Uber Plans To Start Monitoring Their Drivers' Behavior (sfgate.com) 96
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
Uber "has developed a new technology that it plans on using to track driver behavior, specifically if drivers are traveling too fast or braking too harshly..." according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which writes that "Information about how a driver is performing will be shared with Uber, but will also be shared with the driver, along with safety tips on how they can improve their performance." Uber will roll this out as an update to their app, using existing smartphone functionality, and "in some cities Uber will also monitor whether or not Uber drivers are picking up their phones (either to text or even just to look at maps) during a ride using the phone's gyroscope."
Ride-sharing companies seem to be growing more and more powerful. One Florida county actually received a grant to offer free Uber rides to low-income workers, and to allow the county transit authority to arrange rides for those residents without a smartphone. Uber recently even became the "official designated driving app" for Mother's Against Drunk Driving, and published a graph suggesting Uber pickups correlate to a drop in drunk-driving arrests. And in other news, Uber rides have apparently even been used by a group of human traffickers to smuggle migrants from Central America into the United States.
Ride-sharing companies seem to be growing more and more powerful. One Florida county actually received a grant to offer free Uber rides to low-income workers, and to allow the county transit authority to arrange rides for those residents without a smartphone. Uber recently even became the "official designated driving app" for Mother's Against Drunk Driving, and published a graph suggesting Uber pickups correlate to a drop in drunk-driving arrests. And in other news, Uber rides have apparently even been used by a group of human traffickers to smuggle migrants from Central America into the United States.
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You talkin' to me?
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Re:Ban Uber (Score:5, Insightful)
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LOL, rent seekers.
Uber gives me service I could never get in areas without it.
The taxi medallions racket was a prohibitive barrier to entry, not at all what Capitalism should be about, and deserve to die.
Re:Ban Uber (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't feel bad for the taxi business, it stagnated and had to be replaced before it became a drag on society.
I don't like a lot of things about Uber. I'd really prefer that all of the vehicles and drivers be tested thoroughly for safety. Up front fares (which they seem to be implementing) would be nice too. I do like the idea of being able to report bad drivers, and pooling cars. I also like that Uber can review routes taken by drivers, it's a frequent problem in NYC that drivers intentionally take a longer route to increase their fare, or refuse to take riders to or from certain parts of the city. Don't forget that Uber was founded because the taxi cartel in San Francisco had successfully captured its regulators, keeping the number of medallions too low (restricting available service, but increasing the resale value of their medallions).
Banning Uber and forcing us all to go back to the discriminatory, fraud-ridden, unreliable taxi system is just not an option.
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What's the solution then?
Tax cuts*, duh.
Banning Gay marriage.
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What's the solution then?
Tax cuts*, duh.
Banning Gay marriage.
And Abortion rights. I mean unborn child murder.
School Prayer
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When they let the taxi business run unregulated it was dangerous and bad for the cities residents.
Do you have a citation for this assertion?
So they introduce controls on the market and it's too corrupt for you.
How do medallion fees make taxis safer?
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When they let the taxi business run unregulated it was dangerous and bad for the cities residents
I know two women who were raped by the same taxi driver... who had been reported both to police and to the taxi company multiple times.
Maybe you should give up the idea that taxi licensing systems protect people, because they don't. They absolutely. fucking. do. not. However, Uber drivers get reviewed by every rider and drivers who get poor ratings are dropped from the system. We can all hope that a rapist would be filtered out before their rating dropped, but the sad truth is that this is probably equally
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Banning Uber and forcing us all to go back to the discriminatory, fraud-ridden, unreliable taxi system is just not an option.
In the not too distant future, Uber will be discriminatory, fraud ridden, and unreliable. Unless they become the only monopoly that avoided it.
Enjoy
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After killing the taxi industry and ruining the lives of thousands of owners who invested in government backed medallions the rent seekers at Uber will have to reinvent the same rules that the taxi industry has implemented in the past, and for the same reasons.
Meet the new boss - the same as the old boss. And jeezuz cryst in a bowling ball, isn't it amazing to see that in a few years, we will be right where we were, only with a monopoly.
