as a contractor without permission from your primary job.
Other drivers, driving as full-time employees, have obviously made their decision in the other direction and seem happy.
It seems wrong to tell either that they must change.
What is the basis by which you are claiming ADA compliance implies their drivers are employees? Providing usable service for ADA customers can and should be accomplished regardless of Uber/Lyft's driver contracting model.
Employee classification is dependent on the amount of control that a company has over the worker. Uber has consistently argued that they have minimal influence over driver behavior, in attempts to keep their status quo on their workers' current classification, and avoid the costs associated with having employees.
The more 'hands-off' that Uber can assert that they are with their drivers, the better for their argument. They want to be 100% a middleman and 0% anything else. Ultimately, I think they'll fail, but for now, that's their strategy.
Are we going to offer a "bonus" to drivers that offer to drive old people, because they may take a little longer to get in the car?
If the difference between profit and ruin is an extra 60 seconds for someone to sit down, then maybe the real solution is to pay the drivers a living wage.
Well really they should pay the Uber driver until they passenger is fully departed, but right now passengers get upset if the driver doesn't end the ride the moment they arrive (and if they start the drive before actually departing), so the driver has to load and unload on their own time.
I try to make up for it by telling the driver to start the ride the moment I walk up, and letting them know not to end the ride until I've left, but not everyone does that.
I’ve got the gift of the gab and so I see this differently. If I had no scruples or morals and chose to drive Uber, I could make an obscene hourly wage simply by picking up elderly people and engaging them in conversation. Most phone scams rely upon preying upon vulnerable, lonely people like this so sadly, it’s a public 0 day with no known fix.
You know friend, I read enough comments from you to recognize you by name. You’ve always struck me as just an incredibly nice person. Thanks for this reply and for being such an all around good person. Hearing you talk on this thread is actually heartwarming - your respect and kindness are just incredible.
Check out the mifold chair for kids it’s great for when you have to use taxis or a rental car https://www.mifold.com/ it just simplified travel so much for us.
We have a mifold for the older kid, but the younger one still needs a full carseat. When they were infants it was easier because I could strap them into the seat before the car arrived, and then just quickly buckle the seat in. But in the 11mo-3 year range, I need a full carseat that has to be installed before I can strap anyone in. :(
FWIW, Uber does offer an option called UberAssist[0], which is available in San Francisco (where this woman is from). And as someone else pointed out, Uber sends emails to drivers periodically. What more can it do? Boot drivers after a discrimination incident? By then, it's already too late.
Emotional Support animals are not by default considered service animals by the ADA. (IANAL and State / Local laws may say different things.) They must be trained to perform at least one specific task in order to qualify as a service animal under the ADA. You are allowed to ask two specific questions about dogs: "Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?" and "What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?" It seems like something that Uber could allow a user to input, and prevent their drivers from rejecting those users for the presence of the animal.
Animals do always have to be under control of the owner though, so if one is not under control that is an acceptable reason to reject them.
And I believe the latest guidance is that basically only dogs fall under the service animal category, so random other animals people use for emotional support would not qualify either. The exception seems to be miniature horses for specific limited cases.
100% agree. "emotional support" animals are basically a free pass for shitty people to take advantage of the system and take their non-trained, horribly mannered animals with them wherever they want, which sucks for people that have actual need for emotional support and service animals.
How do you tell if a dog is a service dog though? The ADA already allows excluding misbehaving service animals, which should cover a good portion of 'fraudulent emotional service animals' considering how well most people mistrain their animals.
There are legitimate service animals for a wide variety of real conditions that a lay person could not be expected to consider. Dogs that can detect incoming seizures or problematic psychological states, and they could look very similar to an 'emotional support animal' but actually be a legitimate service animal.
I was out for breakfast for the first time since the pandemic started this weekend (I'm fully vaccinated now) and in walks a guy with a dog sporting a "Service Animal" sash that in tiny letters said "emotional support". I was paralyzed - I was traumatized by my interactions with dogs when I was a kid; where's my say in having untrained animals in my vicinity? This kind of shit needs to be ended but there should be NO issue with blind people with actual service animals receiving service anywhere
Yeah my brother's wife will completely shut down and start screaming if a dog comes within 5 feet of her. Where she grew up in China dogs were wild animals that would viciously attack you if you got near them, so it's a pretty understandable reaction. So I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted here.
Also having personally seen how poorly trained most peoples' dogs are I would be very uncomfortable having a random stranger's dog near me. A lot of the dogs I encounter on the street are neurotic wrecks incapable of passing without barking, leash pulling, or lunging.
I'm downvoted because it's an unpopular opinion in the US that people shouldn't force their pets on others who are uncomfortable interacting with them or just being around them and HN readership is largely US-centric. In my experience many recreational dog owners in the US are incredibly selfish people
Legally an actual service animal must be trained. Emotional support, for a variety of reasons including things like PTSD and anxiety attacks, is a completely valid use of service animals. How do you know they were not trained?
If they were misbehaving, that's reason for them to be rejected, training or not. If not, legally allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. Though Uber should certainly attempt to pair the rider with a different driver first, if they have registered that allergy / fear ahead of time.
I am not taking a stance on the law itself, but it is what the current law is. And has been in place for at least a decade in its current form. If it is a serious issue, then people should definitely work to change the law.
But, unless they are the only one available or something, there is nothing in the law saying that specific employee has to keep providing service. The company should make a best effort to remove that employee from contact, without impacting the service of the customer.
If a small business owner happened to be that unlucky, how would you propose it be dealt with? If I were such a business owner, I would honestly attempt to arrange the customer be handled by a competitor, if it was legit a situation where everyone at my company happened to be seriously allergic to dogs.
I think that business owner should realize by employee 12 or 13 they probably need to diversify a bit in order to stay legally compliant. It is not a complicated or difficult thing to handle.
> Legally an actual service animal must be trained
There's a distinction between trained service animals and emotional support animals. Both are support animals but the latter are largely untrained which is why airlines have moved to ban them. I have no issue whatsoever with trained service animals!
I think there's a conversation to be had about dogs as vicious in nature but I have been laughed out of the room when I mention this to an in-person audience. But many USPS/UPS/FedEx and now Amazon delivery people are aware of this: untrained dogs are a danger
Why shouldn't they have the option to reject the ride? What if they're allergic, or deathly afraid of dogs? I have a friend like that. Anything bigger than a chihuahua and she'd probably flee the vehicle before driving it anywhere.
Being able to reject work you can't handle seems like the one silver lining of being "independent contractors".
> Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility.
Being an "independent contractor" doesn't absolve someone from the ADA.
If the driver is unable to handle the service for a reason related to the disability (e.g. wheelchair, service animal), they need to make the appropriate accommodations. In this case, it would probably be to have Uber dispatch another driver who is able to provide the service.
That's how it works for traditional taxi companies. Uber and Lyft, not being "traditional" taxi companies doesn't exempt them from needing to follow the same rules.
Uber could assign a different vehicle to pick up the passenger's that need to transport a service animal, so long as it doesn't significantly impact their service times.
A reasonable accommodation could be that driver's with significant animal allergies don't need to pick up passenger's with dogs. If a significant portion of their driver fleet has significant animal allergies, such that it would significantly negatively impact the response time for passenger's that need dogs, Uber would need to find a different reasonable accommodation.
> A reasonable accommodation could be that driver's with significant animal allergies don't need to pick up passenger's with dogs.
I would put the burden the other way around. Drivers that have significant animal allergies that reach the threshold of a disability should be provided an accommodation of a separator between the passenger area and the driver area with sufficient air filtration.
Thus, the driver would still be able to pick up passengers that have a service animal even with allergies that extend to the point of being a disability.
I am not a lawyer, but I don't believe that fear of dogs counts as a disability.
> Drivers that have significant animal allergies that reach the threshold of a disability should be provided an accommodation of a separator between the passenger area and the driver area with sufficient air filtration.
That would be another reasonable accommodation. Not assigning driver's to those passengers would be a number of reasonable accommodations. There can be many different reasonable accommodations that can be made for a given problematic circumstance. The burden is on the company to find and implement _a_ reasonable accommodation.
> I am not a lawyer, but I don't believe that fear of dogs counts as a disability.
I don't think a garden variety fear of dogs would could (but IANAL either, and I don't know). I could imagine a case where someone has a genuine phobia of dogs, and is able to get a doctor's genuine medical opinion that a presence in an enclosed vehicle could cause severe anxiety, to the point of causing repeated anxiety or panic attacks. That kind of scenario may well rise to the level of a disability that must be accommodated.
I'm hesitant to make any broad sweeping claims about what should "count" as a workplace disability.
Seems rather simple: Let drivers with allergies put that in their profile. Let riders put that they have a service animal in. And the system just doesn't pair them together.
And now that the system knows someone has a service animal you can automatically review any cancelations by the driver and look for problems. I am actually kind of surprised that there isn't some review system already in place when a driver ends a trip early on someone. Unless the rider changes the destination, how can the driver not drop them off at the agreed upon location without getting flagged somehow?
Could even in rare cases, if there are absolutely no drivers without allergies around, offer them a bonus to take the rider anyways.
I noticed a trend where lots of Uber drivers marked themselves as deaf, but really just didn’t communicate in English fluently. I would imagine drivers would similarly claim to be allergic to get around having to transport service animals.
What's the incentive for a driver not to mark that they have allergies? You're essentially just giving them a checkbox "I don't want to deal with people who have service animals"
As long as it is not a large enough percentage of drivers to significantly affect the service times of those riders, does it actually matter? I mean, morally I don't think they should. However, those are probably more likely to be the people who were going to cause problems like this article talks about anyways. So it would still probably result in better experience for everyone.
