
Uber Hasn't Had an Effect on Drunken-Driving Deaths, Study Finds - mdagostino
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/29/487906925/uber-hasnt-had-an-effect-on-drunken-driving-deaths-study-finds
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seibelj
I live in Boston. Until uber, the minimum taxi fair was $6, they always had
broken credit card machines, and there was never enough cabs when you needed
them. I remember s New Year's Eve where we had to promise the dispatcher we
would pay a $100 tip to get anyone to pick us up. The "reducing drunk driving"
theory was a happy side effect but ultimately not important. Über destroyed a
a BS industry full of idiots and made it professional and reliable.

~~~
p4wnc6
I lived in Cambridge for eight years (moved last summer) and never experienced
anything remotely like this. I lived on Prospect Street right near Central Sq,
and frequently took taxis around the area.

I called ahead to have taxis pick me up for early morning rides to the
airport, and they were always early and helped me with my bags. I took taxis
over to the Boston College area when I was taking music lessons at a studio
there. I took taxis home from sports events and concerts near Fenway. Even
when coming out of a crowded show at House of Blues, it was a short wait for
taxis.

I never once experienced a broken credit card machine. I once did ask a driver
if they accepted credit cards, he said no, and I waited about 30 seconds for
the next taxi to come by -- on a side street on the Somerville side of Porter
Sq, so not even close to usual taxi spots.

Getting taxis in Boston is cheap, safe, and reliable, with pretty short wait
times, easy to deal with dispatchers, drivers who show up on time, cars that
are clean and 99.999% of the time have functioning credit card machines.

I honestly don't know what on earth you're talking about.

None of this is an argument _against_ Uber anyway, because people use Uber for
features that even good taxis don't have, including price reduction, better
real-time tracking, an app interface, and other things. And Uber drivers
certainly can do things worse than taxis -- such as simply fail to show up,
treat you rudely during the ride, or try to make you exit the car in an
inconvenient/unsafe spot of the street at your destination. Uber is not
intrinsically better about this kind of thing than taxis.

But some things you absolutely cannot say, at least about taxis in the Boston
area, are that they are anything but clean, safe, reliable, punctual, and able
to take your credit card.

~~~
kaishiro
Well, this is why we have anecdotes I suppose. I lived in Boston and Brookline
for twelve years as well and find your claims equally laughable.

We quite frequently found ourselves in cabs with credit card readers, only to
be told they didn't work when it came time to pay. I also simply gave up using
cabs trying to get to Logan because while they would _usually_ be on time,
there were others when they simply wouldn't show up at all. Now you're under
the gun to find a ride - not sure if they're late or just not coming.

All I can say is that while I believe you when you say these things (I have no
reason to think you'd lie to make a point), I also think you've simply lived a
very charmed life when it comes to taxi service in Massachusetts.

The fact is, the taxis in Boston had very little reason to improve their
service prior to competition from Uber. Now they're being forced to adapt to
survive.

Edit: spelling

~~~
marcoperaza
I'm a big fan of Uber, but the secret to dealing with cabbies is to be firm
and obstinate. Like any street business, they're going to take advantage when
they smell weakness and fold when they sense strength. Credit card machine
doesn't work? Okay, here's the address where you can send me the bill. Don't
try to stop me from leaving the cab, it'll be a big mistake involving police
and you getting arrested for false imprisonment. Another thing I've done to
much success is negotiate the fare to the destination up front, which prevents
problems at the other end. Always remember that possession is nine-tenths of
the law and that as long as you're in possession of the money, you're in the
position of power. And when you act as such, you'll get more respect from the
cabbies to begin with.

~~~
kaishiro
Or I could just use Uber :)

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mc32
So responsible people are trading Yellow taxis for Über and irresponsible
people are still driving while intoxicated. Or, alternatively, the amount of
drunk drivers is so huge that whatever number taxis and Uber take off the
streets is negligible in relative numbers.

But ride services want to promulgate the idea to cities they bring safety in
order to counterbalance the annoyed voices of the yellow cabs decrying the
conditions the ride service drivers must endure...

~~~
officemonkey
Or perhaps, drunk driving happens in areas where Taxis, Mass Transit, and Uber
are not available or economical.

~~~
mc32
"Researchers... looked at the 100 most populated metropolitan areas, analyzing
data from before and after the introduction of Uber and its competitors"

Fair inquiry, but no. They studied the top 100 metro areas, not the Podunks.
Now, it does not say whether the rate has remained steady despite, perhaps, an
increase in people who now feel comfortable getting drunk cuz they can get a
cab fairly easily with the intro of ride services. However, they have not
decreased the totals, as they have claimed, according to the findings.

~~~
officemonkey
Uber doesn't launch in areas where there isn't a market. If there is no need
for extensive taxi and mass transit services, Uber won't be there either.

I maintain that Uber is just another option in the top 100 metro areas. If
Uber did work everywhere, then I am sure you would see reductions in places
that do not have competing services.

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sandworm101
From talking to Brits, I'm starting to think that the greater availability of
alternatives to driving one's self home seems to increase drinking. The need
to get home, to get one's car home, is a good reason not to drink. During
university I rode a motorcycle to school/work and can say it kept me away from
many an afternoon at a beer garden. London's nightlife, the serious drinking,
can only exist because nobody has to drive themselves home.

So dropping Uber into a city, giving them another option for getting home,
might increase the overall level of drinking. This would muddy the drink-
driving numbers. For every drunk driven safely home by Uber there may be some
other person out there pressured into having a drink that otherwise wouldn't.
And some of them might drive.