The interesting possibility is that after Uber becomes the new normal taxi service, is whether or not the politicians will allow a different service to run unregulated and destroy Uber.
And at least the old Taxi services didn't monitor their drivers while not working.
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Oh they're still doing quite a good job of ruinging black people's lives for DWB. You blew a 0.02% but you were driving blackly, therefore you must be under the influence. Happened to *two* black guys in my group. Valdumpster, GA, I'm looking at you.
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Racist cities like Valdosta are going to hate on blacks no matter what. MADD is just as happy to see white people locked up. Someone ought to remind them we tried prohibition once already.
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MADD lost all credibility 20 years ago. They are nothing but a means for their executives to get rich.
MADD always had an undercurrent of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in them.
They would like to go back to the days of prohibition, and reinvigorating organized crime.
Don't think you understand good driving (Score:4, Insightful)
Weither in a taxi, or an Uber, or any car where someone is driving me I don't want "good" driving. I was to get there as quickly as I can, with attentive driving . If the driver turns suddenly into a side street to avoid some traffic problem he spotted later, that is good driving. If the driver goes over the speed limit because the highway is empty that is good driving. If the driver saves us from an accident with a sudden swerve because some idiot decides to cross multiple lanes of traffic at once, that too is good driving.
There's not much you can get from data alone to say what is good or bad, so I don't see where neutering the Uber drivers will do anything but cost them customers. They already do vehicle inspections and take reviews, between the two that should be more than enough to weed out truly bad (i.e. scary) drivers.
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Swerving shouldn't happen frequently enough to raise red flags. If it does your driver is a hazard on the road.
Turning into a side street should happen with the car slowing down, turning on the blinker, checking there are no bikes coming up from behind and then turning at low speed, not doing a sudden 90 degree turn at cruising speed.
Going over the speed limit on an empty highway is still going over the speed limit and against the law.
Re:Don't think you understand good driving (Score:4, Insightful)
"Going over the speed limit on an empty highway is still going over the speed limit and against the law."
But it's not a measure of "good driving". Traffic laws are implemented to create a large pool of violators, not to increase public safety. Empty freeways easily support greater than posted speeds.
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Some do, some don't. There are obscured entrances, maintenance failures, changes due to recent roadworks, etc.
You can't know which freeway is which without some method of letting other people know which ones are actually capable of faster travel and which ones aren't. If only there existed some sort of mechanism by which the roads could be labelled with the maximum speed people should expect to travel (and to encounter people travelling) at...
So yeah, it is a measure of good driving, as it shows that the
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Except the people in charge of the road itself aren't experts or even familiar with highway design and safety. They are ignorant politicians who play with speed limits based on emotional rationalizations and bribes.
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Swerving shouldn't happen frequently enough to raise red flags. If it does your driver is a hazard on the road.
Or they are driving in Boston and blending in with the rest of traffic.
Turning into a side street should happen with the car slowing down, turning on the blinker,
Thanks for fucking up about a mile of traffic behind you in any large metro area. I hope you also really like horns, like a LOT.
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I come from a country where a lot of people ride bikes, I forgot the US does not do that.
Not looking if there is a bike coming up behind you is a recipe for disaster. I would MUCH RATHER 'fuck up about a mile of traffic' than kill someone, sorry you got to work five seconds later.
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If the driver turns suddenly into a side street to avoid some traffic problem he spotted later, that is good driving. If the driver goes over the speed limit because the highway is empty that is good driving. If the driver saves us from an accident with a sudden swerve because some idiot decides to cross multiple lanes of traffic at once, that too is good driving.
Gonna have to dispute that once. Speed limits don't exist just for the sake of other motorists. They are also set according to proximity to businesses and homes, local game activity, and the construction of the road itself. Just because there is no one in front of you don't make it okay to speed.
Bullshit on consumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Gonna have to dispute that once. Speed limits don't exist just for the sake of other motorists.
You're right; mostly they exist for the sake of revenue collection, because drivers all mostly drive around the speed they are comfortable driving and that is higher than the speed limit anywhere I have ever driven, across multiple countries.
