Thread

1. calibas · 1790002537 · focus · HN ↗

   > Stone rejected Uber's argument that it is "merely a technology company" connecting riders with drivers, finding that Uber provides transportation services to the public through its app, sets prices and controls key aspects of the rider experience.

   > The arbitrator also rejected Uber's argument that Proposition 22 -- a California ballot measure approved by voters in 2020 that allows companies to classify app-based drivers as independent contractors instead of employees -- prevented the company from being held liable for Tran's conduct.

   The dream of every major tech company, making ridiculous profits while taking zero legal responsibility for what you create...

   1. xhkkffbf · 1790004516 · focus · HN ↗

      The bad guy here is the driver. Could Uber have done more? That's what the arbitrators concluded.

      But the reality is that this is a victory for the driverless cars (Waymo, Tesla, etc.). If you want to force Uber to take responsibility for the driver, the simplest thing is to get rid of the driver.

      1. joshstrange · 1790006475 · focus · HN ↗

         > The bad guy here is the driver.

         We can agree that the driver made bad choices but I feel like you are skimming over the 2 women's responsibility in this situation. Intoxicated to the point of vomiting, arguing over the cleaning fee, and wandering away from the car while parked, yes illegally, on the freeway.

         Not sure what your experiences have been with drunk people but I can tell you that dealing with 1 drunk person can be hard to control, let alone 2.

         I'd be interested to hear where other people draw the line on the driver's culpability. If he left them at a gas station and one of them was still hit and killed by a car would he still be at fault? In my mind Uber/Lyft provide transportation, they aren't babysitters, there has to be a limit to their responsibility. Perhaps the driver was more at fault here but this outcome (how the driver reacted) is not in the slightest bit surprising to me given everything I know about Uber and how it treats drivers and passengers.

         1. jester997 · 1790007530 · focus · HN ↗

            If you don’t punish the corporation they won’t ensure they vet their employees and have strict policies and procedures around handling customers.

            So in my mind the driver was at fault criminal negligence, but when the driver can be any untrained pleb with a phone, the company assumes the risk and should be held liable.

            1. joshstrange · 1790007719 · focus · HN ↗

               I’m not at all opposed to Uber getting slapped. I just think that “the driver is the bad guy” is incredibly reductionist and absolves Uber of the responsibility that I think we both agree that hold.

               1. jester997 · 1790008027 · focus · HN ↗

                  The driver IS the bad guy. Any driver who stops and forces their customers onto a freeway doesn’t know how to drive, let alone shuttle people around for money. They would rather put people at risk than spend an hour cleaning their car. This is practically the definition of criminal negligence.

                  1. RHSeeger · 1790009946 · focus · HN ↗

                     Except for the fact that they don't actually know that's what happened.
                  2. redsocksfan45 · 1790018841 · focus · HN ↗

                     [dead]

            2. AnthonyMouse · 1790011008 · focus · HN ↗

               > If you don’t punish the corporation they won’t ensure they vet their employees and have strict policies and procedures around handling customers.

               What if that's what you want?

               Why should we be pressuring corporate middlemen to be regulators and law enforcement? They're not only bad at it and in no position to do it well, their attempts do more harm than good.

               How is a corporation supposed to "vet" drivers? The only plausible tools they have are things like background checks. So now you have someone who is only trying to put food on the table getting excluded from some of the only work it's easy to get quickly because they have an unrelated drug conviction from when they were 19 years old. Meanwhile the same thing happens in the case in question because that driver can pass the background check.

               Whereas if you put the liability on the driver, i.e. the person who is actually there and making the decision, then losing their fancy new car and maybe going to jail provides the right incentive to not dump people in a dangerous place, to the person who is actually choosing to do it.

               1. jester997 · 1790025847 · focus · HN ↗

                  “…excluded from some of the only work it's easy to get quickly…”

                  The platform enables anyone to interact with clients having minimal training except a drivers license. They are operating as agents of the corporation just classified as adjunct “gig workers.” Read: a loop hole to abdicate responsibility and blame the workers while the company makes money on them with minimal overhead.

                  Imagine an app where anyone could be an underpaid nurse, and said nurse poisons a patient with fentanyl. Who’s to blame then? The company for lack of oversight or the nurse? Or both?

                  1. AnthonyMouse · 1790064237 · focus · HN ↗

                     > The platform enables anyone to interact with clients having minimal training except a drivers license.

                     Wait until you hear about the companies operating a telephone network that lets anyone call or text each other.

                     > They are operating as agents of the corporation

                     So if the local library has a jobs board and you post a listing there, are you now an agent of the library and they should be responsible for everything you do?

                     What about the Post Office or FedEx? Should you be able to sue them if someone ships you defective goods?

                     > Imagine an app where anyone could be an underpaid nurse, and said nurse poisons a patient with fentanyl. Who’s to blame then?

                     Obviously the nurse. Why should it be someone other than the person who did it?

