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

bbc.com

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

#421

Post by jedberg »

christkv wrote: post #412
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…

Check out the mifold chair for kids it’s great for when you have to use taxis or a rental car https://www.mifold.com/ it just simplified travel so much for us.

We have a mifold for the older kid, but the younger one still needs a full carseat. When they were infants it was easier because I could strap them into the seat before the car arrived, and then just quickly buckle the seat in. But in the 11mo-3 year range, I need a full carseat that has to be installed before I can strap anyone in. :(

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

#422

Post by staticman2 »

fastball wrote: post #97
shuntress wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drivers represent the company and all interactions with the driver are setup through the company. So, yes. ie: If a driver snatches my backpack and drives away, I expect Uber to replace/return what was stolen from me by their contractor. Not for them to just tell me to take a hike and deal with it myself.

So there is absolutely nothing a company can do to absolve themselves of the poor behavior of employees? By that system, Uber would still be at fault if they explicitly told all drivers "you are not allowed to deny service to someone with a service dog under any circumstances", and a driver did anyway.

That's how the legal system usually works. If a Walmart driver negligently runs you over when working for Walmart, there is nothing Walmart can do to not be responsible.

There's no special "I told my staff not to run people over!" exception that a Walmart supervisor can claim.

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

#423

Post by CJefferson »

joombaga wrote: post #205
flowerlad wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about "helping". This is about illegal discrimination. When you open a service to the public then you can't refuse it to someone on the basis of their disability. (Or race, or gender, or sexual orientation.)

Right, but those laws are in place to help those who would be refused service on those bases. It's reasonable to question if those laws (e.g. in the context of Uber and people with disabilities) are truly a societal benefit, and if that benefit is worth the moral cost of legal coercion.

So, you want to argue it is important people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere?

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

#424

Post by patmcc »

passivate wrote: post #231
stefan_ wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter? I hired Uber; if they hire contractors to do their job, that doesn't matter to me. If it goes wrong, I'm still gonna sue Uber.

I think that the general point people are making is that Uber is like Ebay - a platform. If a seller on Ebay sells you a busted iphone, Ebay has a 'buyer protection' policy to help you seek redress. Maybe Uber needs to have some of that as well.

When I buy something on Ebay I can choose which individual person/store I buy from - I can see reviews, their specific listing, etc. - even if I'm buying the exact same product. With Uber I press a button and some driver shows up. I definitely think I'm dealing directly with Uber a lot more than I am with Ebay.

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

#425

Post by whimsicalism »

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…

Yes, employers are generally liable for their employees actions.

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

#426

Post by seoaeu »

jedberg wrote: post #335
buran77 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> quite an effort This feels like a misrepresentation of the kind of effort required. For a company of Uber's scale such an effort barely registers. And they could go live with the change in selected markets in the interest of minimizing it even further. But at the end of the day this isn't a matter of effort but of reward, and Uber probably sees none.

> For a company of Uber's scale such an effort barely registers. You have that backwards. For a company of Uber's scale, this is a major initiative. For a small company they can just code it up and put it in the app.

By your definition, large companies are undergoing major initiatives constantly.

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

#427

Post by gwright »

jonfw wrote: post #221
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…

What's the incentive for a driver not to mark that they have allergies? You're essentially just giving them a checkbox "I don't want to deal with people who have service animals"

Seems like that is pretty easy to deal with by simply asserting in the driver's contract that they can be asked for medical verification at any time if they make that indication.

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

#428

Post by seoaeu »

shagie wrote: post #108
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".

That is an issue for uber to work on dealing with - it is not an issue for the person with the disability that needs the service animal. https://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm > Allergies and fear of dogs are not valid reasons for denying access or refusing service to people using service animals. When a person who is allergic to dog dander and a person who uses a service animal must spend time in the same room…

But also thankfully it seems that drivers being independent contractors doesn't absolve Uber of following the ADA.

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

#429

Post by jariel »

teddyh wrote: post #295
jariel wrote: post #270

"One driver allegedly cut her trip short after falsely claiming to have arrived at her destination." What is wrong with people? I can understand something like this maybe happening once? But that this happened 14 times makes me lose faith in people. Civilization is built on the little things if they go, it stops.

> Civilization is built on the little things if they go, it stops. Empathy is built on the premise of relative economic equality.

Basic civility existed for thousands of years before abstract notions of 'economic equality'.

That's an ideological idea that's nuance and I'm not sure most people even buy into as it's stated.

My grandparents were born on farms without plumbing or running water, so was everyone in the area. They had incredible dignity, civility, kindness (although a kind of emotionally distant version of it).

Yes, there would have been some ideals of 'equal before the law' or 'before God', and some notion of fairness about individuals amassing fortunes on the backs of others, surely, but not an ideological ideal of 'economic equality' and certainly not 'equity' as it's used today.

Not dropping blind people of 'just anywhere' is something people 3000 years ago would have understood quite well to be wrong.

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

#430

Post by joombaga »

CJefferson wrote: post #423
joombaga wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but those laws are in place to help those who would be refused service on those bases. It's reasonable to question if those laws (e.g. in the context of Uber and people with disabilities) are truly a societal benefit, and if that benefit is worth the moral cost of legal coercion.

So, you want to argue it is important people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere?

No. I don't believe it is important that people have the right to lie to blind people and dump them in the middle of nowhere.
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