If 99% of drivers check that box, and it affects service times, then they will have to come up with some other option to accommodate the drivers. Prove the allergies or something, since some of them are certainly lying with prevalence being 10-20% in the US. And it would have to be a best effort, the rider with a true service animal is legally protected and a driver with allergies or fear is not a legal reason to reject service altogether.
Seems like that is pretty easy to deal with by simply asserting in the driver's contract that they can be asked for medical verification at any time if they make that indication.
What does that look like? Force drivers to go to the doctor (even though you don't give them health insurance) to get a note that says "I sneeze around dogs"?
> Seems rather simple: Let drivers with allergies put that in their profile. Let riders put that they have a service animal in. And the system just doesn't pair them together.
I don't think you are allowed to require riders to say they have a service animal when requesting a ride.
You can ask two specific questions about the presence of an animal. "Is the dog a service animal required because of a disability?" and "What work or task has the dog been trained to perform?"
I would think Uber would want to handle those sort of compliance issues before the driver gets there. As you don't want the driver to get something wrong. And it just makes things smoother for everyone.
Not sure if they can require a rider provide this information ahead of time, before pairing a rider with a driver. But if its voluntary, I don't see any problem with making the process smoother for everyone. Again IANAL, so could be off base though.
In big metros, Uber and Lyft could just have on-call backup drivers that are specifically employees who are there to handle this situation. If the metro is not "big enough to warrant it", then Uber and Lyft shouldn't be there.
> What if they're allergic, or deathly afraid of dogs?
If they're afraid of dogs they shouldn't drive unknown people for a living, just like someone who's deathly afraid of blood probably won't be a surgeon.
Allergy could be handled by Uber, who should be provided by the driver with a medical certification of the allergy and shouldn't even show that car to the blind customer (if the ADA allows that).
I think the driver shouldn't be able to see that the customer has a service dog, but I agree that they should get a compensation from Uber for doing that ride.
> Allergy could be handled by Uber, who should be provided by the driver with a medical certification of the allergy and shouldn't even show that car to the blind customer.
IANAL, but I don't think it is that simple. Small towns sometimes only have one driver at a time. If there's one driver, they _have_ to take a service animal, by law. Allergy or fear of dogs is not good enough.
Admittedly the liability for the driver denying anyway wouldn't be on the driver, it would be on Uber, but I doubt they want to be paying $1 million every time this happens.
I'm interested in this part. This seems to be counterintuitive. Is a waiter with a really bad peanut allergy required to serve a guest a dish with peanuts in it? Why does the clients (legitimate) health concerns override the drivers (also legitimate) health issues?
> Is a waiter with a really bad peanut allergy required to serve a guest a dish with peanuts in it?
I'm having a hard time constructing a scenario in which the only way to accommodate a guest with a disability to the same level as other guests is for a waiter with a peanut allergy to serve a dish with peanuts in it.
In this hypothetical restaurant, presumably the waiter cannot serve this dish to /any/ guests. And the ADA doesn't entitle you to have a restaurant make food to your specifications, as far as I know.
Well, I think the ADA only applies to businesses with more then 15 employees. The idea is that if you have a business that large, even if one person has a problem with dogs, not all 15 (or more) will, so you should be able to accommodate and provide service.
So in your example, the business should have a different waiter/waitress provide service.
Ah, I see. That seems reasonable, honestly. So in that case, Uber should be able to just assign another driver. But the point about there being a small handful of drivers in an area still stands. However, I don't think Uber should be forced to provide service just because they technically can. If there are no drivers at all in your area, they'll tell you that (Or charge an exorbitant fee for someone to drive in) and you won't be able to take an Uber. It's not a requirement that they give you a ride no matter what.
> It's not a requirement that they give you a ride no matter what.
But it is a requirement that they not discriminate against customers with disabilities. Charging an "exorbitant fee" for a driver who would tolerate a service animal would be a form of discrimination, even if that fee was the organic result of a pricing algorithm.
There is no perfect solution to this problem, however, people in general - even those who enforce the law - tend to be flexible. The situation described in the article describes a person who was badly treated by Uber drivers and would probably have tolerated a service in which the drivers treated her like anyone else even if technically Uber did not tick every single box of the ADA. It might even be counter productive to force Uber to provide a non-discriminatory service to everybody everywhere.
The law sets a high standard that we should all strive to meet but the courts tend to be full plaintiffs who have been wronged by companies failing to provide even the bare-minimum service. This appears to be the case here and we should probably focus on how to grasp the low hanging fruit before trying to come up with the "perfect" solution.
> But the point about there being a small handful of drivers in an area still stands.
Yeah in this case, a driver may have to take a service dog even if they have fear or an allergy, or Uber could be sued again. IANAL, but this is my understanding.
Does there exist such a thing as a life threatening allergy to dogs?
The rules are pretty clear that an allergy isn't a good enough reason to deny service, but it says that Uber should try and accommodate employees that don't want to be around dogs for whatever reason: https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm
I'm not sure it matters if the allergy is life threatening or not. Again, you can't question the validity or scope of someone's disability under the ADA.
You need to read the rules more carefully: they mean Uber, in as much as it is in control of the rideshare service, can't deny people on that basis. The individual drivers can and their employer must accommodate them under the ADA.
If the drivers aren't employees and are self employed then as they are a business of less than 15 employees they can refuse anyone they want for any reason.
This type of compelled behavior seems like an oversized club to wield for the problem at hand. No individual should be forced to do something that will be harmful to them just because another individual belongs to a particular group.
Fair enough. A lot of comments are talking about forcing drivers, even with allergies or phobias, to take any fare requested by a disabled person. It's definitely up to Uber to figure out how to comply and how to incentivize. Forced labor of individuals definitely isn't the way to do it, and is antithetical to modern principles of government.
Uber has more than 15 employees. As such they need to be compliant, their contractors do not... It's weird situation, but applies to any areas where we are dealing with small subcontractors.
But it makes sense, Uber makes an app that offers a service or has to design the UI and UX of the app so that its customers can be ensured the service that is required by the ADA. How they handle this with their contractors is none of the Uber customers' business.
> If they're afraid of dogs they shouldn't drive unknown people for a living
Not everyone has a hundred companies trying to hire them. They have to take any job they can get to pay their food and electricity and mortgage and health insurance and child support and all that bullshit. And some of those people have PTSD from dogs.
No you haven't. ADA should be supporting people who have fears of animals as well, IMO. It's about supporting everyone, not just one class of disability.
For that matter, a driver with a severe back problem shouldn't be forced to help a disabled customer with lifting their luggage into the trunk. A different driver should be found. ADA should support both individuals in being safe.
I feel like you misunderstand the ADA. The ADA does protect those people - they just need to ask for reasonable accommodations and be prepared to back up that request with documentation.
Please note that this suit is not about a person with PTSD being forced to drive a guide dog. It’s about a person who has a guide dog continuously being denied reasonable accommodations.
For every dog lover falsely claiming their pet is an “emotional support animal” in order to get special treatment there is a dog disliker falsely claiming (or perhaps grossly exaggerating) “allergies” and the result for both is the same: no one believes someone actually has a support dog and no one believes someone actually has severe dog allergies. If everyone was truthful and didn’t seek special treatment both situations would be rare, easily handled, and a complete non-issue entirely unworthy of discussion.
Because service animals are protected under the ADA. If folks could unilaterally reject working around service animals, we'd put the folks most at need at a significant detriment.
If you work in a customer facing capacity, you should be prepared to encounter service animals, full stop.
It's not that simple. Allergies are disabilities too and they shouldn't be excluded from entire industries. Employers have to provide reasonable accomodations for employees with allergies
It is! If you have severe enough allergies to count as a disability, you should ask your employer for reasonable accommodations, be prepared to provide medical documentation if they’re not obvious and win your own suit like this if you don’t receive those accommodations.
It really is that simple. If you have allergies, you can ask your employer for reasonable accommodations. But you should anticipate that you have to come into contact with a service dog periodically.
Most employers understand this, and will figure out how to make it work (ensuring there is someone else available/on shift, etc.) If you are an Uber driver, Uber is not your employer (though they should be, imo). Prop 28 was about issues like this, but now we're expecting drivers to understand and comply with ADA regulations as individuals rather than at the corporate level.
Then they shouldn't be in the rideshare business. Or any job that requires direct contact with customers.
If you work in retail you don't have the choice to avoid someone with a service dog either. It's just easier to ask your coworker to take over for you.
I mean, I sympathize with them, but that's no excuse. If you can't stand blood you don't become a janitor at a hospital. If you can't stand raw meat you don't become a janitor at butcher shop.
There are other ways to drive a car for money that don't involve interacting with people and their possible service animals.
> the one silver lining of being "independent contractors".
It should be fairly obvious why employment contracts cannot be allowed to construct an end run around legislation like the ADA (or worker safety, etc.).
This is good. PTSD should be added to that as well.
Dogs send me into panic and it would be a bad idea for the law to force me to drive against it. I mean, I would because it's the law, and as a result, you would be in danger.
(1)This section imposes duties on the driver of a taxi which has been hired—
(a)by or for a disabled person who is accompanied by an assistance dog, or
(b)by another person who wishes to be accompanied by a disabled person with an assistance dog.
(2)The driver must—
(a)carry the disabled person's dog and allow it to remain with that person;
(b)not make any additional charge for doing so.
(3)The driver of a taxi commits an offence by failing to comply with a duty imposed by this section.
(4)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
169Assistance dogs in taxis: exemption certificates
(1)A licensing authority must issue a person with a certificate exempting the person from the duties imposed by section 168 (an “exemption certificate”) if satisfied that it is appropriate to do so on medical grounds.
(2)In deciding whether to issue an exemption certificate the authority must have regard, in particular, to the physical characteristics of the taxi which the person drives or those of any kind of taxi in relation to which the person requires the certificate.
