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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

#451

Post by wccrawford »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #313
wccrawford wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is required to provide service to that person. An individual driver is not required to. If that particular driver can't, Uber still has to provide that service for the passenger.

This doesn't make sense to me. If a driver isn't capable or willing to be ADA compliant, then why are they driving other people? They shouldn't be.

That's saying that people with disabilities shouldn't ever do jobs unless they can do 100% of the job.

Instead, the ADA says that companies must make reasonable accomodations for the employee.

In this case, it means drivers with allergies don't have to take animals in their cars.

For someone with a back injury, it might mean they can stock shelves so long as items are kept under a certain weight.

There are plenty of instances of people with disabilities not having to do the full job, because they can do most of the job.

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

#452

Post by whatastory »

techsupporter wrote: post #304
qaq wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in this setup a driver allergic to dogs should not be allowed to drive for Uber?

Realistically, yes? If their allergies are such to the point that they cannot be physically in the presence of a service animal for any length of time, they may be required to decline the fare and the income. We impose a lot of duties on people who are employed in the service of the general public. Humans are messy, unpredictable, inconsistent beings with unique needs so, yes, it is possible that two humans will be a…

So it’s not fair that some cars can’t accommodate all passengers of all sorts with any various disability, but it’s fair to deny employment to those with some sort of disability (animal allergies). Odd perspective.

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

#453

Post by contravariant »

OJFord wrote: post #284
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 apps need a way for me to say "I have a carseat" or "I have a service animal" In the UK (and EU?) those are 'protected characteristics' that it'd be illegal to discriminate against. I suppose you could ask 'for information purposes', but you'd have to be prepared to defend yourself, proving that it didn't affect the service received. > and then give a bonus to the driver for picking me up. Like that. Of course…

As far as I can tell a business is allowed to have a surcharge for carseats and dogs. However it seems reasonable that those should be waived for people who need either because of a disability (at least that seems like a 'reasonable accommodation').

Of course without anything in place there is effectively no accommodation whatsoever which seems to be one of the things that lead to this penalty (with probably more to come if more people are treated badly because of a disability).

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

#454

Post by syshum »

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…

>>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.

What about the incorrect political beliefs, are you saying I have to transport a Republican? or a Nazi?

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

#455

Post by sbierwagen »

vkou wrote: post #307
qaq wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in this setup a driver allergic to dogs should not be allowed to drive for Uber?

No, Uber simply needs to accommodate a passenger with a service dog, by assigning the closest non-allergic driver to them, and the driver not refusing service.

What stops every driver from checking the "I'm allergic to dogs" box?

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

#456

Post by syshum »

lm28469 wrote: post #325
bgorman wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

By "fix the root cause" you mean shut down uber right? because if all the "solutions" I have seen just in this thread were required (everything from Uber outfitting every car with Hypoallergenic compartments, to paying drivers extra for different types of customers (with out charging extra to the customer ofcourse) ) then the cost of the ride would be so prohibitively expensive that no one would use the service

People seem to have this mythical belief that uber can pay every driver to drive a brand new car, at 100/hr, providing the best service for every customer every time all for 1/2 the price of a taxi

It simply not economically possible

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

#457

Post by ncallaway »

shagie wrote: post #275
ncallaway wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber could assign a different vehicle to pick up the passenger's that need to transport a service animal, so long as it doesn't significantly impact their service times. A reasonable accommodation could be that driver's with significant animal allergies don't need to pick up passenger's with dogs. If a significant portion of their driver fleet has significant animal allergies, such that it would significantly negativ…

> A reasonable accommodation could be that driver's with significant animal allergies don't need to pick up passenger's with dogs. I would put the burden the other way around. Drivers that have significant animal allergies that reach the threshold of a disability should be provided an accommodation of a separator between the passenger area and the driver area with sufficient air filtration. Thus, the driver would sti…

> Drivers that have significant animal allergies that reach the threshold of a disability should be provided an accommodation of a separator between the passenger area and the driver area with sufficient air filtration.

That would be another reasonable accommodation. Not assigning driver's to those passengers would be a number of reasonable accommodations. There can be many different reasonable accommodations that can be made for a given problematic circumstance. The burden is on the company to find and implement _a_ reasonable accommodation.

> I am not a lawyer, but I don't believe that fear of dogs counts as a disability.

I don't think a garden variety fear of dogs would could (but IANAL either, and I don't know). I could imagine a case where someone has a genuine phobia of dogs, and is able to get a doctor's genuine medical opinion that a presence in an enclosed vehicle could cause severe anxiety, to the point of causing repeated anxiety or panic attacks. That kind of scenario may well rise to the level of a disability that must be accommodated.

I'm hesitant to make any broad sweeping claims about what should "count" as a workplace disability.

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

#458

Post by tambeb »

jagger27 wrote: post #19

“One driver allegedly cut her trip short after falsely claiming to have arrived at her destination.” That’s particularly awful and cruel. It must be extremely disorienting and stressful for a blind person to be put in that situation.

I'm not typically the bleeding heart type, but this to me overshadowed everything else in the article. You have to be a monster to do something like that, no matter how awful the company is treating you.

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

#459

Post by mlyle »

Pfhreak wrote: post #390
lotsofpulp wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many hotels and motels are small businesses (usually franchisees) that are low margin, low volume, they can't just eat the costs, which are also not equal the price of the room rate. A disruptive pet can cause you to have to refund multiple other rooms, and potential loss of future business too. A disruptive pet can cause physical damage to the room far in excess of the room rate. We once had a pet ruin the carpet so…

Don't allow pets? Service animals are not pets. And service animals can be removed from a business for being disruptive. > they can't just eat the costs, which are also not equal the price of the room rate Amortize the costs does not mean eat the costs, it means bake them into the base rate.

We're talking about fake service animals, which pretty much are pets ;)

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

#460

Post by hluska »

jedberg wrote: post #417
hluska wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve got the gift of the gab and so I see this differently. If I had no scruples or morals and chose to drive Uber, I could make an obscene hourly wage simply by picking up elderly people and engaging them in conversation. Most phone scams rely upon preying upon vulnerable, lonely people like this so sadly, it’s a public 0 day with no known fix.

I would argue that you're providing the service of companionship and should be paid for that too. :)

You know friend, I read enough comments from you to recognize you by name. You’ve always struck me as just an incredibly nice person. Thanks for this reply and for being such an all around good person. Hearing you talk on this thread is actually heartwarming - your respect and kindness are just incredible.

Have an amazing evening!!!

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