> 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.
> 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.