(3)An exemption certificate is valid—
(a)in respect of a specified taxi or a specified kind of taxi;
(b)for such period as is specified in the certificate.
(4)The driver of a taxi is exempt from the duties imposed by section 168 if—
(a)an exemption certificate issued to the driver is in force with respect to the taxi, and
(b)the prescribed notice of the exemption is exhibited on the taxi in the prescribed manner.
The power to make regulations under paragraph (b) is exercisable by the Secretary of State.
(5)In this section “licensing authority” means—
(a)in relation to the area to which the Metropolitan Public Carriage Act 1869 applies, Transport for London;
(b)in relation to any other area in England and Wales, the authority responsible for licensing taxis in that area.
I don't think the system would be abused that much, especially if Uber could offer a little extra financial reward to the driver for taking the service dog, to the extent necessary that people with service dogs get the same level of wait times and service.
Oh I don't want to force anyone who has that fear through that, and I'm not suggesting it. All I'm saying is put a barrier to prevent it being easy to be classified as this type of driver so that it isn't abused.
Fear of other people based on disability is discrimination. I have zero fear of blind people.
Fear of other species is not immoral. I'm afraid of snakes and alligators, and I'm just as afraid, if not much MORE afraid, of dogs, and my fears are justified by both hard data as well as past trauma.
Dogs aren't even the same species. It's not immoral to be afraid of them and having PTSD because of negative interactions with a particular predatory canine species is very normal.
Hopefully service robots won't be very far into the future. I don't want to discriminate against blind people. But I really don't think there is a problem with not being okay around a particular set of non-human species (alligators, hornets, lions, coyotes, dogs, bears, mosquitoes, ...)
I don't think it's funny either. I am a black person, and plenty of white people have been traumatized by their experiences (or lack of experiences) with black people. It's also not "immoral" to be afraid of anything, it is uncontrollable.
Don't avoid a direct, clear question by painting it as non-serious.
> It rejected Uber's claim that the company itself was not liable, because, it argued, its drivers had the status of contractors rather than employees.
Another example of how rideshare companies attempt to offload risk and liability onto individual drivers who are generally unprepared and unaware that this is happening.
Insurance is a more important example (most rideshare drivers are not properly insured), but this legal play illustrates strategic consistency by Uber.
That at the end of the day, Uber sent a woman into terrible situation, creating a bunch of externalities that society has to bare. Society should have the right to identify those externalities and bring the companies attention to those externalities. If the company says "not my problem" the public should get to decide if they want to allow a company to blithely foist those externalities onto society.
They have a legal argument why they arent responsible, but that doesnt mean they are socially responsible to its users, shareholders and other stakeholders.
Even then, the courts have made their order, so it looks like their arguments were legally insufficient.
Its hard for me to defend a system that blatently hurts the disabled then tries to argue a loophole around the ADA. They even have a link declaring how much they care about providing accessibility https://www.uber.com/us/en/about/accessibility .
All this lip service and they wont take responsibility for a blind woman being stranded multiple times, because she was stranded by their "contractor".
I'm not sure how this could be fixed though. Uber tells the drivers that they have to comply with ADA for legal reasons but if the drivers still don't then Uber is liable? It kind of feels like me suing a grocery store because someone pushed me into a wall that was built by the store.
Uber could definitely do more (like banning drivers that don't comply and allowing passengers and drivers to indicate their disabilities in the app for example) but I don't see how this is Uber's fault more than the drivers'.
Why should Uber ban drivers that do not comply if Uber faces no consequences for the drivers' actions? Why should Uber spend one cent of investors' money "allowing passengers and drivers to indicate their disabilities in the app" if Uber is not responsible?
Uber could be much more proactive in surveilling drivers and terminating them for noncompliance. Perhaps they can even require drivers to sign contracts making them pay five-figure fines in addition to termination in the case they're found to have engaged in discrimination.
They could make drivers keep dashcams, with microphones, in their cars and stream them to Uber HQ where a random sample of rides will be analyzed by corporate for violations.
They could hire blind people with service dogs to act as "secret shoppers", requesting rides in random parts of random cities, and then reporting back to corporate as to how they were treated.
> Uber could be much more proactive in surveilling drivers and terminating them for noncompliance
I know some do it for fun but most people don't become Uber drivers because they're swimming in cash. Your solution to helping the blind is to give 5-figure liability to low income drivers, and put them on a tight leash as you secretly try to trip them up.
>Uber tells the drivers that they have to comply with ADA for legal reasons but if the drivers still don't then Uber is liable?
Yes, because they are employees of Uber and this is why they tried to argue that they were actually contractors to avoid liability.
>It kind of feels like me suing a grocery store because someone pushed me into a wall that was built by the store.
A better analogy would be Cashiers repeatedly refusing to check out a blind women's groceries.
>Uber could definitely do more (like banning drivers that don't comply and allowing passengers and drivers to indicate their disabilities in the app for example) but I don't see how this is Uber's fault more than the drivers'.
In the US at least all companies are beholden to the ADA and would certainly be liable to compliance. You seem to think that Uber drivers are not really employed by Uber which I don't think is a settled legal question but that argument was rejected in this case.
I think that the general point people are making is that Uber is like Ebay - a platform. If a seller on Ebay sells you a busted iphone, Ebay has a 'buyer protection' policy to help you seek redress. Maybe Uber needs to have some of that as well.
They don't hire the drivers, and pretty much anyone can join the platform, so I don't agree that its 'pretend'.
However, I do think we can do more to make sure the disabled are taken care of. Maybe riders could mark themselves as needing assistance, and drivers could get paid a few more pennies per mile for taking care of them - at the end of the ride, when the passenger approves the 'bonus'.
When I buy something on Ebay I can choose which individual person/store I buy from - I can see reviews, their specific listing, etc. - even if I'm buying the exact same product. With Uber I press a button and some driver shows up. I definitely think I'm dealing directly with Uber a lot more than I am with Ebay.
I think they are more generally saying that drivers for these ride share companies aren't aware of the risks that the company is passing on to them. They used the example that quite a few drivers have standard insurance (rather than one that covers ride-sharing). I don't think they were claiming the drivers didn't know what they were doing in that they were mistreating her, but more that they weren't aware of the laws around it. And that from Uber's perspective, it was the driver's responsibility to know all of them and take financial liability for violating them. This is counter to so many other jobs. If this happened in a fast food restaurant, you'd expect that food chain to be held responsible, just like Uber was here. The restaurant would likely fire the person (how they are held responsible).
They have some insurance, which was mostly a result of backlash from their original attempts to completely externalize those costs. If you wreck while driving an Uber, and your liability exceeds the amount Uber bought on your behalf, you are responsible for the remainder, and most all personal insurance policies will exclude coverage for this.
Rideshare companies are well aware of the advantages of using independent contractors (it's basically the entire point), and many of the independent contractors themselves are not entirely aware of the consequences of that arrangement.
My guess is that either: They knew it was wrong, at least morally, but they didn’t feel like the payment justify the extra work, and they don’t want dogs in their cars. Or Uber failed to train their drivers correctly (assuming any training takes place and isn’t left to the individual contractors). Maybe Uber should sue the drivers for inflicting damage to their brand.
Instead Uber assisted drivers who had often had many complaints against them to remain on the platform and tried to mischaracterize the reasons why service was denied.
They are also already subject to "secret shopper" type monitoring under their earlier class action settlement for similar problems.
Uber just deflects responsibility, makes no improvements and continues to violate.
Well perhaps it is because Uber pays their drivers poverty wages. I can imagine a driver taking advantage of a passenger because they need food or shelter for themselves or their family.
Obviously it’s cruel to do this to a blind passenger, but I think the fundamental moral problem is really with the decision makers at Uber not with the driver.
But the monetary aspect exists, there’s no way to ignore how little Uber drivers are paid. Full time drivers earn about $30k/year without any benefits in San Francisco. That’s less than half of the poverty line for an individual and less than a third for a family of four. A person earning that little money in SF is likely to be in a really really desperate financial situation - possibly homeless.
Yes, doing that to someone is wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. But I just can’t ignore the people who put the driver in that situation and the culpability they have here.
Yes this is the natural end to "individual responsibility" morality.
Put tremendous immiserating conditions on as many people as possible and then you can blame them for the harms they cause to each other to survive it.
You can even use the evidence of those harms as propaganda about why poor people are inferior in some way, or to blame for their own conditions! It's a very efficient system.
Uber lost $8.5 billion in 2019, $6.77 billion in 2020, and recently reported a $968 million loss in Q1 2021. As a company, Uber has lost around $35 billion total.
Which really begs the question of... who the heck is making money here, how, and why?
I'm not typically the bleeding heart type, but this to me overshadowed everything else in the article. You have to be a monster to do something like that, no matter how awful the company is treating you.
It was downvoted below, but reposting here because this is something that I think should be seen as it comes up often:
>> "The bottom line is that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a guide dog should be able to go anywhere that a blind person can go."
> Okay, I completely get this, but question -- what about business owners and drivers who are traumatized by dogs? If I were a driver, I'd be much more likely to crash the car if there was a dog in the car of any kind. I've had traumatic experiences with dogs and being near one sends me into panic.
You should take that into consideration before taking on a job that might require you to drive around dogs.
As a country we decided long time ago, that people who require seeing-eye dogs shouldn't be subjected to substandard treatment by society - as was the case before the law protected the visually impaired.
If you want to completely avoid dogs, then don't take a job that involves having to interact with dogs.
> Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility.
If the person has a dog allergy, Uber should make the appropriate accommodations (possibly by allowing them to assign another driver to the fare) - however, they cannot refuse the fare.
