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Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

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Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#101

Post by kweinber »

tedunangst wrote: post #93
stephenr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies might want to skip around accessibility issues when they're first getting started So, if it's inconvenient, you get to pretend it doesn't exist because you're a "startup"? That kind of mindset is what's wrong with the startup community. "Disrupt" isn't a synonym for "break any laws you don't like" and "startup" isn't a synonym for "I am above the law!"

Well, some provisions of the law only apply to businesses above a certain size, so yes, a startup literally can be above the law.

Uber is larger than most huge corporations. Their funding is astronomical (5.9 Billion) and their investors include folks like Goldman Sachs.

It isn't fair to real startups for giants like Uber to claim startup loopholes.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#102

Post by kaolinite »

seiji wrote: post #81
kaolinite wrote: post #27

This really saddens me. I used to love Uber, it was one of my favourite companies. I remember when I first used it - I'd gone down to London and was going to try UberLux out, just for the one trip. I ended up using it about four times that day, even though it was far more expensive than a taxi. It was incredible and worth every penny because unlike taxis, Uber was professional[1]. The driver was polite, you got a bot…

> it was one of my favourite companies. But, why? They've always been boisterous and exploitative. Just because someone provides a "do what I want" button doesn't absolve them of all their koala-fueled tyranny in the background. It turns out when you allow cutthroat capitalism with no regulators or oversight (or regulators that lag by 5-10 years), it becomes easy to abuse so many features of our shared economy. Start…

> But, why? They've always been boisterous and exploitative.

Agreed. I'm not saying that I'm proud that I supported them. Previously, I bought into the "taxi mafia" story that Travis spun. I was at a talk he gave and, well, he was convincing. I think at the time, he was probably telling the truth: there probably was a lot of corruption in the taxi industry (and probably still is). But now, after he's used it time after time to justify treating drivers and customers poorly (fighting against insurance, for example), I feel like a fool for believing him.

> so, uber is basically 100% BroTaxi

I don't think he was using the term "baller" seriously, it was most likely a joke. UberExec/Lux certainly doesn't feel like it's for "bros", it feels like it's for professionals.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#104

Post by giltleaf »

lkiernan wrote: post #94
maxlybbert wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In New York, there are thousands of wheelchair accessible taxis ( http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/accessible.shtml ), but there are also thousands of taxis that aren't wheelchair accessible. The ones that aren't accessible aren't breaking the ADA (then again, the ADA requires "reasonable accomodation," so the ones that aren't wheelchair accessible probably still have to make an effort to put a wheelchair i…

Black cabs are more accessible by default, but I'd assume if I called ahead for any taxi I'd need to let them know of any special needs, the same as if I needed to let them know I wanted a taxi for 7 people? Shouldn't there be an area for adding special requests such as accessibility? You filter to the vehicles that are able and willing to take this passenger's money. I can only assume that, as contracted drivers, th…

The special request feature wouldn't be hard to implement, but I'm not sure that it benefits drivers to respond to it unless there was also a system to incentivize them.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#105

Post by viscanti »

dia80 wrote: post #4

This kind of concerns me. I have a T4/T5 spinal cord injury from a snowboarding accident 4.5Y ago. I have good hand and arm function but that's it no abdominals etc. I drive myself to work everyday and transfer in and out and fold up my wheelchair. London's black cabs all have ramps. UBER is making big inroads here and I'm worried that eventually it'll be tricky to get a black cab. I can transfer into a regular car b…

The issue isn't that Uber is discriminating. In fact, the subject of the article was a twice weekly user of Uber for two years. A single driver didn't think the wheelchair would fit in the car. It seems like something that should be reported, and the driver should be dealt with. To take an issue that happens less than 1% of the time and make it sound like it's UBER is a bit absurd.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#106

Post by chimeracoder »

MrSourz wrote: post #43
chimeracoder wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engaging in litigation claiming you don't have to follow the ADA simply because you don't want to deal with the tax implications of doing so is unbelievably low. > if they start telling them what the can and cannot do during their time then they start to look more and more like employees (something they absolutely do not want) Uber may not want it, but their drivers are undeniably employees, not contractors. Whenever…

It's low in the same way that if a non-profit starts to use your IP or trademarks you must go after them for doing so. If you don't then you weaken your position of ownership of those properties for the rest of time. In this case if they did not fight it they would weaken themselves on any future case about the drivers being contractors vs. employees. View this from the position of a business with investors they're b…

> It's low in the same way that if a non-profit starts to use your IP or trademarks you must go after them for doing so.

Incidentally, this is common legal advice on Internet forums, but is not really true, as lawyers like DannyBee have explained more than once in other threads. It's a misconception that litigating companies tacitly condone, because it paints them in a more sympathetic light, but it's not actually "required" by any stretch of imagination.

If your mark is actually at risk of losing secondary meaning, then there is a risk to not doing so, but it takes a long time to get to that point. It's like saying that every time you have a beer, you're slowly developing cirrhosis - unless you're already drinking heavily and have been for a while, a single drink has literally no impact[0].

Also, since you say "IP or trademarks", not just trademarks, you're applying this principle to copyright and patents, which is also not true at all. Failure to enforce copyright rights is not tantamount to a free, irrevocable license.

> View this from the position of a business with investors they're beholden to, not from an emotional standpoint.

I'm viewing it with the exactly the same line of thinking that got us these antidiscrimination and labor protection laws in the first place.

[0] The liver is capable of regeneration, and cirrhosis only happens if you repeatedly subject it to levels of alcohol that it can't regenerate from faster than your intake. Likewise, losing secondary meaning isn't going to happen because you failed to go after a small non-profit that was using your mark in a way that wasn't really intended to confuse customers with your mark in the first place.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#107

Post by stevenjohns »

dia80 wrote: post #4

This kind of concerns me. I have a T4/T5 spinal cord injury from a snowboarding accident 4.5Y ago. I have good hand and arm function but that's it no abdominals etc. I drive myself to work everyday and transfer in and out and fold up my wheelchair. London's black cabs all have ramps. UBER is making big inroads here and I'm worried that eventually it'll be tricky to get a black cab. I can transfer into a regular car b…

I think what we'll eventually see are Uber drivers purchasing their own ramps and Uber marking them as wheelchair-friendly, with the customer given the ability to request a wheelchair-friendly car. In turn this would probably pressure other Uber drivers to also get ramps so they're able to compete, and the majority of fulltime Uber drivers will eventually get ramps.

Edit: this might also extend to things like baby seats and various other specialized passenger modifications.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#109

Post by rorykoehler »

I would imagine that self driving cars will be much easier to design for accessibility seeing as other design considerations become less relevant (such as needing the driver to be in a certain position and facing the front in the vehicle). If I were to design an autonomous car today I would design it with one huge top hinged door on each side and a ramp that makes it easy to drive a wheelchair straight in. Have all the seats facing each other and ensure that at least one folds up/swivels to the side to make room for the wheelchair. This would also benefit people traveling with over-sized luggage.

The only thing Uber will get from this is bad PR. Their seeming arrogance (not only in this matter) is a real turn off.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#110

Post by mason240 »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #35
venomsnake wrote: post #2

Here is the thing with "sharing" economy - the moment money exchange hands, this is no longer sharing but commercial activity. So you must abide to the regulations. You cannot cherry pick only the rules that suit you.

It's not "sharing". It was never "sharing". It's sharecropping.

You might have a case for calling it "sharecropping" if Uber owned the cars and the drivers were paying Uber for the privilege of using them.

They are not though, so it's a gross misapplication of the term.

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