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Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

bbc.com

161–170 of 502 posts

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#161

She didn't get $1.1m, the settlement was $324,000 in damages plus legal expenses of $805,313. That kind of changes the narrative in my opinion.

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?

It’s not that much. It’s about 1600 hours of work which seems like the right amount taking on Uber and their lawyers.

Also factor in the risk of working 1600 hours and getting paid nothing for it if the case was lost.

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#162
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 d…

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 oft…

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...

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

> 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 driv…

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Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#164
post #7

> 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.

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…

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Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#165
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I really need the cash, I need to risk my life and the customer's life in the name of ADA compliance ...

With that kind of logic, why not just a rob a bank if you really need cash. They're both illegal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sorry, I don't think that's a fair or constructive comparison.

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#166
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.

3) Repeat a couple dozen times.

4) Contact a lawyer

5) Profit?

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#167
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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.

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#168
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.

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#169
post #70

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…

The ADA applies to workers too. A dog allergy is a disability.

How does this change anything?

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.

Re: Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides

#170
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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 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.
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