This. It would be absurdly easy for Uber to allow riders to specify "I have a service animal" and drivers to specify "I have a dog allergy" (probably with a requirement to provide a doctor's note to avoid abuse). You simply don't pair those riders with those drivers.
The ADA doesn't require passengers to state that they have a service animal. Additionally, having that would likely open up Uber to additional liability for discrimination cases of people turning down rides (or marking that they have a dog allergy when they don't) and causing the rate or availability to be different for someone who has a situation that is covered by the ADA.
The availability difference is a concern. I wasn't picturing the drivers being made aware of the service animal ahead of time, which would eliminate discrimination concerns, assuming you could actually enforce that you have to have a real allergy.
If someone has a problem with dogs, or anything else, then they are not qualified to perform a job that requires interacting with dogs, or whatever their particular disability involves.
They aren't being denied a right to work out of discrimination or prejudice. They simply can't do that job.
Here's the difference between that and prejudicial discrimination:
If someone does have either an allergy or tramatic stress issue with dogs, or whatever else, but for some reason they really want to do this particular job anyway, they still can. IF they want to deal with their problem theirself somehow, with allergy meds or meditation or plain iron will or whatever, as long as they can and do the job properly, no one will prevent them.
Discrimination & prejudice is I don't care how good you might be at the job, you still aren't allowed to do it (or are significantly and artificially disadvantaged) simply because you're female or black etc.
The drivers just don't like that the dogs mess up their cars and the smell displeases the next customer and affects their rating and tips.
The answer to that is tough shit. Don't take a job serving the public if you only like some people and not others.
This is the general store mysteriously always being out of flour or beans for the black family. Your freedom not to interact with people you don't like and who aren't violent or otherwise dangerous, comes only in the form that you are free not to operate or work for a business that serves the public. Go be a comic book artist or accountant or something where you don't have to let any filthy dogs into your house as part of your job.
>If someone has a problem with dogs, or anything else, then they are not qualified to perform a job that requires interacting with dogs, or whatever their particular disability involves.
An allergic reaction is not just a "problem with dogs." An allergy to dog hair is no more or less important than any other disability. The law requires reasonable attempts to accommodate the individual with a service animal, and the individual with an allergy. In the case of Uber or Lyft, it seems relatively trivial (to me) to classify drivers with allergies, riders with guide dogs, and to prevent those two groups from connecting for a ride.
The real problem here is that Uber/Lyft don't want to take any action that would further blur the line between employee and contractor.
> Don't take a job serving the public if you only like some people and not others.
Seems like this logic doesn't apply to payment processors, web hosts, and anyone else who doesn't want to deal with free speech that they find offensive. Bake the cake, right?
Payment processors, webhosts, etc (I assume you're alluding a lot of the alt-right sights being removed from those platforms) have in practice refused to serve customers that expose them to legal culpability. There's a clear difference.
Yes. Bake the cake. The only legal culpability is to NOT do so.
What legal culpability do they have accepting payments for organizations that run websites that allow people to exercise their constitutionally protected rights to free speech?
A lot of platforms have arbitrary requirements of who they'll serve or won't serve. Even those with fixed rules can enforce against anyone, and then just ignore your support tickets when you try to appeal.
I guess the difference in this case is targeting someone due to a disability/protected characteristic, compared to some other reason. One fair thing might be Uber subsidising rides of disabled people with guide dogs (in the sense that it pays drivers a bit more to account for cleanup costs etc). I dunno if they can be expected to do this, but such costs probably won't show up on their bottom line and the PR of doing that alone would probably make up for any costs.
I think a deathly allergy would qualify as a 'legitimate safety requirement'. There are also situations in which the ADA considers an allergy itself to be a disability, though the given examples are usually around food allergies.
I don't think a deadly allergy to dogs exists as a condition on its own, you would probably also have a whole lot of terrible respiratory issues when exposed to a lot of other allergens. Someone with a deadly allergy to dogs will probably already require accommodations on the job that shield them from close interaction with people on its entirety.
Such a person would not be able to drive a taxi/uber regardless of accommodations. I used to have a severe cat allergy that resulted in an asthma attack when exposed to, for instance, a colleague covered in cat hair. Their cat was in another city at the time.
This is specifically addressed in updated guidance from 2010.
"Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility."
Considering how little Uber drivers makes per drive (and they are independent contractors and not workers in most places) a simple divider would probably come close to the "unreasonable cost" in the ADA. It is not that I don't empathize with disabled people but ADA as it seems to be written and all the "support animals" these days would probably drive many small business to bankrupcy.
In Sweden "our ADA" only applies to lead-dogs and they have a special "blanket" and most people that want to bring their dogs into restaurants and hotels don't have licensed dogs. But still, if all the "dog rooms" are taken then the deep cleaning required is a pretty big cost to bear and I have seen customers turn in the door when there was a dog in the restaurant.
So it is not a simple issue and I sympathize with the small independent contractors. Uber, not so much.
>Q3. Are emotional support, therapy, comfort, or companion animals considered service animals under the ADA?
> A. No. These terms are used to describe animals that provide comfort just by being with a person. Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. However, some State or local governments have laws that allow people to take emotional support animals into public places. You may check with your State and local government agencies to find out about these laws.
They aren't covered here in Sweden either and there are apparently less then a 1000 actual guide dogs that are covered. But that does not stop people from trying to bring their support dogs in. At least we have official "guide dog blankets" and the training facilities hands out identification cards so the real ones are easy to spot.
My experience (of 1) is also that guide dog owners are mostly reasonable, willing to come to a compromise that works for everyone and have very well behaved dogs. The woman I helped was more then happy to take a window table right next to the terrace door and let her dog stay right outside the window.
"Support dog"-owners (the handful I've met) are in my experience pretty unreasonable and unpleasant to deal with, have a "customer is always right"-attitude and their dogs are pretty universally badly behaved. I've had a group of seven try to argue that one guy in a wheelchair needed his support dog inside the restaurant while the dog was pulling on his leech and jumping on me.
Other dog owners i Sweden are also pretty nice to deal with. They usually keep their dog tied outside, in the car (with the backdoor open if they have crates) or ask if they can bring their dog through the restaurant to the terrace and eat outside (even if it is cold).
If a company has fewer than 15 employees, it's exempt from the ADA's requirements.
If it has 15 employees or more, then the law assumes that it's reasonable for the company to provide service (e.g. by reassigning a non-allergic employee to work with a customer who has a service dog) except where it would demonstrably create an undue hardship.
If that's true then the narrative above about how "people with dog allergies shouldn't be allowed to drive for Uber" is crap. Service dogs are much rarer than Uber drivers without allergies. There's no reason Uber can't accommodate both customers with service animals and drivers with legitimate reasons to avoid certain service animals.
Some drivers may lie, but if you require even a simple doctor's note I think that would deter a lot of people from bothering, given the rarity of encountering a service dog request.
Then it is not clear to me why a driver that uses the Uber app to find passengers, who is not an Uber employee, would not be allowed to refuse a service animal.
> Then it is not clear to me why a driver that uses the Uber app to find passengers, who is not an Uber employee, would not be allowed to refuse a service animal.
Uber did try what you said as a defense, and they lost, so it seem courts think that because Uber is a huge company, with much more than 15 people, it's on them to find a way to be compliant with ADA.
Weather or not drivers are subcontractors or not doesn't even come to play.
Because lets face it. If they didn't thats such a huge hole, that in a lot of cases corporations would be able to structure themselves in a way that they could avoid that.
The question is if this court considers Uber responsible because the driver is an employee, then how is the driver not an employee for all other purposes? Other courts have maintained the drivers are not employees. And usually, courts stay consistent unless over ruled by superior courts.
Uber is company with over 15 employees. As such it must follow the law. So in the end it has to find some driver who is willing to transport customer. But on other hand all drivers as independent contractors can refuse. It's catch-22. But court can reasonably expect Uber being able to pay enough for someone to take the job...
> I've had traumatic experiences with dogs and being near one sends me into panic.
I can only speak for myself, but I used to be scared of most dogs except guide dogs. Guide dogs always seemed to have a calming effect on me (for some reason).
I get enforcement is basically impossible on this/people throw around the word "traumatized" way too much - but I knew a girl who was attacked by a dog as a child and would have panic attacks if a large dog got anywhere near her. I'm not sure if you've ever seen a real panic attack but these are legitimate physical symptoms that can be very difficult to control, and would be extremely non-ideal to occur while driving.
If you want to argue that this condition should mean she can't be an Uber driver I can see your point, but the comparison to race or sexual orientation is pretty absurd. I'm not aware of anyone who has panic attacks when seeing a human of another race or orientation.
Maybe, but I’m glad lawyers took her case, helped her win, and then got paid for it. Ruling itself may extend to future rides and help the blind community.
that definitely changes the narrative. 800k in legal expenses! That's a lot of money. The headline should be "lawyers make 800k by suing uber". How was the damage calculated by the way?
1600 hours is 9 months at 40hr/week. What's the risk they were taking? They wouldn't have taken the case if the risk of losing was high, so their E(X) was at least 250k.
> What's the risk they were taking? They wouldn't have taken the case if the risk of losing was high?
The fact the Uber has all the money in the world to hire good layers. And a motive to make it seem like its not directly them
but their subcontractors problem, that is bigger than this single case.
In such cases, there is no such thing as a sure thing.
> They wouldn't have taken the case if the risk of losing was high
Depends how you define high.
75% chance of winning is still a 25% chance of the lawyers walking away with nothing. Lawyers who operate like this are effectively making a calculated investment of their own time (which could be money from paying clients) as well as associate and support time (which is money) and they do deserve to be compensated for their time and the investment must pay off above just directly time in (e.g. they have to be allowed to make profit here!).
