Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving • Hacker News Board

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#201

Post by pm90 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 11:59 AM UTC

jack9 wrote: post #132

metafunctor wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has always amazed me how casually people drink and drive in some countries; the US especially springs to mind. Over here, drinking and driving is an extremely shameful and embarrassing thing to do. I would say it's on par with hitting a child. You just don't do it, not to save 20 bucks, or to save you from walking an hour.

Just south of the US border, drinking and driving is the norm. Edit: Whoops, guess I hit a nerve with an uncomfortable truth. The lax enforcement in mexico, is just something industrialized people rarely think about...until you get there. But hey, argue about it on the internet and tell that to the drive-up neighborhood beer and fish taco stands from ensenada to tiajuana. I never go farther south, but I'm sure it's t…

How is it even possible to drive on the roads during weekends? I imagine if there's lax enforcement, there will be a LOT more drunk driving related accidents??

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#202

Post by Broken_Hippo » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:05 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #193

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't that, the cab rides are never just $20, and often there are no cabs at all. The USA just has crappy non car transportation options. And it isn't just an hour walk in many places, but a few hours walk on dark streets with no side walks. When I was living in the Deep South, I sometimes had to take people home 20+ miles out in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe the fact that there are no buses and cabs at night is because people are driving home from bars anyway? Here's the thing: it's not that we have great transportation, what we don't have is bars and restaurants pop up in some random spot next to a road, with a big parking lot in front. If you build a restaurant like that, you kind of already made clear that it's a restaurant for people in cars.

I lived in a college town in the states. The popular bars were generally around campus or in the downtown area - both places known for having too little and/or inconvenient parking. Folks drove nonetheless, however. Only a portion of patrons lived or worked in the area, the rest had to travel. This is really more key, I think, than the lack of parking spaces. A good number of folks have to travel outside of walking range to go to any such establishment.

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#203

Post by alkonaut » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:06 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #160

devdoomari wrote: post #97

...but what about cars left on the parking lot by the drunk ppl? a lot of ppl might choose to drink&drive because they have to go back & get their cars again... In South Korea they have 'substitute driver service' that drives customer's car (obviously, with customer in it) back to the customer's home. I'm sure this can be done logistically (have a large bus carry around drivers, etc.)

> ...but what about cars left on the parking lot by the drunk ppl? 1. This may sound obvious but maybe don't drive yourself if you're not going to be able to drive back. Ask a friend to take you or plan to pay for both ways. 2. Plan for the extra time the following day to pick your car up where you left it. 3. Drive with someone who can drive the car (and you) back. I'm surprised you think this is a difficult problem…

While it's certainly a solved problem, what I found in the US was that people put bars and restaurants near roads.

Some times a bar or restaurant could be a few km down some otherwise empty road, with a parking lot in front.

That's a large part of the problem.

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#204

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:06 PM UTC

akgerber wrote: post #58

Note that Uber was not the only taxi reform in NYC. A quote from the paper: "For my analysis, I use data from collisions that occurred from January 2007 through July 2013. This period includes Uber’s entrance into the New York market in May 2011, allows for a substantial pre-intervention period, and omits two potentially confounding entrances in the New York City transportation market that could influence the alcohol…

> I used NYC's lovely 311 app to file a complaint against just such a driver for shouting at me after he drove at me head-on in a 2-way bike lane. I expect he'll face a significant fine.

I'd wager against that outcome from a due process and practicality standpoint. If dropping a dime on someone using their ID number would result in a significant fine absent other evidence, there would be chaos.

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#205

Post by pm90 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:07 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #155

sAbakumoff wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During my first visit to the USA, back in 2007, I was shocked at casual drinking and driving habits of my co-workers. They were fine with having 5-6 bottles of beer and a couple of shots and then drop me in the hotel before driving home. Fortunately they don't have to do that anymore.

I think this might be related to another complaint you often hear about: the drinking culture in general. Where I live in Europe it's normal to have designated drivers at parties and it's socially unacceptable to pressure them into drinking. If someone offers you a drink, "I'm driving" is a no-questions-asked way to turn it down (same goes for "I'm pregnant" or "I'm a recovering alcoholic"). That doesn't seem to be t…

This may have to do with the troubled history of alcohol in the US. You've had the temperance movement which lead to Prohibition, which was too extreme. After its repeal, the temperance movement faded somewhat, until automobiles became more common and you have MADD pressuring states to raise the drinking age to 21, which is now effective in all the states. That has inadvertently contributed to an extremely unhealthy culture of binge drinking on college campuses all across the US. That early experience with binge drinking may partially explain the lack of healthy drinking culture in the US.

However, anecdotally "I'm driving" is now pretty much the best reason to give and not to be pressured into drinking. But that's just been my personal experience.

