
Ride That Nearly Killed Me Changed How I Think About Ride-Hailing Apps - monsieurpng
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-01-19/a-grab-ride-nearly-killed-me-ride-sharing-needs-to-get-safer
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toolz
What a strange article. It had plenty of emotional language that led me to
believe there was some build up to a story about the driver being horribly
unqualified to drive, but in the end the driver already had a taxi license.

What was the point? That we should use taxi's without apps instead? Why?
Because sometimes wrecks happen and this time it happened in a ride-share?

There were some anecdotes about a driver driving for 12 hours and another
driver claiming they hadn't been behind the wheel in years, but how reliable
is that data I wonder?

I was hoping to learn something other than the authors bias.

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eh78ssxv2f
Yeah, I found the article to be very confusing too. The author seems to be
upset that the driver and the passenger lost a lot of money/ body parts, but
Grab did not lose anything. Sure, but the author fails to explain why Gab
_should_ lose anything?

It's like complaining that my Prius had an accident with somebody's Tesla, but
Toyota and Tesla CEOs did not lose anything. Why should they?

~~~
mikeash
It’s more like complaining that you were in an accident that was the fault of
a Toyota employee, but Toyota didn’t lose anything.

Should a company be liable for losses caused by their workers while they’re on
the job? Seems to me like the answer is yes, at least most of the time.

~~~
isostatic
Sal's cars, based in Northwich in the UK, charge drivers a 'radio fee', and
send cabs their way. They don't employ the drivers, they don't own the cars.

I struggle to see how Uber is any different to Sal's cars.

In the UK, Uber requires its drivers to have taxi insurance. In addition, it
has 'backstop insurance', just in case an uber driver had lost their insurance
/ license.

I'd far rather be in an Uber in the UK than a typical minicab in the UK. Or a
typical yellow taxi in new york.

~~~
mikeash
Do I, as a customer, need to carefully scrutinize the employment relationship
used for every service I use?

Let’s say I call a plumbing company to fix a sink and the plumber floods my
house. The company tells me, “That plumber is an independent contractor not
employed by us. You’ll have to get restitution directly from him. Good luck,
bye!”

I certainly wouldn’t accept this. I didn’t sign up to have some unknown third
party do the work and be responsible for the outcome, I signed up to have the
company I’m paying do it.

Imagine if your car is defective and the manufacturer tells you to get
restitution from the subcontractors that made the part. Or if you bought a
sandwich full of arsenic and they told you to talk to some random farmer who
happened to grow the affected vegetable.

These companies want to have it both ways. They want to completely own the
relationship with the customer... until something goes wrong. Then it’s all,
“we’re just a broker for independent contractors, they’re responsible for
everything, don’t talk to us.”

There’s nothing wrong with just being a broker, but you have to be consistent.

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pryelluw
This past week I rode a lyft to a tech meetup in Atlanta. The drive was about
an hour away, which meant that the fastest route was through the interstate
(I75).

The car was a 4 year old Toyota Camry. It looked very nice from the outside
and was very clean inside. The driver was a very friendly man who drove very
carefully. Rather surprising here in Atlanta.

However, the one thing that made the ride highly dangerous:

The car had a blown strut (shock absorber) on the front right side. It was not
very noticeable at low speeds. There were little vibrations coming through the
floorpan but it could have easily been the tires needing a rotation or
slightly out of balance.

When we got into I75 that's when I was scared for my life. Doing 70+ MPH on a
car with a blown front strut is very dangerous. It vibrated and shook as if it
was going to break in two any moment. I told the driver to slow the fuck down
because we would have an accident. He did. Then I explained why. The driver
mentioned being in an accident a month ago. He had fixed the cosmetics, but
not the mechanicam because "a friend told him it was ok".

I made it to the tech meetup in one piece. Yes, I could have requested another
car, but decided to not stop on an unknown area of Atlanta.

Lyft must make sure the cars are in good mechanical condition. It must also
provide a way to report this sort of incident directly.

How do I know about what was wrong with the car? Im a master mechanic who used
to specialize and work for Toyota.

This incident made me realize Im better off driving downtown. Which is a bit
insane given how awful people drive there.

~~~
isostatic
How would this be any difference with a legacy taxi company?

~~~
pryelluw
I understand where you are coming from, but the question is flawed. All taxi /
ride companies must meet some kind of safety and maintenance standards. No
matter who it is.

Looking back and saying "Taxi companies were also as bad" is a terrible way to
dismiss the need for regulation.

These contractors should have their cars inspected every n months or n amount
of miles by a certified shop.

Lyft should also provide a way to allow users to report safety / mechanical
problems and temporarily remove that car from service (not the driver) until
it is fixed.

~~~
isostatic
In the UK taxis have a more rigorous safety test each year (more rigorous than
the normal safety test all UK cars over 3 years have to have), but that
wouldn't help in a situation where it was in an "accident a month ago"

Not sure about lyft, but Uber certainly does allow you to report such issues
-- certainly more easilly than the majority of taxi or private hire companies.

