Uber to pay millions to settle claims it ripped off disabled people with unfair fees Uber has promised to cough up a few million of dollars to settle claims it unfairly charged disabled passengers waiting fees if they took extra time to board their rides. The car-hailing biz was accused of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in a lawsuit brought by the US government last year. Uber adds extra …
You might want to look up the definition of cartel. Taxi service regulation varies wildly from country to country as does experience with it. This is the opposite of a global cartel.
Uber's promise of cheaper fares was predicated almost entirely on lower payments to drivers by increasing the number of casual workers who don't get paid health insurance, etc. There was a lot of spin about differential pricing as the key to increasing capacity when demand surged but the data of the last five years have shown this be little more than an illusion.
The most popular presentation at a recent business conference I attended was "Be more pirate" presented by Alex Barker.
Emulating the mythological success stories of 17th-18th century pirates has become highly fashionable. It's been forgotten that in reality almost all the many hundreds of pirates throughout this period were short lived and very unsuccessful. The exceptions can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The current message is simply - ignore the rules and do whatever you want to get on (admittedly rather the like the general ethos of the real pirates) but it fails to take account of either its effectiveness or its consequences.
For a more balanced view of piracy, see Lane, K.E., Blood & Silver, Signal Books, UK 1999, or Cordingly, D., Life among the pirates, Little Brown & Co, UK 1995.
If they fix the system and reimburse those affected... I'm all for doing it in a speedy way, rather than having it drag out over months.
But despite not being an admission of guilt, it should also not be a permanent immunity... Anything else they do and this should be lumped back on top.
Since they refunded the customers they can claim that it was always their policy to refund wait fees for disabled customers and that they just have a very slow processing time. It would not be an effective use of tax money for the DOJ to force this to go to a very long trial as the out of court settlement is good enough.
Whilst I accept the point about good use of public funds and the expense of a long trial, as I read the article, Uber has agreed to provide the customers with a credit of twice the cost of the extra wait time. That is not the same as refunding. It means that the only way to benefit from the agreement is to use the service again.
It's the power disparity between corporations and individuals. It's not just a legal issue; it's also programmed into society's conditioning and values.
If I shoplift and am caught, I will go to jail, and society will look down on me as being a criminal. I can't just say, "Oops, sorry, here's your <name-of-item> back." and then walk away scott-free.
If a business overcharges, they can say, "Oops, it was a billing (or "computer") error. We'll give you a credit." and they are legally-and-societally in-the-clear.
I live in Reading, UK. The pavements on London Street have been 'prettified' by the inclusion of textured surface comprising approx 10cm square blocks which protrude a few mm above the normal surface and cross the enter width of the pavement every 10m or so. Noticing a person in a wheelchair struggling to go up the hill in some hot weather a few years back I asked if he would like a push, and he accepted. The wheelchair was really difficult to manage over the protrusions. I'm afraid that much of society discriminates against disabled people either by accident or design. So Uber's charging for time taken boarding the vehicle does rather put them in the mainstream. Sorry.
I wonder what "disabled" means? If you don't have a registered disability, but some other reasons for taking longer to get in the car, such as a leg in a plaster cast, a temporary disability, or something more long term, like getting quite old and infirm. Or one of the "non-visible" disabilities or conditions that may not be "registered" with "authorities". Do they get to fill out waiver forms too? Or does this only apply to people on some sort of "list". Will Uber accept a waiver based on the customers own description?
"This agreement sends a strong message that Uber and other ridesharing companies will be held accountable if their services discriminate against people with disabilities."
An out-of-court settlement without admission of wrongdoing, I'm not convinced.
Paying a fee to make legal problems go away isn't accountability,
it's more cost-of-doing-business
As a taxi driver, I give every customer 5 minutes to get into the car, but getting out is a slightly different issue. I had a semi-regular but not disabled customer who would pay his fare, and then take up to, literally, 10 minutes to get out of the car. Yes, he was overweight, but not morbidly obese. He would get his legs our so that his feet were on the ground, then rock back and forth to get momentum to get upright, usually failing the first few times. He would ask me to take his hand and pull him up and out, which we're not allowed to do. Plus, he would stop after each failed attempt to talk for a minute, and would only shut up when I told him to get out. His girlfriend could always see how angry his behavior made me, and the last time he rode with us I told him upfront that I wouldn't accept payment until he was actually out of the car, charging him wait time while he attempted to exit the car. That was the last time I saw him as a customer. I now see him riding with the only other local taxi company, and I'm assuming that they're charging him the same wait time that i threatened him with, as they're notorious for being jerks to their customers.
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