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

#321

Post by URSpider94 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

Bedon292 wrote: post #176

Causality1 wrote: post #96

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".

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…

In two weeks, all Uber drivers will indicate that they are allergic to dogs. Next move?

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

#322

Post by CydeWeys » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

usbline wrote: post #319

amyjess wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the Americans With Disabilities Act tells them they have to.

ADA also says these accommodations need to be readily achievable. Considering the income level of people working at rideshares, it's really not achievable and extremely unfair.

Uber has tens of billions of dollars. They have to be able to achieve it, as this ruling shows. They cannot violate the ADA. Playing the whole contractor charade may help them to get around minimum wage laws but it's not gonna help them get around the ADA.

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

#323

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #235

0xEFF wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1600 hours is 9 months at 40hr/week. What's the risk they were taking? They wouldn't have taken the case if the risk of losing was high, so their E(X) was at least 250k.

That math assumes one lawyer working on this which I doubt.

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

#324

Post by amyjess » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:02 PM UTC

xmprt wrote: post #288

scsilver wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That at the end of the day, Uber sent a woman into terrible situation, creating a bunch of externalities that society has to bare. Society should have the right to identify those externalities and bring the companies attention to those externalities. If the company says "not my problem" the public should get to decide if they want to allow a company to blithely foist those externalities onto society. They have a lega…

I'm not sure how this could be fixed though. Uber tells the drivers that they have to comply with ADA for legal reasons but if the drivers still don't then Uber is liable? It kind of feels like me suing a grocery store because someone pushed me into a wall that was built by the store. Uber could definitely do more (like banning drivers that don't comply and allowing passengers and drivers to indicate their disabiliti…

Uber could be much more proactive in surveilling drivers and terminating them for noncompliance. Perhaps they can even require drivers to sign contracts making them pay five-figure fines in addition to termination in the case they're found to have engaged in discrimination.

They could make drivers keep dashcams, with microphones, in their cars and stream them to Uber HQ where a random sample of rides will be analyzed by corporate for violations.

They could hire blind people with service dogs to act as "secret shoppers", requesting rides in random parts of random cities, and then reporting back to corporate as to how they were treated.

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

#325

Post by lm28469 » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

bgorman wrote: post #294

yarcob wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are giving service providers way too much leeway. Service providers should offer their service to everyone, not just to "easy" customers. Service providers should not reject you because you are disabled, because you have a child, because you have a certain religion, or whatever else is the problem. If someone is in the business of transporting people, they shouldn't be allowed to just pick the most profit…

I understand what you are saying, but reality doesn't agree with this worldview. The reality of the situation is that some people need more help than others, and this help does cost more money/time/labor. I think overall it is a better experience if the marketplace for these services prices in the extra labor necessary for this help. Perhaps the government could subsidize the lost time. However expecting workers to d…

> Many Uber drivers barely make minimum wage.

Because they're legally allowed to be underpaid contractors. The law should be changed to fix the root cause, not to change this side effect. Uber drivers aren't barely making min wage because they have no incentives to pick up disabled people ...

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

#326

Post by asdff » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

usbline wrote: post #289

yarcob wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are giving service providers way too much leeway. Service providers should offer their service to everyone, not just to "easy" customers. Service providers should not reject you because you are disabled, because you have a child, because you have a certain religion, or whatever else is the problem. If someone is in the business of transporting people, they shouldn't be allowed to just pick the most profit…

This is someone's personal property we're talking about. Should they forced to shuttle around drunken and incontinent people too? Why should anyone be coerced with being kicked off of a platform and losing (their possibly only) source of income because they don't want piss, shit, and vomit in their car?

In this case, I think people need to realize what they are signing up for. If you deliver pizza it's a given you will start reeking of pizza. Uber is notoriously used for designated driving, and anyone surely knows by adult hood that having diarrhea isn't a matter of if, it's a matter of when, and basic probability would tell you eventually will get a customer with diarrhea or someone who is about to throw up their tequila. Luckily Uber has some protections for you in the cleaning fee charged to the offending customer, but with Uber's excellent way around lobbying, that's about all the protections to your vehicle you can ask for with this gig.

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

#327

Post by pkaye » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #237

zachrip wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't this result in anyone just abusing this system when they don't want to drive with service dogs in the car?

I don't think the system would be abused that much, especially if Uber could offer a little extra financial reward to the driver for taking the service dog, to the extent necessary that people with service dogs get the same level of wait times and service.

How to determine if the passenger has a service dog?

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

#328

Post by asdff » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

usbline wrote: post #319

amyjess wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the Americans With Disabilities Act tells them they have to.

ADA also says these accommodations need to be readily achievable. Considering the income level of people working at rideshares, it's really not achievable and extremely unfair.

I think the ADA would argue that allowing these people to enter your car is perfectly achievable. If you throw up in an Uber you get billed a cleaning fee.

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

#329

Post by _wp3r » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

yarcob wrote: post #271

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…

I think you are giving service providers way too much leeway. Service providers should offer their service to everyone, not just to "easy" customers. Service providers should not reject you because you are disabled, because you have a child, because you have a certain religion, or whatever else is the problem. If someone is in the business of transporting people, they shouldn't be allowed to just pick the most profit…

Oh you mean like a licensing system that requires drivers to pick up all passengers? /s

HAAS Act '37

NYC TLC '71

Operation Refusal '98

Not that NY has it exactly right, but at least there was some structure.

The entire business model of Uber is regulation avoidance. They did not "distrupt" any business they just did as you said and stole all the profitable easy routes/riders, avoided pricing regulations, and driver compensation regulations.

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

#330

Post by arenaninja » Mon, Apr 05, 2021, 7:09 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #179

arenaninja wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was out for breakfast for the first time since the pandemic started this weekend (I'm fully vaccinated now) and in walks a guy with a dog sporting a "Service Animal" sash that in tiny letters said "emotional support". I was paralyzed - I was traumatized by my interactions with dogs when I was a kid; where's my say in having untrained animals in my vicinity? This kind of shit needs to be ended but there should be NO…

Yeah my brother's wife will completely shut down and start screaming if a dog comes within 5 feet of her. Where she grew up in China dogs were wild animals that would viciously attack you if you got near them, so it's a pretty understandable reaction. So I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted here. Also having personally seen how poorly trained most peoples' dogs are I would be very uncomfortable having a random s…

I'm downvoted because it's an unpopular opinion in the US that people shouldn't force their pets on others who are uncomfortable interacting with them or just being around them and HN readership is largely US-centric. In my experience many recreational dog owners in the US are incredibly selfish people