They are also set according to proximity to businesses and homes
Which do not exist anywhere near a highway... and the relevance of such lowers depending on time of day.
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and the construction of the road itself
You very conveniently left that part out. Are you intimately familiar with the location of every little pot hole and slight incline or decline on the side of the road on the entire highway system?
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Right, because we often see the speed limits adjusted every time a new pothole opens up and after freshly paving a highway, they go out and post a higher speed limit right?
Speed limits aren't sent by engineers who design the road. They aren't even set by anyone who has any sort of safety or technical background. They are set by elected politicians who are beholden to campaign contributions and the fickle emotional response of the most vocal attendees of city council meetings.
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Speed limits - at least in my country - are based on the type of road, whether you're driving in the city (50 km/h), between cities (80 km/h) or on the freeway, highway, motorway or whatever it exactly translates to (110/130 km/h).
This is regardless of whether the road has been recently repaired to avoid confusion on what the speed limit is today. You were in the city doing 70 km/h? Ticket.
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You can't have it both ways - either spend enough money to get quality roads like you'd find in places with sensible (or no) speed limits (e.g. Germany), or have shitty roads and speed limits. You do not possess the super power of instantly being able to determine what is a safe speed or not, no matter how much that thought tickles you. You also might want to ensure driving standards are a lot higher, as then the driving population will be less likely to fuck it up quite so bad as they seem to do in the U
Too much monitoring can spoil the reaction time (Score:1)
If I'm an Uber driver, I shouldn't have a nanny looking over my shoulder sending me nasty e-mails every time I have to make a panic stop for a toddler that ran out in the street in front of me... that would be trading instinctive reactions and safety for a metric related to passenger comfort.
Instead, can we just collect statistics on the drivers and then let the customers choose their driver based on the statistics? I mean, if I've got a flight to catch and 2 Uber drivers are available: Mr. Marshmallow and
Re: Too much monitoring can spoil the reaction tim (Score:1)
GHOSTBUSTERS!
That will make Uber *WORSE* (Score:3)
I take Uber and Lyft whenever I can and enjoy having these options.
However, my issues with the drivers aren't that they exceed the posted speed
limit or "brake too harshly". No, there are more annoying things that these
sort of OBD-II based systems will not detect.
1. The driver that is getting passed by everybody. The driver may be obeying
the posted speed limit but that does little to reduce annoyance when none of
the other drivers are doing that. We are being passed every few seconds and
are literally moving backward in the line of cars. There's no "rush" and "we'll
get there eventually" but why go slower than traffic? (Note: in some jurisdictions
this is known as "impeding the flow of traffic" and is in and of itself unlawful.)
If you can't "drive WITH traffic" just don't drive.
2. The driver that won't switch lanes. We're not in "Fast and Furious" here but
just because three miles ago you chose one lane doesn't mean you must stick
it out like a broken marriage. If we're coming to a traffic stop and there are three
cars at the red light in our lane and none in the other, SWITCH LANES. Also if
we're in a lane that's about to end, plan ahead and SWITCH LANES.
3. The driver that is constantly on and off the throttle. I don't have any desire to
feel my inertia being moved about my center of gravity forward and back every
three seconds. Absent something on the road, pick a throttle setting or a cruise
speed or an acceleration rate and STICK TO IT!!!
Unfortunately these things are greater annoyances than "speeding driver" or
"braking harshly" but are undetectable by the OBD-II summary reports.
All this system will do is take these drivers... and make them slower for two reasons
1: their speed is being monitored, so slow down
2: can't "brake harshly" (whatever that is) so keep an even more outrageous "safe distance"
from the vehicle in front... meaning go backward in the line of cars even faster as others
enter that safety distance...
Ehud Gavron
Tucson AZ
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To your point #1 - over the limit is over the limit. You will not be cited for impeding the flow of traffic if you are traveling at or near the limit, regardless of what other traffic is doing. Because everyone is doing 85 in a 65 does not mean your uber driver should be too.