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#206

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:09 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #150

jhpaul wrote: post #65

Based on personal experiences this isn't surprising. When I was in college in a small town in the late 00's, many friends and acquaintances would drive across town after heavy drinking. 10-15 minutes, straight roads, little traffic. Other than not going out, or not getting home, you didn't have many options. It was a hour long walk or a $20-40 cab ride, if you could get one. I was recently back in town for a wedding…

I completely agree. I wonder how self driving cars (i.e. no driver to watch you) are going to change that. The consensus is that we will be using shared cars as opposed to owning your own car. But if the tube in London gives us any indication, when you order a self driving car in London on a Saturday night, you are likely to find it covered with vomit and other bodily fluids. I do believe that owning a self driving c…

It's a lot easier to pull a self-driving car out of service for cleaning than a six-carriage train. It's not unreasonable to expect that some combination of machine vision, Mechanical Turk and hands-on inspection will be able to detect a car with a soiled interior before it gets dispatched to another customer.

I imagine there will be plenty of teething problems and horror stories, but I don't think it's an insoluble problem.

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#207

Post by cmdrfred » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:09 PM UTC

posguy wrote: post #167

developer2 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have missed it, but my grandparent's comment - and my reply - were regarding driverless cars. There is no driver making $7/hour in an autonomous driverless car. (Off-topic aside: no taxi driver makes $7/hour). There's a reason an easy trip costs $50-80 in a taxi, and it has nothing to do with human labor or maintenance of the car. A driverless vehicle will not have to make $100+/hour to make up for maintenanc…

No, the $7hr was in reference to what you make as a service sector employee in Idaho or Montana.

The real question is why work for so little money? The federal minimum wage is $7.25, tipped employees can make less per hour but only if the tips exceed the minimum wage for that time, but that isn't the real wage floor consider Walmart[0] has a minimum wage of $10.00 nationally and the average time between hire and promotion(with raise) is 3 months with an average fulltime compensation of $13.38 an hour. Construction labor, house cleaning, call centers and even dishwashing in non chain restaurants tends to pay similarly, I really don't know why anyone would make the minimum wage for any extended period of time, nor how employers offering it manage to find anyone given the competition.

[0]http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2016/01/20/more-than-on...

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#208

Post by arnsholt » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:12 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #169

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't that, the cab rides are never just $20, and often there are no cabs at all. The USA just has crappy non car transportation options. And it isn't just an hour walk in many places, but a few hours walk on dark streets with no side walks. When I was living in the Deep South, I sometimes had to take people home 20+ miles out in the middle of nowhere.

I used to think the same - I've lived in plenty of places with no public transportation. No choice, I'd say, bemoaning the lack of decent public transport. But then I was in a similar situation off in a small town in Norway. I was at a 80th birthday party in a small town. Most of the attendees were drunk. Everyone already knew someone to take them home, and organized themselves accordingly, some waiting a bit for the…

IIRC, the legal limit in Norway us basically the measurement error of the BAC tests; basically you should fail if you've had anything at all to drink.

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#209

Post by pm90 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:13 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #190

askvictor wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you don't have a driver's licence?

See, this is where the intention of the law sort of falls apart - because in that case, you are only given a fine. So the punishment is disproportional towards people who have a driving licence. People who don't have one are punished a lot less for the exact same offence.

I think you already know this but: laws, like life, are unfair (well, Judicial Laws. Only the laws of nature are truly impartial).

Re: Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

#210

Post by rugffgbv » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 12:16 PM UTC

pluma wrote: post #152

m-j-fox wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking and cycling are going to get you killed at the same rate if not higher as driving. I guess you're not as likely to kill someone else.

I think that's also something that's different in the US: individualism. I wouldn't normally call e.g. Germany a "collectivist" society but in comparison to the attitudes I frequently hear about from Americans (especially in politics) Germans apparently genuinely care more about their fellow citizens. Not being as likely to kill someone else is the entire point. Heck, drunk cycling is only slightly better than drunk…

>Heck, drunk cycling is only slightly better than drunk driving because you're less likely to run someone over (but might still cause an accident when a driver has to do something dangerous to avoid you).

Drunk cyclists killed 1 person between 2007-2011 in Poland. Drunk pedestrians killed 3 persons. http://ibikekrakow.com/2012/03/28/ile-osob-zabili-pijani-row...

Drunk drivers killed hundreds.

50% of people caught for DUI are riding bicycles. And until recently, they were getting exactly the same prison sentences as drunk truck drivers. Almost half of people imprisoned for DUI were riding bicycles.

I think drunk cycling is completely harmless, and should be legal. If someone is too drunk, he can't keep balance on bicycle anymore and problem automatically fixes itself.

There is a lot of moral panic about drunk driving, but at BAC under 0.5 permille (vast majority of people caught) it's completely harmless or even safer than riding sober. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/WHO_BAC_... Only truly drunk people in cars should be punished.