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Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

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Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#21

Post by mr-wendel »

This what I think is absolutely ridiculously nuts. Taxi services are typically heavily regulated and in major markets a permit (e.g. medallions auctions[1]) can cost hundreds of thousands, if not over a million dollars and are strictly limited in supply.

Thus, drivers are employees of a bigger company who manages every other part of the economic relationship. Kinda like Uber (and Lyft, etc), but because "you can bring your own gear" people are fungible (nothing stops you from working multiple companies either) and subject to agreements that:

  - Expose minimum liability to the company
  - Provide maximum profitability to the company (even w/ surge pricing -- the house still wins)
  - Minimizes extra legal obligations to employees
In other words, it's a game of "heads I win, tails you lose". If all goes well it's steady, relatively straight-forward (just do what the app tells you to do) work.

The gig-taxi industry certainly doesn't stand alone and they have exploded over the last decade (and especially so in the last year). These jobs/companies do (and should) bring out a lot of strong opinions.

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=new+york+city+medallions+auction&i...

Edit: to be clear, what makes this so unique is that there are significant safety risks inherit in the job (accidents, crime, drunk/offensive/dangerous/etc riders). They scale linearly with how much you do it and some times/places/events add multipliers to that.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#23

Post by gruez »

notdang wrote: post #13
ricardobeat wrote: post #8

Shouldn’t an event like this be covered by insurance? I assume the driver did not have commercial insurance and wants Uber to be responsible, which goes back to the independent contractor vs employee debate?

That's in the second sentence: >David Morrow finally received an offer of assistance from the company: $1,000, the amount of his insurance deductible.

So the driver's insurance is already covering the loss, except for the $1000 deductible which is being covered by uber? That seems totally reasonable to me? What's the driver expecting here?

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#24

Post by vorpalhex »

xyst wrote: post #12

AirBnb does something similar if a host/guest are raped, seriously injured, or destroy property. They paid off the victims and had them sign NDAs.

It seems to me that it would be astonishingly bad press were someone to simply ignore the NDA and take the whole thing to a very public trial.

"AirBnB sues rape victim, demands silence." would do much more harm to AirBnB as a headline than any victim doing an interview.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#25

Post by vorpalhex »

londons_explore wrote: post #7

If Uber gave tracking devices for drivers to hide in cars, then thieves and carjackers could easily be caught up with by authorities before they get a chance to disassemble the car and find the tracker.

Lojack isn't new.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#26

Post by jrootabega »

LatteLazy wrote: post #3

Agreements made under duress or where there is a significant imbalance of power aren't enforceable. I'd say a car jacking meets both standards.

It sounds like you think they required this in order to act DURING the carjacking, like some kind of Snow Crash/Fifth Element scenario, which the actual headline ("helping" vs. "compensating") is baiting you to believe. But the content of the article makes it clear this was well after it occurred. So the duress angle doesn't work.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#27

Post by sneak »

vorpalhex wrote: post #24
xyst wrote: post #12

AirBnb does something similar if a host/guest are raped, seriously injured, or destroy property. They paid off the victims and had them sign NDAs.

It seems to me that it would be astonishingly bad press were someone to simply ignore the NDA and take the whole thing to a very public trial. "AirBnB sues rape victim, demands silence." would do much more harm to AirBnB as a headline than any victim doing an interview.

Bringing a lawsuit requires paying >~$10k up front, or the attorney taking it on for a prearranged cut of the settlement in exchange for no up-front.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#28

Post by jrootabega »

JackFr wrote: post #11

It just doesn’t seem to me like Uber is a bad guy here. The headline is clickbait. And some very bad men committed an armed robbery victimizing a driver. Uber did nothing wrong and in fact it covered the insurance deductible when it had no legal or frankly ethical obligation to do so.

I believe hn mods edited the submission to change "helping" to "compensating". It would be nice to know what the headline was at the time of each comment, because you're right: "helping" would be obvious clickbait.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#29

Post by wutbrodo »

endisneigh wrote: post #14
JackFr wrote: post #11

It just doesn’t seem to me like Uber is a bad guy here. The headline is clickbait. And some very bad men committed an armed robbery victimizing a driver. Uber did nothing wrong and in fact it covered the insurance deductible when it had no legal or frankly ethical obligation to do so.

I'm not sure how you can say this when Uber connected the victim with the assailants.

In the same sense that Apple is not at fault for allowing its hardware to connect the assailant and victim.

I'm aware that we don't consider manufacturers to be culpable for the actions taken with their hardware, and that there's a case to be made that Uber's service is "closer" to the illegal act and thus more responsible.

But that case actually needs to be made. Whether it's Apple or Uber, there are expectations that the company needs to fulfill, and doing so in good-faith means it's beyond silly to assign culpability for every downstream effect of their product.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#30

Post by smnrchrds »

vorpalhex wrote: post #24
xyst wrote: post #12

AirBnb does something similar if a host/guest are raped, seriously injured, or destroy property. They paid off the victims and had them sign NDAs.

It seems to me that it would be astonishingly bad press were someone to simply ignore the NDA and take the whole thing to a very public trial. "AirBnB sues rape victim, demands silence." would do much more harm to AirBnB as a headline than any victim doing an interview.

Maybe I am jaded, but what I have seen is that whenever companies do something bad, the bad press will at most cause a flash crash. It takes a short amount of time for the stock to go back up and the business to be back to usual. There was no long-term consequence for United Airlines causing a doctor to be beaten and dragged out of their airplane covered in his own blood. People were saying Volkswagen is done after their emissions scandal, but they are now doing better than ever. AirBnB will get bad press, but history shows that they just have to keep quiet and wait it out for a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months, before the news cycle moves on and they get back to normal.
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