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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

#131

Post by adoxyz »

valuearb wrote: post #120
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…

It's not the service animals that are the problem, is the "emotional support" animals, or more specifically, their owners.

100% agree. "emotional support" animals are basically a free pass for shitty people to take advantage of the system and take their non-trained, horribly mannered animals with them wherever they want, which sucks for people that have actual need for emotional support and service animals.

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

#132

Post by valuearb »

airstrike wrote: post #119
fastball wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's called the cost of doing business.

It's called suing deep pockets, not the persons actually liable.

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

#133

Post by mrweasel »

valuearb wrote: post #111
rectang wrote: post #10

> It rejected Uber's claim that the company itself was not liable, because, it argued, its drivers had the status of contractors rather than employees. Another example of how rideshare companies attempt to offload risk and liability onto individual drivers who are generally unprepared and unaware that this is happening. Insurance is a more important example (most rideshare drivers are not properly insured), but this…

Are you saying that the drivers didn't know what they were doing to this woman was wrong? Or are you claiming Uber told the drivers to mistreat her?

My guess is that either: They knew it was wrong, at least morally, but they didn’t feel like the payment justify the extra work, and they don’t want dogs in their cars. Or Uber failed to train their drivers correctly (assuming any training takes place and isn’t left to the individual contractors). Maybe Uber should sue the drivers for inflicting damage to their brand.

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

#134

Post by valuearb »

scsilver wrote: post #129
valuearb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the drivers didn't know what they were doing to this woman was wrong? Or are you claiming Uber told the drivers to mistreat her?

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…

What externalities?

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

#135

Post by sorokod »

snapetom wrote: post #117
jedberg wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I'd call it a UX issue, where the U here is both the driver and the passenger. There is no way for me to tell the driver I have a car seat, and there is no way for the driver to get extra compensation for it. Now that they've added tipping I can at least tip them extra, but they don't know that until after they give me a bad rating for "wasting their time".

Op is saying implementing that is a minor inconvenience for Uber. If they wanted you to be able to tell the driver, it would take them a couple of weeks.

Yup

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

#136

Post by Miner49er »

bonzini wrote: post #110
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".

> What if they're allergic, or deathly afraid of dogs? If they're afraid of dogs they shouldn't drive unknown people for a living, just like someone who's deathly afraid of blood probably won't be a surgeon. Allergy could be handled by Uber, who should be provided by the driver with a medical certification of the allergy and shouldn't even show that car to the blind customer (if the ADA allows that). I think the driv…

> Allergy could be handled by Uber, who should be provided by the driver with a medical certification of the allergy and shouldn't even show that car to the blind customer.

IANAL, but I don't think it is that simple. Small towns sometimes only have one driver at a time. If there's one driver, they _have_ to take a service animal, by law. Allergy or fear of dogs is not good enough.

Admittedly the liability for the driver denying anyway wouldn't be on the driver, it would be on Uber, but I doubt they want to be paying $1 million every time this happens.

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

#138

Post by adoxyz »

ehmmmmmmmm wrote: post #113
adoxyz wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's discrimination against people with disabilities and per the ADA illegal.

So if I really need the cash, I need to risk my life and the customer's life in the name of ADA compliance ...

With that kind of logic, why not just a rob a bank if you really need cash. They're both illegal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#139

Post by shariqm »

throwaway4good wrote: post #51

A blind woman who was refused rides on 14 occasions - did this happen only to her? Or is it a broaded problem ... I cannot imagine she would be the only blind person taking an uber ...

Yeah, this isn't the first time: https://dralegal.org/case/national-federation-of-the-blind-o...

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

#140

Post by teraflop »

valuearb wrote: post #125
orf wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you compel others to do something, whatever it is that you've coerced them into doing cannot be a noble act > No good ultimately comes from that which is not freely chosen. > You get feedback about how your acts are impacting his life, which helps you be a better friend. > This ends up hurting more people than you help. What an absolutely mind numblingly self centered and brain-dead take. It's got nothing to d…

I have no problem with the government paying for ADA accommodations, and all of us sharing in the tax burden for them. Why should their costs be forced on a narrow group of businesses in unequal ways?

If some business models have a harder time providing equal accommodations to disabled people than others, why is it "unequal" for those business models to pay a correspondingly larger cost? Seems like a pretty reasonable negative incentive to me.
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