Uber ordered to pay $1.1M to blind woman refused rides • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by Bedon292 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #238

Bedon292 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

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

#252

Post by lhorie » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #50

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 wh…

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.

[0] https://www.uber.com/blog/los-angeles/introducing-uberassist...

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

#253

Post by elliekelly » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #96

jedberg wrote: post #50

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 wh…

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".

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.

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

#254

Post by LocalH » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

morelisp wrote: post #246

LocalH wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If not, legally allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. This should change. Especially on the allergy front. Forcing someone to suffer an allergic reaction because a customer has a service dog is immoral.

All 15 of your employees have medically serious dog allergies?

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.

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

#255

Post by spuz » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #213

jedberg wrote: post #50

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 wh…

> The real problem here is Uber/Lyft not accounting for this in their app No. The real problem is that a person with a disability was denied service in violation of the ADA. There's no setting in the app that prevents a driver from saying (as they should), "Get in."

Exactly. As the article says:

> 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.

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

#256

Post by pvarangot » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

anonymousab wrote: post #103

Miner49er wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been ruled that fear of dogs or allergies to dogs is not sufficient reason to deny service to someone with a service dog. https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm

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.

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

#257

Post by Trias11 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

Causality1 wrote: post #96

jedberg wrote: post #50

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 wh…

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".

It's part of the work.

Not all customers are happy, clean 5-star big tippers.

Certain percentage of customers are people with disabilities, drunk, with dogs and whatnot.

That's part of a job to spend occasional extra minutes per certain percentage of customers.

I agree that sometime (but not always) UBER needs to compensate driver for this and charge customer extra.

You cannot be UBER driver who is allergic to slow moving or non-tipping customers and refuse your service for them.

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

#258

Post by cortesoft » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #62

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…

> what about business owners and drivers who are traumatized by dogs?

Yeah, being traumatized doesn't let you break the law. Otherwise, people could say "I am traumatized by black people!" or "I am traumatized by gay people!"

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

#259

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #50

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 wh…

[deleted]

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

#260

Post by kube-system » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #197

kube-system wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Uber/Lyft wants to take the responsibility of ADA compliance, because that is implying that their drivers are employees.

Taxis don't have their drivers as employees, and that sort of dispatch mechanism is exactly how they handle it.

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.