While I don't LOVE the proportions with 60% of the money going to the attorneys, I don't know enough about the case to judge it and there are remedies if the plaintiff thinks their attorneys are inflating expenses.
It seems like a lot, but if they are only paid when they win, the price has to take into account the risk they are taking by going up against a company like Uber that has a huge vested interest in not losing cases like this. If their chance of success going in is 25%, expenses are $100k, 2-3 lawyers contributed etc. it doesn’t seem like such a case of highway robbery (no idea if these numbers are realistic)
Their chances of success going in are much, much higher. Law firms won’t take a case unless they think they can get something out of it, like a cash settlement. This particular case was very very strong. $100k expenses are realistic, but only because many law firms choose to have extravagant offices and ridiculous corporate retreats. The firm is billing $500/hour - that may be the going rate, but it doesn’t change the fact that lawyers get rich while the people they’re supposed to represent aren’t fairly compensated for the harm that is done to them. The $1.1m was supposed to represent the damage that the canceled Uber rides did to her career, and now that’s damage that will never fully be made up to her.
Uber settled a case similar to this in 2016 [1,2] and agreed to "Require that drivers provide equal service to people with disabilities who travel with service animals." Seems like they haven't learned their lesson, and this minor new $1.1M fee is unlikely to change their behaviour. OTOH, from a Teacher of the Visually Impaired (TVI) I know: -
"It’s challenging. I think they need to make it really clear this is part of their job. It’s common for people not to allow dogs in their car, just in general. On top of that, they employ a lot of people who don’t speak english and people from several cultures who would never have a dog in the car."
Of course a blind woman was refused rides. Their goal is to be a taxi service minus that ignores the regulations that were added to taxi services for a reason.
As a large healthy white male I know I could probably use Uber safely, but I refuse to support a business that makes rides much worse and more dangerous for those that are more vulnerable. Taxis seem bad enough with the oversight in place.
While I agree that Uber could have done more here, I'm not sure why you think taxis would be better. If 14 individual yellow cab taxis refused to pick up a passenger, it wouldn't be a story. Apps can also track your location for safety, allow you to report drivers, and help you get picked up from anywhere (instead of having to risk going to a busy street where taxis might roam).
The way I see it, Uber is super helpful for people with disabilities.
I think anyone who has taken Uber and Lyft a lot knows that they allow drivers to abuse the system for their benefit, with no recourse for riders.
A few incidents that have bothered me:
1. Having an Uber refuse to take me to the airport from downtown Chicago
2. Lyft not giving me an automatic refund for a pickup in SOMA when the driver had been heading down 101 for 10 minutes and was showing no signs of turning around.
3. Every Uber driver cancelling rides at LAX to force surge pricing.
I'm not suprised that Uber drivers do not want to deal with riders with disabilities. Since Uber and Lyft are not profitable they can't even afford to kick any drivers off the platform other than drivers that pose a risk of physical danger to passengers.
Until Uber and Lyft implement a system that actually can result in negative consequences for unethical drivers, I have no sympathy for any losses these companies incur.
I was a victim of "vomit fraud" where the driver sends in fake photos from an identical model vehicle of interior damage and pockets the money. I now take photos of the interior of the car before and after.
Uber charged me for the "damage" same-day and reversed the charges two days later after I sent them article after article on the issue and pointed out it was a Sunday noon drive not a late night Friday escapade.
What's worse is that good drivers who do have their vehicles damaged now likely have to go through more hoops to get reimbursed.
The drivers represent the company and all interactions with the driver are setup through the company. So, yes.
ie: If a driver snatches my backpack and drives away, I expect Uber to replace/return what was stolen from me by their contractor. Not for them to just tell me to take a hike and deal with it myself.
So there is absolutely nothing a company can do to absolve themselves of the poor behavior of employees? By that system, Uber would still be at fault if they explicitly told all drivers "you are not allowed to deny service to someone with a service dog under any circumstances", and a driver did anyway.
Uber specifically placed itself in the role of intermediary. I don't have a phone book of drivers numbers and I don't pay a driver. I have the Uber app and I pay Uber.
They want the money, part of earning it is accepting responsibility and liability.
Why in the world is anyone even remotely worried about the plight of poor Uber? Holy cow.
> So there is absolutely nothing a company can do to absolve themselves of the poor behavior of employees?
Let's disregard the absolutism for a bit. Generally companies are held accountable for the way their employees behave on the job. If they don't make or enforce policies, that's on Uber. It's clearly a widespread problem for them. The saying goes "the buck stops here" despite what these companies may do to avoid responsibility.
I'm not saying the company is necessarily at fault.
What I am saying is that I deal with the company not the individual (especially in this case as that is literally Uber's entire business).
If an Uber drive assaults, injures, and robs me I expect Uber to get back to me with "We have brought this matter to the appropriate authorities please follow up with [individual] at [my local police]" rather than "That wholly independent contractor's name is [driver name]. Good luck"
edit: I would also expect a good company to cover any expenses I incur from the incident as well as replace stolen property.
Not really. The only thing a company can do is let their commercial liability insurance bear the costs. That's why it's such a big deal to document, document, document and force all employees to undergo certain training repeatedly throughout the year.
That way the business can show the insurance companies that they did all they could to prevent the employee from the error so that the insurer is liable for the expenses.
That's how the legal system usually works. If a Walmart driver negligently runs you over when working for Walmart, there is nothing Walmart can do to not be responsible.
There's no special "I told my staff not to run people over!" exception that a Walmart supervisor can claim.
Uber has chosen this as a business model. Nobody forced them to hire thousands upon thousands of people with zero vetting and send them out to deliver rides. It may be that this business model doesn't work.
It sounds like Uber/Lyft will eventually degrade to the level of service of the regular taxis of old, when the default expectation of interaction is to get scammed or worse. Which means that another disruption opportunity is coming soon!
>The ADA makes it unlawful to require proof of a disability or identification for a service dog. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there are no requirements for licensing, certification or identification of service dogs. Also, service animals are not required to wear special collars, vests or harnesses.
I never really knew about this. Technically you could just bring your dog into any business and claim its a service animal when asked. If the dog is being unruly businesses can exclude you, but it would be an ADA violation to refuse entry. Quite interesting.
They are allowed to ask if the dog is trained to perform a specific task which would differentiate a guide dog or medical alert dog that can’t be refused entry from an emotional support animal that can.
They're not allowed to ask you/the dog to demonstrate though. Someone could just say yes or make something up. It's lying, but the business can't really do anything about it.
> Staff cannot ask about the person’s disability, require medical documentation, require a special identification card or training documentation for the dog, or ask that the dog demonstrate its ability to perform the work or task.
Sure people could always lie. In practice I’ve seen people say it’s an emotional support animal or produce their doctors note for it, which somewhat ironically confirms it’s not actually a service dog.
Basic civility existed for thousands of years before abstract notions of 'economic equality'.
That's an ideological idea that's nuance and I'm not sure most people even buy into as it's stated.
My grandparents were born on farms without plumbing or running water, so was everyone in the area. They had incredible dignity, civility, kindness (although a kind of emotionally distant version of it).
Yes, there would have been some ideals of 'equal before the law' or 'before God', and some notion of fairness about individuals amassing fortunes on the backs of others, surely, but not an ideological ideal of 'economic equality' and certainly not 'equity' as it's used today.
Not dropping blind people of 'just anywhere' is something people 3000 years ago would have understood quite well to be wrong.
A blind woman who was refused rides on 14 occasions - did this happen only to her? Or is it a broaded problem ... I cannot imagine she would be the only blind person taking an uber ...
I'm surprised that the law requires you to allow dogs in your car. It's one thing for a public space, but for a private service it seems like it should be okay to have a no-dogs-allowed rule.
You can have a no dogs rule. You just can't have a "No service dogs" rule. Service dogs are essential to the welfare of their humans, denying them would be like having a "no glasses" or "no canes" or "no pacemakers" rule disallowing folks who need assistance.
Yes, there are limits, especially if the area is dangerous or the dog is disruptive, but generally that dog should be considered to be a tool the human is using.
Service dogs aren't dogs, they are medical devices. A car used in ride share isn't a private space any longer, it's quasi-public. The law (at least in the USA) is very clear, you can not restrict access of medical devices (whether service dogs or wheelchairs) in businesses.
your choice here is that you dont have to drive for rideshare, knowing that you don't want dogs in the car. because the ability to choose goes both ways. and because the industry is unregulated, the company isn't required to do anything like add a flag for a driver to avoid having to pick up dogs
There's no reason for disabled people to be taking Ubers. Drivers are not trained nor willing to handle disabled passengers in many cases. They often have smaller vehicles for economy/poverty reasons that not equipped to carry wheelchairs and the like. Service animals are similarly not wanted, because the driver needs to be made whole if they have an 'accident' in the vehicle. The uber cleaning fee does not even come close to the amount of lost time and money that comes when these things happen.
Medicare/medicaid should be covering these people's cost of transportation, the cost should not be forced onto random kids driving uber for side money who are wholly untrained in how to deal with a disabled persons needs.
I wouldn't say that $324,000 is "peanuts." Especially considering that, in most cases, that money is not taxed because it is compensation, not earnings.
The elephant in the room is that some cultures consider dogs unclean. What to do when you as the driver, are a member of that culture and the rider wants to bring a dog into your taxi.
I would argue that a combo of the ADA and the nature of providing transit services would ... pretty much mean that working in transit is a choice that has a high likelihood of interacting with dogs... and that's on that person for making that choice.
And most religions while they have restrictions about X, Y, Z are also generally forgiving of happenstance, accidental religious rules violations, and just the necessities of living with others people.
