Uber and Lyft Drivers Weigh Risk of Safety Against Paycheck (bloomberg.com) 72
Many Lyft and Uber drivers have seen a bump in business from the spreading coronavirus, but they're also weighing the risks of staying safe versus continuing to earn a paycheck. From a report: A study published Friday shows that more than half of ride-hailing drivers said they were now "very concerned" about reduced earnings as a result of the virus and 41% said they've modified their driving strategy as a result. These changes include reducing hours, refusing airport rides and halting driving entirely. The survey of 871 drivers in the U.S. from March 1 to March 4 compared data with similar four-day periods in 2020 and was conducted by driver productivity app Gridwise. "They are doing what they have to do to continue earning," said Brandon Sellers, a product growth specialist at the Pittsburgh-based startup. About one-third of drivers are now wiping down their cars with disinfectant after every ride, using hand sanitizer and wearing a mask, he said. "The data is telling us that drivers are afraid."
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if working means I get healthcare and treatment, then it is probably worth the risk.
The same as everyone else (Score:5, Insightful)
So Uber and Lyft drivers have the same problem as everyone else in every industry that works with the public?
Re:The same as everyone else (Score:4, Insightful)
So Uber and Lyft drivers have the same problem as everyone else in every industry that works with the public?
No. They are closer to their customers, are in close proximity for a longer period, can't step away from a customer that is sneezing and coughing, and often serve international visitors that are more likely to be infected.
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Particularly the latter, at least the initial wave is flying in. Here in Norway 86/136 infected so far have been travelling to Italy. Many of them went to skiing resorts outside the areas of active spread, so they suspect many were infected at or in connection with going to the airport. And that's often when people have a luggage and need a taxi, they're definitively on the front lines. And if the virus first gets one driver infected, that person becomes a reservoir of freshly infected - thus not showing an
Re: The same as everyone else (Score:5, Informative)
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Drivers do have something additional to worry about, reduced income.
I think that is the central dynamic of Coronavirus - safety vs. cost. It's deadly, but not super-duper-deadly, so how much will each nation tank its economy to slow or stop the spread?
South Korea has done a lot, and seems to be managing to constrain the outbreak, albeit at huge cost. USA is doing more or less nothing. I guess we'll find out what happens.
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Healthcare workers also have to worry about reduced income. Many healthcare workers are poorly paid and rely on extra shifts to pay their family's bills, especially single parents whose children may be sent home from schools during this viral issue.
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Safety versus cost is a lie. This is a readily transmissible infection, there is no avoiding getting the infection unless you are naturally resistant, you will get it, it us just a matter of when. All the authorities are doing is trying to slow the rate of infection so they are more readily able to handle the consequence. As an uber or taxi driver, you will get the infection, just early and you will recover (most likely by a long shot) or you will die (the genetic die roll, suck it up). So it is not safety
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You downplay the importance of this? If medical resources are swamped and people go without care, a lot more will die.
I agree the genie isn't going back into the bottle.
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So what we need is an app, where you can sign up and do medicine on your own time, and decide which contracts for short-term medical care you wish to provide! You have to provide your own equipment - of course - but you'll get people scheduling you all the time. We'll call it Meduber!
They already have this for health care aides. No reason someone could not make one for doctors if there was demand for some hourly gigs.
https://www.everythingzoomer.c... [everythingzoomer.com]
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Many taxi drivers are also contractors.
Re:The same as everyone else (Score:5, Insightful)
So Uber and Lyft drivers have the same problem as everyone else in every industry that works with the public?
No. They can't be fired for not showing up to work for a day.
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No. They can't be fired for not showing up to work for a day.
I don't know if Uber does any of that but it's really easy to tilt the tables where drivers lose some kind of bonus streak if they don't show up. Online games do this all the time to keep people hooked, I don't know it'd be acceptable in a work environment but I wouldn't put it past Uber to try...
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If you _lease_ a car through Lyft's lease program, they cancel the lease if you drive fewer than 20 trips a week. I just reviewed this with a young person who hadn't been able to find work in their field, spent a week trying to do job interviews and refusing to drive in bad weather, and lost their lease.
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Sure, but name another industry that deals with the public that gets *more* business in a situation like this. They're getting people who could normally take transit but don't want to ride on a crowded bus or subway car.
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Bernie Sanders dealt with that months ago. (Score:1)
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Bernie Sanders backs striking Uber, Lyft drivers [thehill.com] (May 8, 2019)
That was about a totally different issue.
Unless you want to believe Bernie when he tells you that every problem in the Universe, including typhoons, COVID, and gamma-ray bursts, is a result of "corporate greed". Whatever.
