
Are Uber and Lyft responsible for reducing DUIs? - robg
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/10/are-uber-and-lyft-responsible-for-reducing-duis/
======
nostromo
I doubt it has anything to do with Uber/Lyft specifically and everything to do
with the availability of cabs. So, another way of framing this: how many DUI
deaths have been caused by artificial limitations on the number of cab
licences over the years?

In Seattle when I was in my early 20s, it was nearly impossible to call or
catch a cab when the bars closed, so often we just walked home. And on New
Year's Eve? Forget about it...

Incidentally, walking in a city while drunk is also dangerous. For about a
third of U.S. pedestrian deaths, the _pedestrian_ was drunk, according to one
study. [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/drunk-walking-leads-
pedestria...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/drunk-walking-leads-pedestrians-
fatalities)

~~~
lsc
My impression is that it's primarily the interface and reliability that makes
Uber/Lyft better. Sure, short wait times are a nice bonus, but the primary
problem with regular cabs isn't the speed so much as the unpredictability.

The problem is that I can't count on the voice-operated cab system. I have to
call, and then wait outside at the pickup point, with a 50% chance of the cab
actually getting there, at which point you call and get another 50% chance of
the cab getting there within 30 minutes, at which point you repeat.

I have no idea if it's going to be 5 minutes or 120 minutes. I have to stay
outside, too, because they won't call me when it's there.

If a cab took an hour but I could set it up on my phone while I was still in
the bar, and it would alert me when it got there? That would be just fine with
me.

Now, the local cab company could (and perhaps has, I have not checked lately)
create an app that does just this; I don't really mind waiting half an hour if
I had some assurance that the car would be there in half an hour.

~~~
philwelch
> I don't really mind waiting half an hour if I had some assurance that the
> car would be there in half an hour.

But why would you, if you could get a car within minutes?

~~~
lsc
>But why would you, if you could get a car within minutes?

Obviously, given the choice between a good interface with slow service and a
good interface with fast service, at similar price points, I'll pick the
latter.

I was just saying that even if uber/lyft did not add more cabs to the road
(decreasing my wait time) - and that's the part where some are suggesting they
are engaging in "regulatory arbitrage"\- just having a uber-like interface to
a regular cab company would take the pre-existing cab system from "not good
enough" to "good enough" for me to use on nights out. For me, at least, the
interface (a lot of which is the ability to not need to watch for the cab) is
more important than the speed.

(Of course, would existing cab companies bother to use a new system, when all
their cabs are already full?)

------
GeorgeOrr
I particularly like that I don't have to deal with cash while tipsy and in the
dark of night.

I've never used Lyft, but I have used Uber and usually find them them be quick
and very service oriented. From what I've heard Lyft is given them competition
in both ways, so I look forward to trying them as well.

Far better than any cab I've ever taken.

~~~
AlexMax
The cabs I've used in the last few years have all had credit card swipers in
the car. I figured this would be a universal feature of any moderately
populated cities' cab system in 2014.

~~~
jpb0104
I've been in cabs where they give you a hard time about paying with credit
cards, I'm assuming because of the fees or they'd rather deal with cash maybe
under the table?

------
danso
Spoiler alert. The answer to the headline is, "Who knows? But nice to wonder,
eh?"

> _Again, caveats are in order. We 've simply plotted arrests on a timeline
> here; we haven't adjusted for changes in the city's population, or bar
> scene, or the economy. Any number of other things may have changed in the
> city over the last few years affecting DUI arrests. It's possible police
> have changed how they conduct DUI stops and arrests, or that public pressure
> on them to crack down on DUIs has ebbed with time. Other changes in public
> transit service may have impacted alternative routes that bar-hoppers take
> home._

 _It 's also striking that San Francisco and Philadelphia show a steep and
parallel rise in DUIs long before these services ever came to town; on both
charts, it looks as if DUI numbers may be returning to an older normal as much
as they've been falling. Perhaps these services have arrived on the market
just in time to ride the benefits of an improving economy? (More theories on
this welcome below as well)._

It's sad that traffic-desperate news sites have forgotten how to write a
assertive, non-question headline...something like "Measuring ride-sharing's
impact on DUIs requires more data" would do just fine.

~~~
JetSpiegel
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)
continues to apply then.

Nothing to see here.

------
jxf
It seems very difficult to conclude that Uber and Lyft are responsible for
reducing DUIs from that graph.

* There's already a downward trend well before Uber and Lyft come into play.

* Even if the downward trend is stronger more recently, Waze also came into existence a few years ago. Maybe people were, e.g., downloading Waze and using it to find police cars beforehand.

* The graph measures arrests, not incidents. So it could be that, for instance, police are getting laxer about DUI enforcement, rather than that people are driving drunk less.

In short, there's too many confounding factors here to conclude that Lyft and
Uber should get credit.

~~~
jessaustin
_So it could be that, for instance, police are getting laxer about DUI
enforcement, rather than that people are driving drunk less._

This may be true somewhere, but not anywhere that federal anti-DUI funds are
tied to purchase of new vehicles and equipment. In those places, i.e. most of
the nation, there is no laxity, even though there certainly should be.

------
withdavidli
While I hope this would be true, all the graphs tells me is that we're going
back down to 2003-2005 levels of DUIs. There can be several causes for this,
maybe education on not to DUI caused it, maybe less people can afford cars
(just read an articles that teens/ people in their 20s have aren't buying cars
as much as previous generations), or want to drive in cities like SF where a
day's parking can cost more than $30, you have to circle around several blocks
to find a free space.

I do like the idea of not driving, and think the DUI rate will rapidly
decrease once things like self driving cars better enable us to give up
personal vehicles.

------
parfe
The interesting observation is how the economy correlates to dui arrests.
Either through people maintaining their lifestyle but not being able to afford
a cab or police departments reacting to cuts in funding.

Crediting uber is a startup echo-chamber delusion.

------
Nursie
Meh. This just sounds like a rehash of the Uber press release from a while
back - [http://blog.uber.com/tag/dui/](http://blog.uber.com/tag/dui/)

I doubt they're having much impact, personally, unless in cities where there
isn't much of a developed cab infrastructure already, and people drive for a
night out. This probably doesn't describe anywhere outside the US.

------
ulisesrmzroche
It's just plotting the number of monthly arrests, that doesn't tell you much.

------
vampirechicken
More interesting to me are the statistics on drunk walking deaths. According
to freakonomics.com, it is more dangerous to walk drunk then to drive drunk.
I'd like to see those stats with the DUI stats.

------
paulhauggis
I find it quite interesting that when private schools are mentioned as an
alternative to some of the terrible public schools we have in the US, the HN
majority (which I now need to mention as a whole, since most things are down
voted if they don't fit the opinion of HN) goes crazy and talks about how
anti-union this, etc.

But, both Uber and Lyft are completely going around the taxi unions in many
cities in the US by not paying regulatory fees and it's a-ok.

~~~
dang
> most things are down voted if they don't fit the opinion of HN

There is no such thing as "the opinion of HN". The community is divided on
most issues. Different constituencies upvote and downvote different things.

There's a bias on some issues, like NSA/Snowden (albeit with a substantial
dissenting minority). But on typical left vs. right issues, my sense is that
the community is about evenly split, and so are the complaints of bias.

