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Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

economist.com

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

#371

Post by kikimaru »

metafunctor wrote: post #92
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…

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.

I was recently in Madagascar - it's not uncommon to be driving while sipping a beer, or driving home at 3am after drinking since 9pm. I theorize that they must just sweat it all out. Eating while drinking helps, too.

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

#372

Post by smsm42 »

pm90 wrote: post #196
smsm42 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When new cheaper thing comes to the market, I have heard a lot of sayings along the lines you're saying - they only doing it for now and after they have established themselves they'll jack up the prices. I can't remember any case when it actually happened. I don't mean things like "introductory pricing" when you get short time cheap and then the price rises - you know the deal upfront there. I mean some service compa…

It won't be an explicit money grab. Once they have pushed out other competitors, they will IPO. Then, they will come under pressure from Wall Street to turn a profit (eventually...unless they do a la Amazon and keep creating/expanding into new markets). Then all Uber customers/drivers will see an email like: Dear Customers, Thanks for being a great part of our "community". Due to rising costs/regulations/some_generic…

That's what I am asking - the only companies I see such scenario playing out are in deeply monopolized and regulated industries (healthcare, ISPs, cable TV providers). I'm not saying Uber won't ever raise the prices ever, but I am yet to see a plan like this - capture the market, then drive up prices - actually happen and be sustainable. Amazon is surely not an example of it, even though it did capture the market, no sign of dramatic price increase.

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

#373

Post by etjossem »

username223 wrote: post #37
lend000 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strangely bitter way of looking at things. Ride sharing companies, including Uber, have brought tremendous benefits to society, and drunk driving prevention is probably at the top of the list. Uber has made the largest difference of all these companies because it has been the most aggressive in disrupting rent-seekers like taxi companies. The drivers and the general willingness of people to embrace the gig e…

Perhaps, but don't call it "sharing," because sharing is reciprocal. If it were actually sharing, you would be driving for Uber as much as the people who chauffeur you around. Call them what they are: unlicensed taxis. Also, "the general willingness of people to embrace the gig economy" is just another way of saying "many people are desperate enough to do sub-minimum-wage piecework."

I too have struggled with the term "ride share", since it obviously isn't being used in the sense of "sharing is caring" we were all taught in kindergarten.

At some point I realized it means a share (in the economic sense) of a ride (the driver's car / time). As a rider, you are willing to pay for a portion of the driver's time and car mileage, and that's something you generally couldn't do before Uber/Lyft.

Sharing has connotations of kindness and altruism when this is really a transaction, so I like to avoid the term "ride sharing", but I feel "ride share" is accurate. As someone else posted nearby, there are plenty more substantive criticisms of Uber right now.

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

#374

Post by akgerber »

sokoloff wrote: post #204
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.

The fines happen. The evidence is photographs and my testimony if the driver doesn't plead guilty.

One Twitter user documents his use of the process quite thoroughly: https://twitter.com/D00RZ0NE

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

#375

Post by metafunctor »

overcast wrote: post #228
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.

It's extremely shameful, and embarrassing here. No one looks up to you for that shit. Unfortunately we don't make it very easy for drunks to get home, so they do stupid things.

If you drive to a place you know you'll be drinking at, you're doing stupid things while sober.

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

#376

Post by belovedeagle »

derefr wrote: post #328
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.

The [rural] US is much, much more spread out than most countries. This means that people in the rural US think of driving as a necessary and basic component of life; driving is just "how you get places", if there are places you need to get. So drinking and driving, though shameful, is necessarily normalized (not wholly, but somewhat) by people who are drunk, and yet need to go places. That, and by the fact that in a…

Exactly this, but it should be made clear that this has nothing to do with the general safety of rural roads. In general there are dangers encountered when driving (especially at night) on rural roads which aren't encountered in urban environments, although the converse is also true.

People always compare the US to Western Europe when this topic comes up, but that's simply an invalid comparison. For this topic, the US should be compared to Russia or possibly Canada. These countries have rural areas which are neither completely deserted (where drunk driving would be irrelevant even if it were likely to happen) nor support a large enough population to have reasonable transportation alternatives.

I wish the US would recognize this fact and have two sets of drunk driving laws - one for urban areas (matching Western European conventions) and one for rural (matching current conventions). Unfortunately, this is probably impossible since it could be seen as permitting drunk driving.

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

#377

Post by shakna »

rrrhys wrote: post #355
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me very uneasy. If their field equipment is anything like SCRAM bracelets (same basic technology as a Breathalyzer) they're cutting all sorts of corners (demanding precise readings out of sensors that are running well outside their recommended operating environment with less calibration than recommended) and throwing false positives left and right. Drunk driving penalties are too stiff to play fast and loo…

In Australia, we're breathalyzed and if it's positive we go back to the police station/mobile testing unit for a blood test, so the breathalyzer is really only an early indicator.

> Vidar Refvik, director of police at the Justice Ministry, said police will use the same combination of "breathalyser" and blood tests to enforce the new law as they did the old one. He predicted the lower limit will yield anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 more arrests, a rise of about 15-20 percent.

Seems like Norway would be the same.

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

#378

Post by Cd00d »

alkonaut wrote: post #197
gambiting wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland riding a bike while drunk results in losing your driving licence.

Same in Sweden. It's not so much riding the bike though - you can actually lose it by just being drunk walking too.

Wait, how can that be true? I worked in Gothenburg for several months a few years back, and there is a strong drinking culture. My poor language skills and memory may have me wrong, but all pubs advertise 'stor stark' happy hour, which means the beers are big and strong. If drunk walking can get your license revoked, how are there so many cars on the road?

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

#379

Post by alkonaut »

Cd00d wrote: post #378
alkonaut wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Sweden. It's not so much riding the bike though - you can actually lose it by just being drunk walking too.

Wait, how can that be true? I worked in Gothenburg for several months a few years back, and there is a strong drinking culture. My poor language skills and memory may have me wrong, but all pubs advertise 'stor stark' happy hour, which means the beers are big and strong. If drunk walking can get your license revoked, how are there so many cars on the road?

You aren't going to get your license revoked because you are drunk, even very drunk.

But if you are the kind of person the police takes care of on a bench multiple times then it's within their (or rather the relevant authority, not the police) power to consider a person "unfit" for having a drivers license. Won't happen to "normal" people, even if on a bike.

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

#380

Post by [deleted] »

metafunctor wrote: post #92
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…

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.

[deleted]
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