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2. The driver that won't switch lanes. We're not in "Fast and Furious" here but just because three miles ago you chose one lane doesn't mean you must stick it out like a broken marriage. If we're coming to a traffic stop and there are three cars at the red light in our lane and none in the other, SWITCH LANES. Also if we're in a lane that's about to end, plan ahead and SWITCH LANES.
Ah, yes, one of my (many) pet peeves.
So you're coming up on a red light where you're about to be turning right and some 'good' driver cuts in front of you because there's 'none in the other' so now you both have to wait for the light to turn green. Almost always the guy who has the coffee-can muffler on some POS car who wants to race off every red light.
And also I'll let you in on a little secret -- If you 'drive Mrs. Daisy' then drunks have a tendency to pass out instead of getting sick in the back seat wh
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Note: in some jurisdictions this is known as "impeding the flow of traffic" and is in and of itself unlawful.)
In almost all those same jurisdictions exceeding the speed limit to drive with the flow of traffic is known as "speeding".
Practically everyone I've ever known has received a ticket for speeding while driving with the flow of traffic, including me.
I've also never heard of anyone doing the speed limit being cited for 'impeding traffic'; even if they were. They'd have to be going considerably BELOW the speed limit.
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Also if
we're in a lane that's about to end, plan ahead and SWITCH LANES.
No. People need to stop doing this. Traffic merges most efficiently if everyone follows the same rule, and the easiest rule for everyone to follow is to zipper at the merge.
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In other words. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber, as a cab company, is monitoring its employees to see they provide a decent service.
Too bad Uber the cab company doesn't provide benefits or a living wage to its employees.
Re: In other words. . . (Score:1)
This may force them to w2 workers with them being paid for wait time and full irs Mileage
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It's not meant to be a living. It's supplemental income.
If Uber is paying substandard wages to its drivers then it doesn't matter if you class it as "supplemental" or not.
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If Uber is paying substandard wages to its drivers ...
They don't. My sister drives for Uber several evenings every week to earn some extra cash. She makes about $18/hour after expenses. That is a pretty good wage for a near zero-skill job with flexible hours.
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It's supplemental income.
Like everything else these days.
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Ride-sharing, again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uber is not ride sharing.
Ride sharing is when I intend to go from A to B and I accept to take you with me with or without financial compensation. Uber drivers have no intention doing the trip for themselves, they only do it for you in exchange for money. Unless you are using UberPool, they don't even take other passengers along the way. There is absolutely no sharing involved. If you don't want to call it taxi, call it "chauffeur" or "car with driver" service but not ride-sharing.
Real ride-sharing services exist, and they don't look at all like Uber. The difference being that the driver decide on the time and destination and the price is much lower since the driver is not expected to make a profit.
Screw Astroturfing (Score:4, Insightful)
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When automated vehicles come about, Uber will be left in the cold - there are numerous massive management companies who own and manage car fleets (but you guessed that) who would simply start offering direct transport services rather than cars on lease. These companies are already set up to own and maintain large car fleets, which Uber is not, and as a result have a much lower barrier to entry to provide automated transport to the general public - for them, its a simple side step from "long term lease with
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When automated vehicles come about, Uber will be left in the cold - there are numerous massive management companies who own and manage car fleets (but you guessed that) who would simply start offering direct transport services rather than cars on lease.
Actually, I think Uber would more likely be bought out than left out. It will cost peanuts relative to the value of the name recognition to acquire them when they're in that position. If they are "lucky" they will be overvalued, and with a cool name like Uber they probably will be.
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I don't like Uber because they're part of a global race to the bottom that redefines the (largely broken) social contract between employee and employer that says when you work hard and play by the rules in America you'll succeed in life.
Actually, that social contract is complete bullshit. It was only possible because America had just won a war that everyone else had lost. I'm not saying we won the war for everyone, I'm saying that our deliberate dicking around and delaying entering a war in which we knew that the principal was engaging in genocide left us in the best economic position on the planet. Those effects are wearing off now, and leaving us in the same position as everyone else, which is to say fucked.
When people say the game is rigged Uber is one of the parts their talking about.
