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

bbc.com

171–180 of 502 posts

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

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t reject work for reasons that are illegal.

Don't know about the US but in the UK the Equality Act of 2010 allows drivers with documented allergies to refuse rides to service animals.

This is good. PTSD should be added to that as well.

Dogs send me into panic and it would be a bad idea for the law to force me to drive against it. I mean, I would because it's the law, and as a result, you would be in danger.

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

#172
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 don't think Uber/Lyft wants to take the responsibility of ADA compliance, because that is implying that their drivers are employees.

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

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company has fewer than 15 employees, it's exempt from the ADA's requirements. If it has 15 employees or more, then the law assumes that it's reasonable for the company to provide service (e.g. by reassigning a non-allergic employee to work with a customer who has a service dog) except where it would demonstrably create an undue hardship.

Then it is not clear to me why a driver that uses the Uber app to find passengers, who is not an Uber employee, would not be allowed to refuse a service animal.

[deleted]

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

#174
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it’s time to get into a different kind of business, really.

Not every Uber driver has much choice of a thousand companies trying to hire them.

I'm terrified of heights, I probably shouldn't get a job as a window cleaner. Not every window cleaner has a thousand companies trying to hire them either.

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

#175
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you also don't have to prove that your dog is the latter, so...

Many states have started implementing laws against falsely claiming service dogs. https://www.animallaw.info/content/fraudulent-service-dogs

I don't see how an unenforceable law would help deter people who want to claim a non service animal as a service animal. As mlyle notes above, there is no formalized certification or training process required by ADA, so anyone can claim they have PTSD and they trained their dog to be a service animal to help them with their PTSD. What is anyone going to be able to do about that?

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

#176
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…

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".

Seems rather simple: Let drivers with allergies put that in their profile. Let riders put that they have a service animal in. And the system just doesn't pair them together.

And now that the system knows someone has a service animal you can automatically review any cancelations by the driver and look for problems. I am actually kind of surprised that there isn't some review system already in place when a driver ends a trip early on someone. Unless the rider changes the destination, how can the driver not drop them off at the agreed upon location without getting flagged somehow?

Could even in rare cases, if there are absolutely no drivers without allergies around, offer them a bonus to take the rider anyways.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there was anyone signed up as a driver with Uber before the ADA existed but for the sake of argument, we can assume those people exist. Yes, I agree that they should receive government-funded training that teaches them to tolerate a service dog in their car. Every who signs up to be an Uber driver after the signing of the ADA must be capable of transporting service dogs.

That kind of policy means that people with PTSD from dogs who are desperate for a job will sign up and WILL experience PTSD and WILL endanger riders. It's a shitty policy IMO.

I feel like you might kind of be missing the point here...

Uber should have to deal with this systemically because it is shitty to just leave it up to the drivers.

Please note that in your example here, it is also shitty for the rider who is expecting to be driven somewhere safely.

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

#178

I'd like to go out on a limb and say that I don't agree with the ADA. I don't think any private person or organization should be compelled to provide facilities or services for anyone else, regardless of what their need is. I have no animus toward people with disabilities - I'm just saying that no one should be forced to help anyone else. If you want to do something for someone else's benefit, you should be free to d…

> When you try to coerce a group, you have no knowledge of the actual impact your rule actually has on anyone. And because you're not in the loop, it takes a great deal longer to change your rules.

> This ends up hurting more people than you help.

These 2 assertions seem to be at odds. If you can't see the impact of coercing a group to help, how did you make the determination that it hurts more people than it helps?

If your objection is moral, then the coercion is the issue and it doesn't matter if society benefits (by whatever metric one uses, e.g. "wellbeing"). If it _can_ be demonstrated that compelling Uber drivers to pick up passengers with disabilities benefits those passengers more than it hurts the drivers, would that change your mind? Or do you believe there's no possible way for compelling those drivers to be more beneficial than detrimental at a societal level?

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

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I was out for breakfast for the first time since the pandemic started this weekend (I'm fully vaccinated now) and in walks a guy with a dog sporting a "Service Animal" sash that in tiny letters said "emotional support". I was paralyzed - I was traumatized by my interactions with dogs when I was a kid; where's my say in having untrained animals in my vicinity? This kind of shit needs to be ended but there should be NO…

Yeah my brother's wife will completely shut down and start screaming if a dog comes within 5 feet of her. Where she grew up in China dogs were wild animals that would viciously attack you if you got near them, so it's a pretty understandable reaction. So I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted here.

Also having personally seen how poorly trained most peoples' dogs are I would be very uncomfortable having a random stranger's dog near me. A lot of the dogs I encounter on the street are neurotic wrecks incapable of passing without barking, leash pulling, or lunging.

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

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dri…

> Allergy or fear of dogs is not good enough.

I'm interested in this part. This seems to be counterintuitive. Is a waiter with a really bad peanut allergy required to serve a guest a dish with peanuts in it? Why does the clients (legitimate) health concerns override the drivers (also legitimate) health issues?

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