This also occurs with taxi cabs as a Google search shows. This is absolutely something Lyft/Uber should be taking into account in their apps, but I think it could go even further. Female passengers can prefer a female driver; yes male can prefer male. Notify the driver ahead of time I have a dog, I have a child, I'm blind, I'm sweating like a beast please For the love of God turn on the a/c, etc.
I'm surprised but also not, and saddened that in 2021 this is still an issue.
Uber is just going to add (in the driver signup forms) a checkbox labeled "I agree to comply fully with all ADA requirements" and link to a big confusing document that no driver will ever read then whenever a driver is sued for failure to comply with ADA regulations Uber will hang them out to dry because they are a "contractor" not an "employee"
That a bit different a situation. The municipality would have a contract with a private company to provide public transportation services. Like with any such contracts, the recipient would have to abide by all specified regulations and also would have to hit performance milestones in order to get paid and/or renewed.
This is easily solved by giving drivers bonuses for taking passengers that require more onboarding and offboarding time.
When you don't see such simple, market-based solutions, you can be sure there's a regulatory reason for it.
And sure enough, in this case Lyft and Uber can't do the common sense thing and evaluate a passenger's time to onboard and offboard and raise the price accordingly, because of the ADA.
> Service animals are always permitted to accompany their users in any private or public transportation vehicle or facility. This means that they must be allowed to ride with the person with a disability.
> One of the most common misunderstandings about service animals is that they are limited to being guide dogs for persons with visual impairments. But dogs used as service animals are trained to assist people with a wide variety of disabilities, including individuals with hearing and mobility impairments.
> One more thing: charging extra fees to carry a service animal and an individual with a disability would also be a violation of the ADA.
> DOT ADA regulation 49 C.F.R. Section 37.167(d) requires transit entities to permit service animals to accompany individuals with disabilities in vehicles and facilities.
While under the law a transportation company must accommodate people with disabilities, I don't believe that they are required to have accommodation for every disability available on every vehicle.
They can have a fleet of vehicles with a mix of accommodations ranging from none to fully equipped for everything, as long as when a disabled person calls for a ride the company can send a vehicle, about as promptly as they can send a vehicle to a non-disabled person, that can handle that person's needs.
So if we were talking about a normal taxi company, that is one that acknowledges that they are a taxi company, then it would make sense for the company to ask when someone calls for a pickup if they have any particular requirements for the vehicle sent or will need any assistance from the driver. Then they could dispatch an appropriate vehicle.
It would also make sense to tell the driver, since sometimes there is extra work or preparation the driver has to do or special handling of the pickup or drop off.
With a taxi company like Uber that is pretending it is not a taxi company, it is a more difficult situation. If they just keep on as is, they will have more and more cases like the present case.
I only see a couple of approaches Uber can take if they don't want this to keep happening and they want to continue pretending they aren't a taxi company.
1. Only allow drivers to use Uber if they and their cars are able to handle all disabilities at all times they they are in service.
2. Allow a mix of drivers/cars like the normal taxi companies have. Users can specify what they need and Uber only shows the ride request to drivers that can handle it.
Should they tell drivers that a ride involves a disabled person? That would aid the driver who goes to handle the ride for the same reasons given earlier for normal taxis. On the other hand, it might lead to drivers giving preference to non-disabled requests, and so still land Uber in hot water. Maybe not tell the driver until after a driver has accepted the ride, with heavy penalties for cancelling after they find out?
They could also just continue as is, except offering early settlements with any disabled person who can't get service rather than trying to fight it and running the cost way up when they lose. That might be financially sensible in the short run, but it bolsters the argument that they undercut normal taxis by skimping on compliance with the law, which strengthens the case for cities to regulate them as heavily as taxis are regulated.
Transit companies are barred by law from asking in advance if a passenger has a service animal. Drivers are just expected to handle it. There is no special facility needed in a car to hold a service animal - they are trained to sit on the floor.
I don't know about the USA but there was a recent case in Canada where it was affirmed that drivers with severe allergies can decline a ride as long as they arrange for another vehicle. Basically it was a "disability vs. disability" thing; the customer's disability doesn't take priority over the driver's disability.
Note however that this dealt with severe allergies -- the sort which would need to be accommodated by any other employer.
How does it work for a bus or taxi driver with dog allergies? They have vehicles designed for separation of driver and 'self loading freight', not just some personal cozy ride.
What if animal shelter worker develops an allergy? Should the shelter get rid of dogs?
Public service workers interact with the public, that's part of the job.
> Q26. When might a service dog's presence fundamentally alter the nature of a service or program provided to the public?
A. In most settings, the presence of a service animal will not result in a fundamental alteration. However, there are some exceptions. For example, at a boarding school, service animals could be restricted from a specific area of a dormitory reserved specifically for students with allergies to dog dander. At a zoo, service animals can be restricted from areas where the animals on display are the natural prey or natural predators of dogs, where the presence of a dog would be disruptive, causing the displayed animals to behave aggressively or become agitated. They cannot be restricted from other areas of the zoo.
> Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room or facility, for example, in a school classroom or at a homeless shelter, they both should be accommodated by assigning them, if possible, to different locations within the room or different rooms in the facility.
If Uber drivers are employees, it is probably legal (and possibly mandatory for the employer) to take the employee health impact into account when assigning employees.
If Uber drivers are independent service providers to the passenger matched through a matchmaking service, and the law prohibits discrimination against people with service animals, they probably are not.
Different jurisdictions (even within the US) may treat Uber drivers differently resulting in different results.
> ADA is a federal law, so I don't think it would make any difference within the US in different jurisdictions.
ADA applies to employers for their employees disabilities, and providers of goods and services for their customers disabilities.
In a jurisdiction where Uber is a provider, the driver is an employee, and the passenger is an Uber customer it may well apply differently than in a jurisdiction where Uber is a third-party-matchmaker-service, the driver is a provider of service to the passenger, and the passenger is a customer of the driver that locates and pays the driver through Uber services.
I hope not. It shouldn't show any information about their protected disabilities, just in the same way it shouldn't show their age, religion, race, etc. What would anyone legally do with that information?
It shouldn't matter. As they say in the article, "The bottom line is that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a guide dog should be able to go anywhere that a blind person can go."
If the driver isn't willing to comply with the regulations, then they shouldn't broadcast their services on Uber.
> "The bottom line is that under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a guide dog should be able to go anywhere that a blind person can go."
Okay, I completely get this, but question -- what about business owners and drivers who are traumatized by dogs? If I were a driver, I'd be much more likely to crash the car if there was a dog in the car of any kind. I've had traumatic experiences with dogs and being near one sends me into panic.
Then the business needs to find some way to accommodate both the employee and the customer. In Uber's case, the only requirement is that riders with guide dogs should be able to get a ride in the same time window as any other rider, at the same price. The ADA does not require that every driver has to drive guide dogs. It's up to Uber to figure out a solution, and they should have to pay up until they implement one.
Thank you. I think this is a reasonable strategy. Requiring every driver to accept dogs against their allergies and PTSD on the other hand, I don't agree with, as that would directly endanger lives.
If you are providing rides as a business, you must be willing to accept seeing eye dogs. If you cannot meet this qualification, then your options are limited.
I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like you might not want to own a driving business or you may want to work with your employer to accommodate your needs. (e.g. by dispatching another driver, etc.)
I mean, yeah, I'd love to liver in that world. Unfortunately, Uber has campaigned widely that their drivers are, in fact, independent contractors and not employees.
The drivers should be employees, imo, but the way the company is structured today, they are not.
You should take that into consideration before taking on a job that might require you to drive around dogs.
As a country we decided long time ago, that people who require seeing-eye dogs shouldn't be subjected to substandard treatment by society - as was the case before the law protected the visually impaired.
If you want to completely avoid dogs, then don't take a job that involves having to interact with dogs.
Most Uber drivers did not "took a job". Uber drivers originally started as self-employed contractors. Part of that is ability to refuse some rides.
Most dog owners have no control over their animals. I have PTSD from dogs, if dog would touch me, I will go into panic attack, and it will not go well for anyone. It is question of safety.
So I have a question for you. As a driver, do I have a right to refuse a drive, if I am concerned that customer will start licking me?
If you're building a new building you should be required to have wheelchair ramps. Allergies and PTSD to ramps isn't really a thing, so it's okay to require them.
If you have an old building it's on the government to provide the ramps OR cut property taxes so that the landlord has the cash to install the ramps. If you want to hit everyone with insane property taxes they can't be expected to maintain buildings to standards at the same time.
I don't think there was anyone signed up as a driver with Uber before the ADA existed but for the sake of argument, we can assume those people exist. Yes, I agree that they should receive government-funded training that teaches them to tolerate a service dog in their car.
Every who signs up to be an Uber driver after the signing of the ADA must be capable of transporting service dogs.
Yes, I agree with you, Uber should have to deal with it.
A lot of people in this thread are arguing that the driver should be forced to suck it up and I think that's shitty for both the driver's and rider's safety.
I don't see much of an other option for Uber if they want to fix this.
It's not uncommon for small towns to have one Uber driver going at certain times. Well that driver can't be the only driver around if they aren't going to take service animals. So Uber would have to tell them that they can't drive unless they are willing to take service animals or there is another driver around that is willing to.
Not that I plan to, but if I did, I'd be able to pick up a lot of the slack of rides without dogs so that other drivers could pick up the dog rides. I'm sure many drivers are more than willing.
I don't see how this isn't a win-win for them to allow it but give each driver a preference.
I'm terrified of heights, I probably shouldn't get a job as a window cleaner. Not every window cleaner has a thousand companies trying to hire them either.
I think it's perfectly fine to be a window cleaner but refuse you're employer's request to go clean a 100-storey skyscraper and keep taking the 2-storey buildings you usually do.
