

Uber’s Denial of Liability in Death Raises Accident Accountability Questions - usaphp
http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/02/should-car-services-provide-insurance-whenever-their-driver-app-is-open/

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pedalpete
Suggesting that Uber is liable is probably going a bit far. He wasn't working
for the company at the time of the accident, so why would the company be
liable, in the same way that your employer is only liable for on the job
injuries when you're... on the job. Even your commute to and from work is not
covered (except possibly for some very strange circumstances).

At the same time, Uber could take a page out of AirBnB's playbook and just do
everything they can for the driver and the injured family. The driver is part
of their family of operators and the Liu family has just suffered a tragedy
which involved an Uber contractor, on the job or not.

This is an accident, it was completely unintentional and very unfortunate. I'm
actually saddened that the first reaction seems to be "who should be
responsible".

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steven2012
I think your analogy of an employee commuting to work is wrong.

Is a taxi cab driver only working for the taxi company while they are driving
passengers? I think most people probably would not think that's the case.
Driving the car is what Uber drivers are supposed to do, so it's not wrong to
assume that an Uber driver is working for Uber while driving around, waiting
for their next fare. The fact that their insurance doesn't cover an Uber
driver while in between fares sounds weird to me, but I guess it's a function
of the Uber driver's employment agreement with Uber, which is probably too
complex for regular people to be familiar with (I would never have guessed
it).

I think the more interesting legal question is whether or not Uber has
liability due to how potentially distracting the app is for an Uber driver.
Polk and Ellis is a fairly well-trafficked intersection, so if I had to
speculate, maybe the driver was distracted by the Uber app, looking for the
next ride. If that's the case, and Uber knowingly made an app that is
distracting to drivers, does Uber have any liability? If I were the family
that was hit, that's certainly a question I would ask.

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rahimnathwani
"...while driving around, waiting for their next fare."

Why drive around whilst waiting? It seems like a waste to do that unless
you're a licensed taxi (and are therefore permitted to pick up people who spot
you as you're driving around).

~~~
AxeFights
I would have to guess it has to do with the lack of parking, which is likely
the same reason why the rideshare services are appealing in the first place.

~~~
rahimnathwani
Maybe, but it seems easier to just pull up somewhere and wait. Even if meter
parking is expensive, you won't get a ticket for waiting in a meter spot if
you are in the car (and can therefore move on at any time).

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rahimnathwani
The key point in the article: "A rideshare driver might only have personal
insurance that might not cover them while they have a rideshare app open, but
the rideshare service might not cover them between rides."

This is the same as if I have car insurance, but it doesn't cover my current
activity. In the UK, for example, car insurance for individuals usually covers
at social, domestic and pleasure use ('SD&P'). When you buy insurance, you
need to tick additional boxes (and maybe pay extra) if you want it to cover
'commuting to and from a fixed place of work' and/or 'business use'. Neither
of these include using the car for deliveries or other things that are 'for
hire or reward'.

Anyway, from my reading of the article, the key point is that Uber buys
insurance which is meant to bridge the gap between the insurance the drivers
already have (e.g. SD&P) and what they're doing (for hire or reward) but that
the insurance may not do this exactly, leaving some unavoidable activity
uninsured.

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calciphus
There has been an odd conflation of Uber and Lyft lately, and I can only
assume it's on the part of people who want to stop one or both from existing.

Uber contracts out professional drivers who are already doing business as
professional drivers for other organizations. They're operating like a
dispatcher.

Lyft lets regular people pick up other folks using their own cars and
insurance. It is not the same thing.

I don't think this raises any accountability questions for Uber at all. It
should be a red flag to someone like Lyft, but honestly it's not a problem for
Uber. They have a contract (not employee) relationship with their drivers, and
not even an exclusive one at that. Most of the Uber drivers I know also
respond to requests from other dispatchers. They just tend to like Uber
better.

~~~
psychotik
UberX is essentially Lyft. Do you know if the driver involved was an UberX
driver or a professional driver? His car make/model seems to indicate UberX.

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mathattack
I don't know all the legal issues, but intuitively it seems strange to require
one employer of a contractor to be required to ensure they have insurance for
non-contracted work.

If a doctor delivers a baby at a hospital, would that hospital be liable if
the doctor delivers a baby in an emergency in someone's house?

If you contract someone to come in for 8 hours a month to help with payroll,
are you liable if they steal money from another company during their downtime?

This seems like part of an anti-Uber wave. (I have no stake in this horserace)

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upofadown
As a non-American I am missing some cultural context here. Where I live you
need liability insurance to register a car. I don't know why commercial
insurance is important.

The discussion about the apps possibly causing dangerous driving was hard for
me to understand. If the apps are causing drivers to run over people then that
is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Why would anyone care about
the insurance enough to talk about it in the same discussion?

~~~
DanBC
Your liability insurance probably only covers you for normal, personal, use of
your vehicle. I suspect that anyone using that insurance for commercial work
would not be covered if they had an accident. I don't think the insurance
company would pay out unless the driver had suitable commercial coverage.

~~~
upofadown
But if it didn't cover you then you would be deliberately driving uninsured.
Who would risk that?

~~~
DanBC
In the uk plenty of people knowingly drive un-insured. But sometimes people do
errands for work (take these letters to the post office) and don't realise
that they're uninsured.

And insurance companies employ huge quantities of people to find how people
aren't covered by their insirance.