         2. boomboomsubban · 1790007699 · focus · HN ↗

            Dropping them off at a gore is basically throwing them in the middle of the highway, many of them don't have easy access to a safe location without crossing the highway.

            The court itself said taking the nearby exit would have allowed him to drop them off at a safe location. Yes, they could have injured themselves after that, but it's not the same.

         3. SirSavary · 1790007752 · focus · HN ↗

            Why don’t you read the case in question before wildly speculating as to the responsibilities of a rideshare driver?

            You can’t dump your passengers on the freeway, for any reason. It’s not safe for them or for the other drivers on the road.

            1. joshstrange · 1790008092 · focus · HN ↗

               I did read it. In fact, I read a good bit of the PDF, not just the wiki. There are a lot of unanswered questions, and the PDF admits that. No one can seem to agree on exactly what happened or the sequence of events.

               What’s not in question is that the two women were extremely intoxicated to the point of vomiting on themselves. The PDF alleges that one of the women shouted that there was an emergency, which is what originally caused the driver to pull over where he did.

               It’s still not clear to me how much of this was the driver forcing them out and leaving them, and how much was they got out, refused to pay the cleaning fee, and so he just left them.

               We aren’t getting clear views of what happened at all from the two people left alive.

               1. fragmede · 1790008584 · focus · HN ↗

                  What we can ask, however, is why isn't there a worldwide " I need help" button? Doesn't matter what your problem is, of what variety, you need help. The driver could have rang that, either of the women could have. Instead, one of the three people are dead. Oh well.

                  1. joshstrange · 1790009065 · focus · HN ↗

                     I’m not at all trying to downplay Uber’s responsibly here, I also am not pretending the driver is not at fault, however everyone seems to want to put the full/majority of the blame on the driver while reserving a bit for Uber as well. This whole subthread posits that self-driving cars would solve this (I find that laughable).

                     My point is: where do we draw the line? Intoxicated people are going to act irrationally and at what point does “low paid person who shuttles people from point A to point B” become responsible for the actions of their riders?

                     It’s still unclear how much of this was “forced out of the car” and “got out to argue and refused to get back in”, the timeline of events is incredibly muddy (as the linked PDF agrees) and having dealt with very intoxicated people I can easily imagine the challenges the driver (who doesn’t appear to speak English well or at all given they needed a translator in the arbitration) faced dealing with 2 drunk and irrational passengers.

                     Let me be crystal clear, I don’t at all think “oh well, someone died”. But attacking the driver isn’t going to fix the system that caused this.

                  2. crazygringo · 1790009652 · focus · HN ↗

                     I don't understand. What would such a button have done?

                     If somebody needed help, the driver may very well have to decided to stop ASAP, at the same gore point, and the women could have then chosen to immediately get out, and one of them would have gotten killed. Literally nothing would have changed.

                     Indeed, it sounds like one of the women was shouting there was an emergency, so the driver stopped. That is effectively "I need help". What would your button do any differently?

         4. mcmcmc · 1790008386 · focus · HN ↗

            If you’re a taxi driver you have a duty of care not to dump your passengers on the side of a freeway where pedestrians aren’t allowed. Same with a railroad crossing

            1. joshstrange · 1790009233 · focus · HN ↗

               And if you stop the car because a passenger was yelling there was an emergency? If your passengers refuse to get back in the car and wander off?

               The “facts” of this event are highly contested and not at all clear. I’m not saying what I typed above is what happened, but it’s just as likely as the other scenarios presented. The linked PDF acknowledges this and presents a few of the conflicting statements made by the surviving passenger and the driver.

               1. mcmcmc · 1790015174 · focus · HN ↗

                  I also read it and saw none of the witnesses were fully credible. None of the parties look good. That still doesn’t mean the driver can pull off in an unsafe location.
         5. LorenPechtel · 1790008751 · focus · HN ↗

            The problem here is where he stopped. Since when would you consider letting anyone out at a gore point?! General rule is your skill takes someone into hazard, you are expected to get them back out of hazard. In this case, they're drunk--traffic is a hazard. Gore points are not supposed to be occupied at all, let alone let out passengers there.

            I question the $20M, but I have no problem at all with finding fault.

            1. joshstrange · 1790009557 · focus · HN ↗

               The linked PDF says the driver alleges that one of the passengers yelled there was an emergency which is why he pulled over where he did, that “fact” is contested and we will probably never know exactly what happened. But I’m not ready to buy into “driver forced them out at a gore point” given everything I’ve read. I agree that was the final outcome, they were left there, but I can come up with a number of scenarios (some backed by the driver’s testimony) in where the driver isn’t quite the monster some people in this thread want to make them out to be.

               I’ve had personal experience dealing with drunk people in my car, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how you would get to this point. And that was with drunk people I knew, and mostly liked, not strangers. Drunk people do not normally act logically, especially if they are to the point of throwing up on themselves due to their level of intoxication.

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