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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

#151

Post by electroly »

gamblor956 wrote: post #145
electroly wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you do. Accessibility laws generally include exemptions for small businesses. The Americans with Disabilities Act definitely does. Title III goes out of its way to only require "reasonable accommodation" that is "readily achievable" and not overly burdensome to the small business.

A company, like Uber, that has raised several hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, is definitely not a small business and doesn't get to claim that exemption.

The post I replied to was talking about the "startup community," so I was addressing that. A startup isn't breaking the law by not having the same level of accessibility as a large company. Uber has 2000 employees (excluding the drivers); they definitely wouldn't qualify.

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

#152

Post by Istof »

maxerickson wrote: post #73
a3n wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you've exceeded the change that you can personally effect. That's not true though. You're still not effecting the change that would result from you yourself taking action. In your example, you're shy the result of 1/3 of possible change.

In your reply you are just ignoring my intended meaning with "personally". You obviously understood what I said. If you think a different phrasing would be better, feel free to suggest that.

Yeah, if you get everyone else to not use Uber, you won't be able to use it either because it will be in business anymore. I have never used them but they sure hope to avoid all existing laws... some cities have even written specific laws that apply only to them because of that.

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

#153

Post by vinceguidry »

gohrt wrote: post #143
vinceguidry wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "startup" isn't a synonym for "I am above the law!" It kinda is. Hear me out. Commerce is bound to be political. Offering up a product or service for sale isn't always going to be acceptable to everyone. So we pass laws to tell people what they can and can't do. So far, so good. Except that if this continues, the business landscape changes due to the collective weight of all these laws. Existing organizations that…

How many hundreds of millions of dollars does it take before you are no longer a "small" actor?

That's not the right question to ask. The right question is whether we think Uber is innovative enough to change the laws for.

You've got your thinking backwards. It's not us that has to conform to the law, it's the law that has to conform to us. The right thing to do, IMO, is to make Uber conform to disability law, and do away with the other laws that seem to be doing nothing at this point besides protecting rents, like the taxi medallion system.

There are also other questions like whether we should consider Uber drivers to be employees or contractors. Any decently innovative startup will raise lots of these questions. Uber does just that.

Of course, it would require too much political capital to just do away with the taxi medallion system at this point. So we have to tolerate the grey state of affairs until the legal and political issues are wrangled.

Uber deserves to be rightly rich for being pioneers in this space.

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

#154

Post by sillygoose »

jackgavigan wrote: post #121
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…

> London's black cabs all have ramps. It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) must be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that weren't wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade. So, in addition to successfully completing…

> Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter.

Their lives must be miserable without The Queen's "taximeter"!

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

#155

Post by true_religion »

jackgavigan wrote: post #121
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…

> London's black cabs all have ramps. It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) must be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that weren't wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade. So, in addition to successfully completing…

I think its fair to say...

Follow all these regulations and we'll let you do business on the public streets.

or

Do business in private, via the phone or internet, and you don't have to follow these regulations.

---

Don't force the choice by saying regulations apply to everyone, even people who aren't going to get any benefit out of it. Uber doesn't have to use wheel-chair accessible vehicles, but they also can't respond if someone hails them on the street. This isn't a problem because they're fairly successful, but I imagine in a more competitive environment they'd actually feel the pinch by seeing other people picked up by random cabs, or black cars but they can't even interact with the customer who is 5 feet away from them because it's not via the app.

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

#156

Post by true_religion »

sillygoose wrote: post #154
jackgavigan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> London's black cabs all have ramps. It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) must be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that weren't wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade. So, in addition to successfully completing…

> Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter. Their lives must be miserable without The Queen's "taximeter"!

I think the UK situation is fair. If the uber app lets you go to random destinations, or charges you extra per the mile, then it is a meter.

Uber should be just like a black car service: point A to point B, with no extras. If Uber doesn't find this as profitable, they're free to open a segment of their company that actually is a taxi service and follows regulation in exchange for picking up the public and being able to run a meter on public traffic.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

sillygoose wrote: post #154
jackgavigan wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> London's black cabs all have ramps. It's worth noting that this is due to a legal requirement that all licensed taxis (i.e. black taxis) must be wheelchair accessible. I think that requirement came into force around 1999 and it resulted in a lot of older taxis that weren't wheelchair-accessible being sold on the second-hand market when their owners were forced to upgrade. So, in addition to successfully completing…

> Other cab drivers (driving what are typically referred to as minicabs or "private hire vehicles") are supposed to agree a fare with the passenger up front and are specifically prohibited, by law, from using a taximeter. Their lives must be miserable without The Queen's "taximeter"!

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by wang_li »

stevenjohns wrote: post #107
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 se…

They won't compete. There's a reason that the ADA exists and it's not because people are mean, it's because it's more expensive to support people with disabilities. And because disabled customers are a very small portion of the total customers service providers would just forgo their business. The end result being there is no competition and without a legal requirement, there would generally be no accommodations.

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

#159

Post by true_religion »

URSpider94 wrote: post #133
viscanti wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, it happened twice to her in two weeks. The question is, does Uber have training in place on what rights a disabled passenger has? Do they discipline or dismiss drivers who receive disability complaints? It sounds like Uber's response has been that it has no duty to support or enforce the ADA. Uber is forcing taxis out of business. One of the reasons that taxis are regulated is that they are bound by law to transp…

Taxis are regulated primarily because they do business on public streets. If the only way to get a taxi were to call them up, there'd be far less of a reason to regulate them.

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

#160

Post by true_religion »

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.

I agree. Their statement is that they are a black car service, not a taxi service.

Personally I think having a meter in the car makes them a taxi, and I'm glad to see the UK government agrees.

However, if they simply take out their meter they are a black car service and only have to comply with the rules set about for those.

Just being a better private car service, doesn't make them illegal by default.

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