~~~
laurencerowe
Drinking is definitely more socially acceptable in Britain than the US, but
that has more to do with differing history (no prohibition) than options for
getting home.

Drink driving became socially unacceptable in Britain only in the last 20-30
years but alcohol consumption hasn't really changed. The anti drink driving
ads on TV every Christmas were really quite hard hitting. I've seen nothing
similar in the US.

~~~
smt88
The US has extensive ads fighting drinking and driving. I imagine there isn't
much difference there.

~~~
DanBC
The UK has had drink driving ads on mainstream TV for 50 years, since 1964.

This BBC page shows some of the ads, and discusses others.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29894885](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29894885)

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philip1209
It sounds like the null hypothesis is that Uber has not affected drunken
driving deaths. Didn't the study just fail to disprove the null hypothesis,
meaning that its result is meaningless and inconclusive?

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austinl
It's worth reading the other report [1] the article cites — it's a lot more
comprehensive than the author makes it out to be. The study didn't find a
relationship between Uber and alcohol-involved accidents/fatalities (which the
NPR article is about), but did find a statistically significant relationship
between Uber, traffic fatalities, and DUIs. They also found that introducing
Uber increases auto-theft.

 _Using a differences-in-differences specification, we find that fatal
accident rates generally decline after the introduction of Uber. Specifically,
in the unweighted regressions, we find that entry is associated with a 6
percent decline in the fatal accident rate. Fatal night-time crashes
experience a slightly larger decline of 18 percent. In both the weighted and
unweighted estimations, we also discover a continued decline in the overall
fatal crash rate and the rate of vehicular fatalities for the months following
the introduction of Uber. For each additional year of operation, Uber’s
continued presence is associated with a 16.6 percent decline in vehicular
fatalities._

...

 _Again employing a differences-in-differences specification, typically with
county specific trends, we find a large and robust decline in the arrest rate
for DUIs. Depending upon specification, DUIs are 15 to 62 percent lower after
the entry of Uber. The average annual rate of decline after the introduction
of Uber is 51.3 percent per year for DUIs._

[1]
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2783797](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2783797)

~~~
scythe
Classic case of proving the null hypothesis. The p-value hit the threshold for
DUIs and deaths, but not for alcohol-involved accidents. If you're wondering
_why_ , here's a hint: the mean rate for alcohol-involved accidents was less
than 1 in 100,000.

The headline, then: "Uber hasn't had an effect".

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Overtonwindow
Why does it seem the media is so intent on tearing Uber down. There have been
a lot of articles on HN about Uber is fucked, Uber is going down, Uber is
doomed... Uber is really great. No, they don't pay their drivers enough. No,
they don't do everything they can to ensure their drivers are responsible, and
vetted. Yet they provide an invaluable service against a corrupt, entrenched
industry that has needed a serious kick in the pants for as long as any of us
have been alive. Uber has a lot of improvements to make, but I would rather
have the option of choosing them over the corrupt taxi industry than not.

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gojomo
I'm suspicious. It seems the study may only be regressing on 'availability' of
Uber – the single bit flag of whether it has launched in a city. If adoption
is gradual, as the habits of drinkers/drivers change over months (or years),
beneficial effects might not be seen by such a study, or remain hidden by all
the other controls applied.

The best analysis would likely need to use ride volume data; there's no hint
in this study's abstract they've done that, and the paper is paywalled.

~~~
officemonkey
Uber doesn't launch in areas where there isn't a market. If there is no need
for extensive taxi and mass transit services, Uber won't be there either.

In places where Uber has launched, they're probably just picking up riders
that would normally take a cab or a train if Uber wasn't there.

~~~
gojomo
Of course they only enter markets where there's demand. But it takes a while
for people to understand and adopt something new as their preferred transit.
Some initially view Uber/etc as weird, before later becoming big fans.

In San Francisco, it appears Uber/Lyft have massively increased the total
number of paid-rides taken. They're not just shifting trips from taxis or
public transit, but also from private car usage – and creating new trips where
people would've just stayed in or walked.

That points out another stat a 'gold standard' study should try to identify:
fatalities per trips (or ride-miles) taken, rather than just absolute number
of fatalities. If cities with Uber have the same number of fatalities, but
spread over twice as much travel, that's giant safety and welfare win, too.

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stuaxo
Maybe all that's happened is people that used to take traditional taxis moved
onto Uber.

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shanacarp
I'm wondering if their thesis if off: is this due to where uber is rather than
cost

Ie - suburban to exburban uber is just expensive and rare, (low coverage), and
therefore people are more likely to drunk drive. I mean, how many taxis to
start with are there in small suburban towns?

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silveira
Maybe the group of people who drink and are responsible enough to call a Uber
does not significantly overlaps with the group who drinks and are
irresponsible enough to drive.

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xupybd
Totally off topic, but totally bugging me. Why is it (in this case) Effect not
affect?

~~~
bumblebeard
Effect is usually a noun and affect is usually a verb.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
That's not an explanation. Effect and affect are just different things with
different meanings both as nouns and verbs.

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nickgrosvenor
Commonsense says this study is flawed in someway. Uber has giving millions and
millions of car rides with drunk people, and how many of those wouldn't ride
with a sober friend or take the time to call a cab?

~~~
p4wnc6
Or perhaps the study says that common sense is flawed in some way? If the
study holds up to scrutiny (not saying it will) then updating to have new
common sense is the whole point.