Overall issue: Managers should care for everyone. (Score:1)
"From software engineers at Facebook and Google to drivers for Uber and warehouse workers for Amazon, the employees that power California's technology industry donate to Bernie Sanders above all other presidential candidates, a Guardian analysis found." [theguardian.com] (Mar. 2, 2020)
Managers should care for everyone, not just themse
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Re: Overall issue: Managers should care for everyo (Score:2)
The only people that actually care about you are your mom and dad.
It doesn't have to be this way, it's not like it's a law of nature or anything.
In fact, this is part of the problem. Everyone would be better off it it weren't, including the businesses.
Sanders is FAR more deeply involved. (Score:1)
The Coronavirus situation affects us all. We need to care for each other. We need solidarity.
The books written by Bernie Sanders show that he is deeply involved with major issues. Most people
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The Coronavirus situation affects us all. We need to care for each other. We need solidarity.
Just so you know, I don't really care about you.
More importantly, when you say solidarity, it reminds me of my dad working for the UAW (and the magazine they sent out is literally called Solidarity). All that solidarity got them was the power to slowly run their companies out of business by making it hard for them to compete.
What's really crazy is if you listen to the union leaders to this very day (the ones that aren't in prison right now I mean) they still talk like it's the 1930s. Totally insane, and n
This problem must be fixed: (Score:2)
"There is no moral or economic justification for the six wealthiest people in the world having as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population -- 3.7 billion people."
There are problems, and the problems need to be fixed.
Re: This problem must be fixed: (Score:1)
Yeah...it isnâ(TM)t like it is because they figured out how to get it or anything.
Easy solution (Score:1)
Just carry around a barrel of bleach in the trunk, and dunk each fare for 30 seconds before allowing them into your car.
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I'll be at the Andromeda Chuckle Hut all next week!
You're missing the real point (Score:2, Funny)
Re: You're missing the real point (Score:5, Informative)
Surely as a contractor and not an employee you could have argued against that rule in your contract negotiation, right? So you have no one to blame but yourself.
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In theory, perhaps? But in practice, the insurance provided by Uber and Lyft could certainly deny the very helpful coverage if the driver is armed. So many personal weapons are stolen or misused, it's an understandable rule by a company for their contractors or employees on the job.
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the insurance provided by Uber and Lyft
Wouldn't insurance be the responsibility of a contractor?
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Put most simply, "it depends". Both Lyft and Uber do provide _some_ insurance coverage.
https://www.lyft.com/driver/in... [lyft.com]
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Surely as a contractor and not an employee you could have argued against that rule in your contract negotiation, right? So you have no one to blame but yourself.
That's really not necessary.
Carrying a weapon while driving for Uber is kinda like posting, "Fuck you, Zuckerberg!" on Facebook.
The worst that can happen is that you get banned from either platform.
There's no legal repercussions.
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I stopped driving for them when those gunphobic liberal idiots who live in a fantasy world in their gated communities told me I can't carry a concealed gun in MY OWN DAMN CAR while driving for them. Fuck that.
From the headline, I was thinking that when driving for them you're always taking a risk for a paycheck. Corona virus or not.
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Because if someone intends to rob you they'll wait while you pull out your gun, remove the safety, chamber a round, and then aim it at them.
The person sits in your back seat. By the time they pull out their gun and point it at your head it's all over. I dare say not even you would be stupid enough to try and reach for your gun at that point.
Having a gun only works if you have time to use it.
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The world is ending. Let him have his dream.
Re: You're missing the real point (Score:2)
I am guessing you do not carry a gun.
If you did, you would probably k ow that most people who do already have a round chambered and do not carry it with the safety on, if it even has a safety.
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Because if someone intends to rob you they'll wait while you pull out your gun, remove the safety, chamber a round, and then aim it at them.
The person sits in your back seat. By the time they pull out their gun and point it at your head it's all over. I dare say not even you would be stupid enough to try and reach for your gun at that point.
Having a gun only works if you have time to use it.
We who are schooled in self-defense (like, all License To Carry in Texas), do not carry weapons with a safety.
Also, we load a magazine, chamber a round, pull the mag and put another round in.
It's called, "one in the pipe."
Like you said, there's no time to flip a safety and rack a round, and people become very confused in a panic.
The process for defense goes like this: Pull, point, and shoot.
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You carry a loaded gun with the safety off?
I hope you shoot yourself.
YOU are making the streets less safe.
I don't carry a loaded gun with the safety off.
My gun doesn't have a safety. I carry it in a Kydex holster and never draw except when I'm on the range or when I have to clean it.