I think it's unfair to hand-wave a deathly fear of something away as "just work on urself lol." PTSD is a real thing, and it's not as easy as a handful of video chats with a therapist. Not to mention, someone driving for Uber probably doesn't have the resources to be in therapy in the first place.
How the law is written doesn't change the fact that driving on highway with peanut butter allergy is life-threatening, and driving on highway with PTSD to a stimulus in the car is also life-threatening.
Again, the law doesn't precede science, and doesn't change the fact that it's going to be life-threatening.
You can quote the law all you want, but if you're blind and someone with PTSD is driving (and because they don't have much of a choice job-wise) you're going to be in grave danger.
If you don't want to be in grave danger, speak out against this law. End of story.
The ADA has defined protected classes, and if you are not OK with a protected class you need to deal with it. How would you feel if I rephrased your comment:
Okay, I completely get this, but question -- what about business owners and drivers who are traumatized by black people? If I were a driver, I'd be much more likely to crash the car if there was a black person in the car of any kind. I've had traumatic experiences with black people and being near one sends me into panic.
Unless Uber fixes this, it seems like a way to get some money if you have a disability.
1) Train or buy a service dog for your disability.
2) Request an Uber with your service dog, record what happens when the driver shows up. Assuming Uber doesn't fix this, many drivers will probably deny service.
Discrimination happens regularly to those with disabilities without needing to go out of their way to concoct such a scenario - it happens organically every day, due to people like that Uber driver mentioned ("One driver allegedly cut her trip short after falsely claiming to have arrived at her destination.") being trash.
Depends on the disability, I think. I have a disability per the ADA, and have considered getting a service dog. But me not being able to take my service dog would be nothing but an inconvenience, whereas for someone blind it is obviously much worse then that.
I don't see how I'm being callous, I think people doing this would force Uber to implement a fix, which is good for people with disabilities. Uber needs to be punished for this until it is fixed.
> It rejected Uber's claim that the company itself was not liable, because, it argued, its drivers had the status of contractors rather than employees.
I feel like money would be better spent raising awareness of service dogs and dealing with fraudulent (they do call it fraud, right?) service dogs than fining Uber.
Note that Uber wasn't fined. They were ordered to pay her attorney costs (which are high in part because Uber complicated the litigation) and damages to her.
In practice, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about service dog misrepresentation.
When I was trained in restaurants to deal with (potential) service dogs, the extent to which I was allowed to ask any questions was "Is that a service dog?". As long as the answer was "Yes", I was to leave them alone. No questions asked. Anything else supposedly opened you to litigation
Edit: Looks like there's a separate thread with additional ADA info. Tl;dr - nothing you can do to stop people misrepresenting their dogs as service animals.
I don't see how an unenforceable law would help deter people who want to claim a non service animal as a service animal. As mlyle notes above, there is no formalized certification or training process required by ADA, so anyone can claim they have PTSD and they trained their dog to be a service animal to help them with their PTSD. What is anyone going to be able to do about that?
My understanding isn't that they're not actually "registering" anything. But rather just putting a piece of cloth they bought on amazon on their animal they and claiming it to be so.
They're abusing a part of the law most people don't understand (and most companies don't want to add to the drama of even if they do). IANAL, but it was explained to me that you cannot ask basically anything about service animals, other than one thing: "What is your service animal trained to do?". Apparently, service animals are supposed to be trained to do one specific task for their owner. Otherwise, they're not actually service animals. Allowing that question allows companies to verify that the animal is actually a service animal... without offending the people who require the animal.
I was talking to a friend of mine who works for a museum of sorts. These not-service animals are causing problems for them. But they are strictly forbidden to say or do anything about any pet being claimed to be a service animal. I suspect it's because they either (a) don't understand the law, and so they're trying to avoid being liable to anything, and/or (b) they don't care enough and just want to avoid the drama the fraudsters will cause.
I've read comments from people with actual service animals saying they wish companies (airports, etc) would crack down on it though. Because these untrained animals are making their own very expensive animals look bad. AND the untrained animals will yip and snap and pester the real service animals.
The ADA does not require any registration of any service animal. Everyone is expected to accept the service animal’s owner claim that the service animal is a service animal without proof.
If someone shows up with something that couldn't legally be a service animal (e.g. a bunny) or cannot respond adequately as to how the dog has been trained to perform a specific task, then they may have grounds to refuse to admit the dog.
Q3. Are emotional support, therapy, comfort, or companion animals considered service animals under the ADA?
A. No. These terms are used to describe animals that provide comfort just by being with a person. Because they have not been trained to perform a specific job or task, they do not qualify as service animals under the ADA. However, some State or local governments have laws that allow people to take emotional support animals into public places. You may check with your State and local government agencies to find out about these laws.
Q7. What questions can a covered entity's employees ask to determine if a dog is a service animal?
A. In situations where it is not obvious that the dog is a service animal, staff may ask only two specific questions: (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform? Staff are not allowed to request any documentation for the dog, require that the dog demonstrate its task, or inquire about the nature of the person's disability.
> (1) is the dog a service animal required because of a disability? and (2) what work or task has the dog been trained to perform?
I worked at a Costco for a few years, these two questions were drilled into us over and over and over and over. People tried to bring dogs into Costco all the time, and we'd ask these two (and only these two) questions. Occasionally, some new employee or someone who was grumpy would go off script and it was considered a very serious issue.
The folks with service animals knew the drill, would answer these questions quickly and succinctly. The ones without service animals would (sometimes) get extremely agitated about them.
It's really tough, because so many people are inconsiderately trying to pretend their animals are service animals, which makes life for the folks who require the assistance of a service animal much, much more complicated. If you've ever considered "just ordering a service dog vest online", please reconsider.
>Did the legally allowed questions allow you to exclude the dog very often, or did you pretty much have to concede the matter most of the time?
At my businesses, the instruction is to concede as I don't want to get involved in a costly legal fight. I don't see anyway for the business to come out ahead unless you have a recording and solid evidence of the person lying.
I don't imagine it's any different for Costco. If anything, it's worse since they have deeper pockets to go after for people looking for a fight.
I never really tried to exclude dogs. Sometimes folks would say, "Oh, no, this isn't a service dog." and we'd ask them to not bring the animal inside.
If someone said yes, and explained a task, then let them through. I'd rather allow an animal that wasn't actually a service dog than disallow one that was.
If a dog becomes disruptive, you can ask its owner to leave.
I’m familiar with those guidelines, but effectively, anyone can say anything, and the last sentence shows that you basically have to take their word for it (unless you want to risk getting involved in a costly legal matter). I know you don’t have to take lizards as service animals, but you do basically have to take chihuahuas or Pomeranians or pit bulls or Rottweilers or whatever as service dogs, and maybe miniature horses.
> Staff are not allowed to request any documentation for the dog, require that the dog demonstrate its task, or inquire about the nature of the person's disability.
Yes, you do have to take their word for it. If the dog is disruptive (e.g. barking or not housetrained), you can ask them to leave. The dog must be under control by the owner at all times. Dogs must (generally) remain on the floor or on the owner (and not in a shopping cart). Seating, food, drink, and other amenities are for the person, not the dog.
In practice, asking these two questions and understanding the limits of where you can intervene is sufficient in 99% of cases.
> you do basically have to take chihuahuas or Pomeranians or pit bulls or Rottweilers or whatever as service dogs
Why is this a problem? Different breeds have different characteristics, and there are a variety of reasons to have a service dog -- from PTSD to blindness to diabetes.
>In practice, asking these two questions and understanding the limits of where you can intervene is sufficient in 99% of cases.
Hah, try it at a hotel that charges pet cleaning fees. Or limits the number of animals in a room. It's 99% sufficient at Costco, because the cost is low of not getting in. When you're looking at shelling out money for a pet fee or not having to pay for pet boarding or pet sitters at home, suddenly 10%+ of the population has service animals.
>Why is this a problem? Different breeds have different characteristics, and there are a variety of reasons to have a service dog -- from PTSD to blindness to diabetes.
It's not a problem necessarily, but you can sort of tell who is and isn't lying about service animals, at least by the discrepancy in total numbers and which ones are coming in with the badges and vests (indicating they don't know about actual ADA laws).
Amortize the costs of the liars across the base cost of the room. It's really not that many people who will lie about it.
Some folks end up paying a little more on average and some people cheat and pay a little less, but the folks who need service animal accommodations don't get accosted by desk clerks. Sounds like a win to me.
Many hotels and motels are small businesses (usually franchisees) that are low margin, low volume, they can't just eat the costs, which are also not equal the price of the room rate.
A disruptive pet can cause you to have to refund multiple other rooms, and potential loss of future business too. A disruptive pet can cause physical damage to the room far in excess of the room rate. We once had a pet ruin the carpet so bad the room was not able to be sold for weeks, even after multiple carpet shampoos.
And you also can't go after the hotel guests to recoup costs because the legal fees are hefty and the probability of winning the case, the defendants having money, and actually paying the money are all very low.
Obviously all of this is true for disruptive people too, it's just that pets add another risk. Personally, after what I've seen, I would pay extra to be able to stay at a hotel that could guarantee it never had any pets stay.
I meant any animals, it’s a personal preference. I know how well hotel rooms get cleaned, and I’d rather take my chances with rooms that haven’t had animals.
It’s also not that simple for smaller business to amortize the costs since the pricing has to be competitive with larger businesses that can amortize over more rooms, so a lot of times, the business does have to eat it. It’s also a very unpredictable cost with high variance.
This pales in comparison to some of the stories I've heard from women regarding the sexually aggressive and harassing behavior they've experienced from (always male) Uber drivers, often on the way home late at night (where the driver gets to see their home address).
Is it? I think it falls squarely on the topic of "Uber drivers breaking the law and Uber choosing to not deal with it (to the detriment of riders) 'because contractors'", that is, just what TFA is about.