Again in the UK you can always simply complain to the licensing authority --
easy to do with uber (you have the registration and driver's name), but fairly
easy to do with
[http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/taxicomplaintform.htm](http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/taxicomplaintform.htm)

Despite all this, entrenched taxi drivers still complain about uber in the UK
("it's too popular and causes congestion and pollution, unlike black cabs with
their express lanes for rich people to bypass the traffic")

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jscholes
The CEO himself sent texts to the article's author, and visited her several
times. How many people get a visit or a text from Uber's CEO when there's an
accident, when a disabled person is refused service because of their
assistance dog, etc? Not many, because they're not journalists. If a company
lays on everything they've got when they know the subject of an accident is a
prominent journalist, but that person ends up thinking they should be doing
more regardless... that makes it pretty clear these companies can do better.

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sixtypoundhound
While I feel sympathy for the writer, there are few items of note before
applying this beyond Singapore:

\- Believe all drivers for hire in the US are required to have mandatory
liability insurance; that would address at least part of the financial
consequences of the accident.

\- Don't the market leading US ride-share apps track driver performance and
post ratings?

\- Driver ride ratings are likely a poor predictor of severe events; you
probably need something more along the lines of hard breaking incidents per
mile (used to predict issues for trucks and service vehicles). IOT can get you
this.

I think more importantly, the driver already had a legally issued cab
license... if he wasn't driving for a ride-share company, he would have been
driving a regular cab. The risk management failure was at the state level not
the company.

~~~
Zigurd
Re hard braking: Smooth driving may be a nice-to-have, rather than an clear
indicator. Or, to put it another way, if there is a useful signal in apps that
score driving smoothness and lack of distraction from phone calls and texts,
extracting that signal from the noise of whether the driver frequents
dangerous roads, drives at night, drives fatigued, intoxicated, is using a
second mobile device, in bad weather, etc. isn't easy. Or, to put it yet
another way, the real signal isn't in the score provided to the driver, it may
be something the driver would consider unfair and outside their control in
many cases.

These apps influence drivers to drive more smoothly, which is useful for ride
hailing since it improves the perceived quality of the ride, but that's much
less directly connected to safety.

~~~
vonseel
_is using a second mobile device_

Initially I was like “versus using a single mobile device? What?” But I see
what you’re saying here... the apps should be able to prevent or detect use by
drivers while in motion.

On the other hand, this prompted some thought about how distracting in-car
entertainment systems can be. The late 2000s early touch-screen and some of
the non-touch screen systems are particularly horrible, like the early BMW
iDrive and its predecessor. Changing the air conditioning settings in those
cars is a UX nightmare.

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MrTonyD
I travel a lot - typically two weeks each month. I view Uber as very risky
compared to cabs. I once had an Uber driver whose phone got flaky during the
trip, so he said that he would drop me off (he turned into an industrial park
area that was completely deserted to leave me.) He said that if Uber didn't
see him complete the trip then he wouldn't get paid and would be working for
free, so he wouldn't take me any further than where we happened to be. Another
time I had a 1 mile commute in 115 degree heat. Well, no Uber driver would
come to pick me up for a one mile commute. I tried and tried for over an hour,
while other people were catching Ubers with no problem. Another time I had to
go to the next town over, and nobody wanted to pick me up for that trip, so I
again found myself stranded by using Uber. Then there is the fact that so many
Uber drivers are obviouly just barely surviving financially, and all that
entails.

I've been taking taxis for decades - and never had any problems in the United
States.

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joshuaheard
Cabbies aren't much better. I had a cab driver once that apparently didn't
realize the gas and brake pedals had a range of motion. He stomped on the gas
pedal to the floor to go, and stomped on the brake to the floor to slow down.
And so we went down the street every 100 feet, accelerating like mad then
screeching the tires to stop, over and over again.

~~~
vonseel
An Uber driver did this with me recently. It was late at night (bar pickups).
The driver was an older, professional looking gentleman but told me he was
tired and “had not driven in a few months”.

~~~
illumin8
That's code for "I've never driven before today and I don't have a license,
but my family member let me login to his Uber account and drive his car..."

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chrismeller
I don’t really understand what this article is trying to accomplish. Most of
it is purely about the emotional impact of a car accident and realistically
that’s going to be largely the same even if you were the one driving the car,
it follows the same basic grief cycle as any tragedy.

> Singapore’s government requires drivers for services such as Grab to be
> licensed, a process that includes a background check, medical screening,
> classroom instruction, and a written test. The city-state used to require 60
> hours of training for taxi drivers to earn a vocational license. That’s now
> 25, which is still longer than the 10-hour course required for private-hire
> car drivers. In those 10 hours—two of which can be done outside the
> classroom as “self-study”—applicants are supposed to learn all they need to
> know about service quality and road rules.