Uber is a symptom, not a disea
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the (largely broken) social contract between employee and employer that says when you work hard and play by the rules in America you'll succeed in life.
There is no social contract - that's just "Divine Right of Kings" nonsense warmed over. Sure, people wish there were such a thing, but nobody I've spoken with has ever been able to produce such a document.
We need to stop with such fantasies if we ever hope to bring all people up to a comfortable standard of living - facing reality is mandatory for real prog
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If you don't want to call it taxi, call it "chauffeur" or "car with driver" service but not ride-sharing.
"Illegal livery service" is what I call them since that's exactly what they are...for the most part, some of them are actually fully licensed and insured livery vehicles but the majority are not.
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It's the jerk, stupid! (Score:1)
Jerk (the third derivative of position, second derivative of speed, first derivative of acceleration) is a key indicator of driver performance. Not only does jerk measure ride smoothness, it also indicate driver surprise - failure to anticipate what's happening ahead. I'm convinced that high jerk is more highly correlated with accident rates than speed or acceleration levels. I know managing jerk levels lets me drive rapidly w/o passenger complaints.
backseat (Score:5, Insightful)
>"specifically if drivers are traveling too fast or braking too harshly."
Here we go again. As if some desk jockey can know or predict how "good" someone is driving based on braking, acceleration, speed, or other factors WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT IS OR WAS HAPPENING WITH TRAFFIC AT THE TIME. Brake hard = avoid hitting something that wasn't your fault. Serve= avoiding collision with some idiot going into your lane while looking at their damn phone. Accelerate hard= not wasting time or trying to merge smoothly and safely. Speed = keeping up with the flow of traffic so you don't piss off everyone and become a hazard.
And yet they WON'T and CAN'T monitor if you have good following distance, if you are sharp and unaltered, if you use proper turn signals and look over your shoulders, if you have your mirrors adjusted correctly, if your car is in excellent condition (brakes, steering, suspension. tires), if you are courteous, if you are able to converse or use controls without them being a distraction, if you don't have loose items all over the place or handing from mirrors.
It is the same crap the insurance companies are trying to push with their spyware "dongles" attached to our cars. NO THANKS. Keep your blindfolded, remote, uninformed, statistics-only, past-tense, backseat driving out of my car.
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>"Good points but if someone is consistently braking hard or traveling too fast it points to the driver."
I agree that it points to the driver, but it doesn't necessarily make the driver a "bad" driver. Perhaps he/she is just spirited.
The reverse situation is true also- old grandpa going 5 under the speed limit all the time and braking three times too soon doesn't make him a "good" driver. His reaction times might be slow, with poor vision too, and he might be causing lots of accidents around him.
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>"No grandpa is just driving like you should be.... courtsey first not FU you asshole"
So holding other people up is courteous? I think not.
>"You folks need to stop with the "Get the Hell out of my way" attitude."
You certainly presume to know me without knowing me.
>"Grandpa has the right to use the road...even more than you do...He paid for it."
I guarantee I have already paid more in taxes than most grandpa's out there...
Now why would Uber need to do that? (Score:3)
Uber just keeps getting tackier (Score:2)
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Uber just keeps getting tackier and tackier. They need to raise their rates to attract better quality drivers.
I just went on a ride with an international voice actor who drove like an angel. Maybe you should be a better Uber passenger, and then you'll get matched up with better drivers. Mind you, it wasn't on my Uber account, it was a friend who people tend to like.
It is not "ride sharing" (Score:2)
It is not "ride sharing" - it is a taxi service. Ride sharing exists, and has existed for a long time, and means sharing the cost of a journey among those wanting to take part in it. If no-one shares the ride in question, it happens regardless. This is demonstrably not the case with Uber and the like.
Safety Initiatives (Score:2)
Beware of Rising Standards (Score:2)
Uber will raise the minimum standards until there are too few drivers, then introduce their autonomous cars to "fill the gaps". Then they'll raise the standards again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It's 2016 now ... let's check back in 2020 and see if this has happened.
Nothing unusual (Score:1)