Uber must pay wheelchair user $35,000, provide accessible rides(vancouversun.com) |
Uber must pay wheelchair user $35,000, provide accessible rides(vancouversun.com) |
It is hard to scale because it requires drivers with well above average patience, empathy and a caring personality. It’s not a job for profit focused individuals.
To scale it would require drivers paid a salary not paid per trip/mile. It would also require generous allowances for time (wheelchair taxi drivers are often delayed through no fault of their own).
The best way around it is to push vehicles like the Cruise Origin that come with wheelchair-ready space by default but then you’re into purpose built vehicles that have their own downsides.
[0] https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45989501/gm-self-driving-...
What's a basic retrofit? I just looked and I think a ramp etc is less than 5000 EUR in Germany, installed?
And it is still often simpler to just buy a (subsidized) wheelchair van for the person and let their caretaker drive them.
To be glib: that's ridiculous. Offer $1000/ride and I guarantee you'll find a long line of patient, empathic and caring drivers signing up for your service.
It just costs money. Maintaining a wheelchair-capable vehicle and operating rides for wheelchair-bound people is simply more expensive than driving millenials around to their dinner dates. Someone needs to pay for that. Law suits and regulation like those detailed in the linked article are part of the mechanism by which we as a society decide how to do that.
Do you honestly believe paying a huge salary will attract kind empathetic people? I can say it will for sure attract a lot of people who will claim to be.
But I do think the genuine angels that do so much to help people do deserve to be paid well.
I think this is the interesting part. Uber was paying a fee per ride (previously $0.30, recently $0.90) which was supposed to go towards providing accessible transit options. This doesn't seem like an unreasonable way to ensure that there are accessible options while not requiring every provider to make those accommodations (which can be very expensive for smaller providers as in order to reliably offer accessible transit you need capable vesicles and always have them spread out over your operating range). It seems that raising/adjusing this fee and using the proceeds to subsidize accessible transit could be a quite efficient way to ensure that this service is available and self-balancing based on the market.
the BC Human Rights code has a provision "If there is a conflict between this Code and any other enactment, this Code prevails." So unless the taxi fee explicitly says it supersedes the human rights code it explicitly does not.
What an argument.
Because the drivers own the vehicles not Uber.
The fee Uber has been paying and the assertion that it doesn't protect a company from legal liability.
The fact that what initially seems like a horrid and ridiculous argument ("we're an app!") actually unpacks to something consequential.
The fact that Uber's model ostensibly relies on personal cars being used (so who's responsible for the lack of accessible cars?).
https://www.translink.ca/rider-guide/transit-accessibility/h...
and local taxi firm stories in general.
but think about how many more cents the investors made by ignoring the issue the last two+ quarters! /s
What a slimy, disgusting, in-human argument to make.
In this case, Uber is just a forum where people post ride availability and people look for ride availability.
It's not an outrageous argument to make, but it clearly didn't take. Presumably Uber will have to ensure there are sufficient UberWAV available in any region they offer normal services.
Also they are required to begin providing acceptable service.
So the business impact is much more severe than writing a check and forgetting about it. Canadian regulators are more than happy to shut down your whole business if you fail to comply with tribunal orders.
You're losing money on every transaction.
And no, you don't make it up in volume. You need to do 1750 other 20 dollar canadian rides just to make up for each handicapped ride. That's assuming you only want to break even, and you don't pay anything to your drivers.
That's a horrible business.
* Unless that country has "tiers" of laws. Often there are classes of laws that are always superior to each other. For example constitutions cannot be overriden by regular laws, regardless of time or clarity. But note that parliaments can generally amend constitutions too, so the equivilant is too conflicting constitutional laws. Some countries also have human rights laws that trump regular laws, and that is in effect what BC has set up with that provision.
You missed the point (and the joke).
No, but for $1000 even an asshole will act empathetic. I mean, go to a high end hotel or restaurant. You genuinely think that all those emphatically polite and helpful wait staff are doing it because they're nice people? No, they're doing it because (1) good service is required by their job and (2) their job pays better than similar jobs at proletarian places. So they do it. Same principle here.
Hopefully this is something you will never need to understand in life, but no it’s not the same as a sycophantic server.