> Grab notes that Singapore law forbids the company access to driving or
> criminal records, and that authorities wouldn’t have issued a vocational
> license if they judged Chia to have a poor record.

Those two quotes pretty much sum up the rest and, at least to me, paint a
different picture than the one she drew. Even if you somehow single out a ride
hailing service as being different than an actual taxi or driving yourself /
carpooling with a friend / etc. (which hardly seems to be justified in this
case) it seems like Grab followed the law and if anything there is blame to be
placed upon the government of Singapore by restricting their access to
additional information.

> But we deserve more than expressions of remorse from companies such as Grab.
> Detailed safety records would be a good place to start.

I’m not sure how healthcare works in Singapore, but there was no mention of
medical bills, so I’m curious what exactly Grab could or should have done
above and beyond having their CEO visit her multiple times?

> Grab says that at the time of the accident, Chia had a valid license and had
> completed more than 500 rides on the platform with a good passenger rating,
> and his record was spotless.

So the driver had a spotless record while at Grab and the company has no
access to his prior driving history. Exactly what other detailed safety
records should they start with?

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kayoone
Even though this driver had a license, many drivers in other countries where
Uber operates do not. Part of why classic Uber is not in Germany is because
you need an extra license to be allowed to drive passengers around for money,
this includes deep knowledge of the area you are working in and a bunch of
other tests and checks.

I think it makes sense that not just anyone is allowed to do this, even though
i see a lot of cab drivers driving pretty recklessly, but in general they at
least seem very experienced and the cars are usually very modern and safe.

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rjf72
There's one major problem with apps of any sort of scale that involve any
scenario where dangerous accidents are possible. The problem is that as these
apps scale, these accidents _will_ happen, and with a degree of regularity
that also scales alongside the growth of the app/company - even when there is
absolutely 0 negligence involved. And the media then takes these anecdotal
bits and implies they are representative of the service itself, further
implying negligence.

In this case the article mentions that the driver was an actively licensed
taxi/vocational driver that had been driving taxis on and off for 40+ years.
And had completed more than 500 flawless rides on Grab in his month of work
with them, with a good overall review rating. The only thing the author
mentions as something trying to be framed as a red flag is that in his decades
of driving, the driver states he had "several small and big road accidents."

Let's look into that. This [1] article from the NYTimes indicates that taxis
get into crashes about 4.6 times per million miles driven, which was
substantially better than the rate for non-taxi drivers. Another search
indicated that taxi drivers hit around 70k miles per year. [2] So we now have
the numbers we need. 1 million / 70k / 4.6 = 1 crash per 3.1 years. That means
a perfectly average taxi driver gets into a crash every 3.1 years of driving
on average. A taxi driver that's been driving for 40 years would expect to get
into an average of about 13 crashes. Given that the article mentions our
driver drove taxis "on and off", his accounting of "several" means he was
probably just about perfectly average.

The point of this is that anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. I suppose like the
old saying goes, _Dog bites man is not news. Man bites dog is news._ Yet when
all you see from media is reporting these incidents of man bites dog, it leads
to a distorted worldview where there seems to be a rash of men biting dogs.

[1] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/nyregion/that-wild-
taxi-r...](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/28/nyregion/that-wild-taxi-ride-is-
safer-than-you-think-a-study-says.html)

[2] - [https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-
in-i...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-in-its-life-
as-a-taxi)

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satellitec4t
One thing I notice is she says the ride app GPS took the driver through local
roads instead of the highway.

I had a similar experience with Uber recently.

There is a road that goes pretty much straight from the airport to my house,
though it's a busy, slow road. Instead the uber gps had us going all over the
place, through many intersections and left turns. It might have saved 1 or 2
minutes, but surely cost way more in gas (and CO2) and was much more likely to
result in an accident. I felt bad for the driver, having to drive such a
confusing and stressful route.

I'm not sure if it made my route more expensive. The cost is set before we
leave, so any route has the same cost. But the drivers are paid more the
farther they go, so it costs uber more to pay him, when he could have gone a
way that's much shorter and doesn't take any longer.

~~~
llampx
How closely do Uber drivers have to follow the suggested route? Do they get
penalized if they often don't follow it?

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purplezooey
We're generally not very good at handling market externalities like this.
Injuries. Housing. Pollution. Corruption. We tend to think the market will
sort everything out. The question is, how many people have to die or suffer
while it corrects itself?

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icyftw
The title is misleading; the author was using a ride sharing app, not a cab.

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el_cujo
Yeah I'm not sure why the author chose that title, it makes you think its
going to be a "pro-ride sharing/anti-traditional taxi" piece. I wonder if this
is a click-bait strategy.

~~~
rjf72
Could be an allusion to the fact that the driver was a licensed taxi driver.