I remove the weapon with the gun still in the holster when I get home or when I leave it in the car to enter a building where guns are not allowed.
There are a plethora of YouTubes showing people in stressful situations pulling the trigger and nothing happens.
"Oh, the safety!" That's the last words they spoke.
Also, there are those
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Because if someone intends to rob you they'll wait while you pull out your gun, remove the safety, chamber a round, and then aim it at them.
Most people who carry concealed carry in the same state police in the USA carry it - round chambered. So eliminate step 3 entirely, as it was chambered back at the house or whatever. The Glock, #1 police gun in the USA, doesn't even have a manual safety to remove, so remove step 2 as well for "most" guns, and even then, disengaging the safety can be done WHILE in the process of bringing it to target with some practice.
Generally speaking, criminals aren't smooth operators either - you can often see while t
Re: You're missing the real point (Score:2)
Yeah...no. The point of having a gun is so you do not HAVE to be scared shitless.
The unarmed person who is completely at the mercy of a wrongdoer is the one who is scared shitless.
Re: You're missing the real point (Score:2)
I own multiple guns and have a CCP but have never carried in public. I have never feared for my safety not having my gun with me. That includes the middle of a major city and out in the middle of nowhere.
If you live in such fear that the only way to manage your fear is to carry a gun, that says more about you than it does about society.
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I own multiple guns and have a CCP but have never carried in public. I have never feared for my safety not having my gun with me. That includes the middle of a major city and out in the middle of nowhere.
If you live in such fear that the only way to manage your fear is to carry a gun, that says more about you than it does about society.
You are not the standard bearer. Some of us are maturing into a demographic that is vulnerable.
We are older, have our fair share of busted parts, and don't have the fitness to go all fucking Rambo like we did at 50.
Those of us in Texas who are licensed to carry refuse to become victims.
In my 74 years of living, I have never said to myself, "Fuck! I wish I had a gun!"
But if I ever do, I do.
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I agree, but one of the big problems with society as a whole is that lots of people are not rational. It doesn't help that the media understands this very well, and happily plays on all those irrational fears to get more eyeballs drawn to them. So we have a bunch of irrational people with their irrational fears being confirmed for them day in and day out. With the rise of the internet it's easy to find a group of similar people, so that you can all hype each other up about whatever it is that scares you.
I d
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I own multiple guns and have a CCP but have never carried in public.
That's too bad. A safe queen doesn't have much practical value.
Re: You're missing the real point (Score:2)
Hard to call a 1942 Mosin Nagant or November 1942 100k serial number Inland M1 carbine safe queens. They've both earned their rest.
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Not if you're actually using them for their intended purpose, no.
Their intended purpose isn't sitting in a safe.
Re: You're missing the real point (Score:2)
People like you just do not get it.
It is not about being scared shitless. It is about being prepared.
With respect to the possibility of getting a flat tire....
Some people just assume it will never happen to them, or even if it does, it is not big deal. So they do nothing to prepare. They do not bother to have tools or spare tire in the car, or bother to verify they are there and working or bother to learn how to use them to change the tire. If they get a flat, they will totally wing it and hope for the best
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Re: You're missing the real point (Score:2)
And my wife knows someone who was shot and killed in a craigslist robbery over a playstation. That still doesn't have me quaking in fear every time I leave my house.
What about taxi drivers? (Score:1)
They handle disgusting cash with all sorts of viruses, influenza included, at least Uber is cash-less.
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They handle disgusting cash with all sorts of viruses, influenza included, at least Uber is cash-less.
Hold on there pal. The modern left wing agenda is to only attack Uber and Lyft, not anyone working for the highly esteemed taxis business.
Everyone faces that type of risk at work. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you work by yourself, never interact with others, and never touch anything other people have touched, you're always at risk of picking up some sort of virus. BFD.
Every health care worker on the planet faces increased risk because they tend to deal with people who are known to be sick.
I'm a dentist and work exclusively on patients who are HIV positive. I am exposed to blood and saliva every day. My risk of infection with HIV and other comorbidities is small, but not zero. If I was worried about it I couldn't do my job, and believe me, it's a job that needs to be done.
As the virus spreads this'll only get worse (Score:3)
With Lyft and Uber's cash burn rate could see this being very troublesome for those companies.
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Uber and Lyft have a very large pool of potential staff. Many of their drivers would be _delighted_ to have less competition.
The joys of being a cab driver (Score:1)
Uber and Lyft drivers are now beginning to learn why taxi cabs normally have a bullet proof partitions between the front and back seats.