I don't really understand how that is Uber's responsibility though. If a crime is committed, that crime should be reported and the police should investigate and take action based on the result of said investigation. Probably reasonable to suspend people pending the outcome of the investigation, but not sure unilateral action is warranted on the part of the company. We have processes for a reason.
Oh, I don't mean to negate, but to amplify. There is definitely a huge problem with Uber not doing enough to ensure their drivers aren't breaking the law.
> She was awarded $324,000 in damages and more than $800,000 in attorney fees and court costs, according to the arbitrator's award posted online by her attorneys.
That's from the CNN variant of the story.
To be fair, they likely earned it, in this case. It seems to have taken a while.
The awards were separate, one for damages and another for services rendered by her legal team. She could have won the damages and received nothing for the rest, in which case she would be net negative 500k or so.
It doesn't look like an ambulance chaser case where the she agreed to give the lawyers 2/3 of the damages. Does go to show you how crazy expensive real litigation is.
From the document her team posted:
> She is awarded the relief requested in her Post-Hearing Brief, including her damages in the amount of $324,000 plus attorney fees, litigation expenses, and costs in the amount of $805,313.45 which, though high, reflects the high quality of legal work done in this case.
I'd like to go out on a limb and say that I don't agree with the ADA. I don't think any private person or organization should be compelled to provide facilities or services for anyone else, regardless of what their need is.
I have no animus toward people with disabilities - I'm just saying that no one should be forced to help anyone else. If you want to do something for someone else's benefit, you should be free to do so, at your own expense. When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act. No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen.
When you help a friend, you are involved in his life. Because you're there, you get the reward of achieving a personal value of your own. You get feedback about how your acts are impacting his life, which helps you be a better friend.
When you try to coerce a group, you have no knowledge of the actual impact your rule actually has on anyone. And because you're not in the loop, it takes a great deal longer to change your rules. This ends up hurting more people than you help.
EDIT: downvoting me won't change my mind, but it will make me try even harder to spread the above message
> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act
> No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen.
> You get feedback about how your acts are impacting his life, which helps you be a better friend.
> This ends up hurting more people than you help.
What an absolutely mind numblingly self centered and brain-dead take.
It's got nothing to do with the "noble act" or other such nonsense. They are there so that people with disabilities don't end up living a second class existence, locked out of large parts of modern life, because it is not economically sensible to add disabled access to your building or service for the very small percentage of potential customers who need it.
Why do you assume that the problem of a second-class existence for some is avoidable given the current state of the art in science, technology and medicine?
You can put wheelchair ramps on every building and have zero impact on the number of people that can walk that will date someone in a wheelchair, or the number of non-hearing-impaired people that will even be friends with a deaf person. This is because people often meet and relate to one another through their experiences and shared interests.
Frankly, the only way those situations can change is through technology. As we come up with ways of repairing spinal cord injuries, restoring hearing and sight, etc., many people will have ways of breaking through the very real barriers I'm speaking of here. Wouldn't it be better to spend more of the money that goes into ramps and the like on research instead?
If people are left free to decide what to do with their own resources, I argue that ultimately more resources will go into advancing science and technology, with the ultimate effect of creating a society where fewer people suffer a second-class existence. Take the existence of Neuralink as a practical example of this: it's a private company whose first users will be paraplegic people, and people suffering from strokes and Parkinson's disease.
You're conflating a number of different points and mixing it together with a dash of futurism rubbish.
Handicapped people need access to goods and services right now. Services like banks, restaurants, public buildings. Laws and regulations that ensure they have access to those goods and services is not holding back "science and technology".
In some vague future where we've cured all disabilities then sure, I agree these laws are probably not needed anymore. However, until then...
I don't think you understand the impact that government controls have on the development of science and technology. (Just look at the decades of failure in the public space program and compare it against the progress made by private companies in the last decade!)
Nor are you acknowledging the fact that resources are finite for any a single instant in time. Every dollar you take from someone in taxes is a dollar they are not free to put toward their own values. Even more importantly, they are no longer free to guide that money with the information they uniquely have.
If you want meaningful change, you have to think about this at an individual level. After all, it is individuals who think, make scientific discoveries, and make business decisions. Groups don't think.
Ignoring the fact that it's not a tax that goes to the government, the flaw in your argument is assuming that the $1000 Subway now doesn't have to spend ensuring disabled access to a store will somehow end up funding ground-breaking disability research. I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion.
You can attack a problem in multiple ways, it's not mutually exclusive. You can simultaneously fund research into curing disabilities _at the same time_ as ensuring people with disabilities have equal access. Which is what we are doing now.
Trying to make the argument that hand-wavey "resources" are being somehow diverted away from disability research because private businesses need to accomodate disabled people sounds rather silly. Almost as silly as arguing that these unthinking groups (shall we call them companies?) would invest any of the money they would save by not ensuring equal access in anything related to disability research.
When it comes to some forms of meaningful change at a group level then focusing on the individual is not a great tactic. You can spend an hour individually explaining to every person in a country why smoking is bad for them but that won't have nearly as much impact on smoking rates as banning cigarette adverts.
No. Wherever the property in question is publicly owned, such as a courtroom or public road, reasonable accommodations must be made.
The views I have shared apply only in the case of private property. On my view, if something is yours, it is yours alone to manage or dispose of so long as you do not interfere with the individual rights of others.
I have no problem with the government paying for ADA accommodations, and all of us sharing in the tax burden for them. Why should their costs be forced on a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways?
This is how it works for other companies... though not the government paying for ADA.
Taxi companies have vehicles equipped for wheelchairs and other disabilities. They tend to be unprofitable to operate - but they have them. The reduction or loss of a profit on those fares is made up for by the taxi company, as a whole, subsidizing it from the increased prices for the rest of the fares.
It isn't necessary for this to be a government thing. It is simply "the company needs to increase the cost of its service so that what it offers is accessible to everyone."
As this applies to everyone in the sector the same (taxis, uber, Lyft, etc...) it isn't impacting a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways. This applies to restaurants, retail businesses, etc...
It does benefits bigger organizations that have more of an ability to absorb higher costs than small businesses and startups, just like any other regulatory burden.
If some business models have a harder time providing equal accommodations to disabled people than others, why is it "unequal" for those business models to pay a correspondingly larger cost? Seems like a pretty reasonable negative incentive to me.
> When you try to coerce a group, you have no knowledge of the actual impact your rule actually has on anyone. And because you're not in the loop, it takes a great deal longer to change your rules.
> This ends up hurting more people than you help.
These 2 assertions seem to be at odds. If you can't see the impact of coercing a group to help, how did you make the determination that it hurts more people than it helps?
If your objection is moral, then the coercion is the issue and it doesn't matter if society benefits (by whatever metric one uses, e.g. "wellbeing"). If it _can_ be demonstrated that compelling Uber drivers to pick up passengers with disabilities benefits those passengers more than it hurts the drivers, would that change your mind? Or do you believe there's no possible way for compelling those drivers to be more beneficial than detrimental at a societal level?
On pure principle I kind of agree, but the reason that the ADA exists is because people with disabilities that require things like ramps and big bathroom stalls with grab bars are not a significant enough market segment to pressure businesses to offer them; the end result of which is that accommodations would not exist otherwise.
This is the necessary kind of regulation that shores up a hole that free markets wouldn't solve on their own. Accommodating disabilities isn't profitable.
> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act. No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen.
I couldn't care less about whether the ADA increases or decreases the number of "noble acts" that happen every day. I care about its actual effects on people's lives. And it has demonstrably done a lot of good for a lot of people, despite your assertion that such a thing is unthinkable.
If disability access is not legally required, many businesses just won't bother. Economically, it often doesn't make sense to spend money to accommodate a small percentage of your potential customer base. Even if it does make sense, many people just don't bother, often through simple ignorance.
This means that, without legally required obligations, disabled people become second class citizens. The places they can go and the businesses they can patronize are determined entirely on the whims of other people. This means that they require more help from caregivers for basic day to day functioning, and can prevent them from making their own contributions to society.
Your argument is saying that the desires of businesses are more important then the ability of disabled people to participate in society. It is a zero sum game. And you're free to have your own opinion on the matter, but don't be surprised when people consider your stance to be heartless.
If you don’t like the solution to the problem, do you have a better solution? Or do you not think the problem is worth solving?
So far, however, places with these types of regulations are still prosperous and have significantly better lives for those who are disabled. The real-world results speak for themselves.
This is not about "helping". This is about illegal discrimination. When you open a service to the public then you can't refuse it to someone on the basis of their disability. (Or race, or gender, or sexual orientation.)
Right, but those laws are in place to help those who would be refused service on those bases. It's reasonable to question if those laws (e.g. in the context of Uber and people with disabilities) are truly a societal benefit, and if that benefit is worth the moral cost of legal coercion.
No-one is being "forced to help". They are providing a paid service, and all times you pay someone to do something in the U.S., there are legal requirements on the seller and the buyer.
A person with a dog will need extra time getting in and out, and the driver will need extra time to clean the car and remove any dog hair or other stains or spots. A person with a carseat like myself needs extra time to get into and out of the car while I strap in the carseat. I'm really good at it, but it still takes an extra minute or so to strap in the seat and then strap the child into the seat.
The apps need a way for me to say "I have a carseat" or "I have a service animal" and then give a bonus to the driver for picking me up. Incentivize the driver to want to come get me, and compensate them for the extra time. I'd gladly pay and extra "carseat fee" so that I don't get an unhappy driver who gives me one star just because they had to wait for me.
And in the case of the service animal, they shouldn't have the option to reject the ride and the rider should not get charged extra, but Uber/Lyft should have to compensate the driver for taking that ride as a cost the rideshare companies bear under the ADA.