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Transportation Businesses The Courts

Lyft Settles With Justice Department Over Disability Lawsuit (engadget.com) 24

Posted by BeauHD from the failing-to-accomodate dept.
Lyft has settled with the Justice Department in a lawsuit alleging the company discriminated against customers with disabilities. Engadget reports: Now, drivers will be required to help fold and stow wheelchairs and walkers for customers. The rideshare company has also been ordered to educate its drivers as well as pay complainants and a $40,000 civil penalty. Lyft will pay various amounts in damages to the complainants, including $30,000 to J.H. It's been ordered to modify its wheelchair policy to specify that "drivers are required to assist with the stowing of foldable or collapsible mobility devices used by individuals with disabilities, such as wheelchairs, scooters, and walkers." The company will make a few changes to better educate drivers on the wheelchair policy, like sending quarterly reminders of the policy to drivers and creating a new educational video about the policy. For the next three years, Lyft will give the Justice Department biannual written reports on what it's doing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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Lyft Settles With Justice Department Over Disability Lawsuit More

Lyft Settles With Justice Department Over Disability Lawsuit

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  • Government tries to force the costs of handling disabled clients on Lyft without compensation. Lyft tries to force the costs of handling disabled clients on drivers without compensation. The drivers will try to game the system as much as possible to maximize their income and minimize their effort.

    IMO it's better to use monetary incentives to give disabled good service than anti-discrimination law ... if citizens think the disabled should not be forced to pay those incentives themselves, then subsidize it, I

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Not really, anti-discrimination laws generally work by terror.

        For disabled they rely on a handful of disabled and and ambulance chasing lawyers to get rich with crippling lawsuits (this is nothing for Lyft, but restaurants without regulation wheel chair access can face penalties in the same region) while scaring the industry into compliance.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          So, ahh, fuck the disabled, they should like, just kill themselves because they can no longer fit in an able bodied society. You know why disabled laws because most of us are not ARSEHOLES, get over it. Want to talk expensive a disabled toilet cost three times as much as a regular toilet (complete room in a commercial premise). This cost can be alleviated by adding a shower, although it makes it more expensive, it provides it with greater function ie employers who run or bike in can use that disabled toilet

          • Most of us don't have to make significant investments to aid them, it costs you nothing to value signal a bit ... maybe give a couple bucks to charity each year. Forcing disproportionate costs and risks (the regulations are so specific it's trivial to make a mistake and face huge penalties) on a small part of the economy forced to accommodate them is very easy when it doesn't concern you.

            I would suggest cutting the red tape and shouldering the cost of accommodation by general revenue, rather than terror. Pe

    • IMO it's better to use monetary incentives to give disabled good service than anti-discrimination law ... if citizens think the disabled should not be forced to pay those incentives themselves, then subsidize it

      True, you can never legislate people to not be douchebags, but taxpayers would prefer the people who are, are the ones that pay.

      • It's easy to be charitable with someone else's time and safety.

        These people will need help getting in too, physical contact in the current day has risks ... risks with no compensation.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 )

          It's easy to be charitable with someone else's time and safety.

          These people will need help getting in too, physical contact in the current day has risks ... risks with no compensation.

          Compensation is between the employer and employee, but regulation is still necessary, especially where free enterprise has no compelling interest in the public good, and in fact in this case seems completely in opposition to it.

          Not sure where you live but regulation for the public good is very common in civilized societies. In fact it is what makes them civilized. It's why hopefully your food providers do not poison you, your car goes mostly where you point it, and if you need medical care the doctors hav

    • I remember reading that it would be cheaper to give all the handicapped people in NYC some of the most expensive apartments in the city rather than what they actually did - mandate all apartments be "handicap accessible", which was read to mean "wheelchair". Odd thing is, my grandfather, who was handicapped but not in a wheelchair, found many of the changes for wheelchair access made it harder for him.

    • Wow, what a selfish view of the world you have. In your world, why bother having equal access laws for the disabled?
      1. If someone in a wheelchair or walker can't walk up a flight of stairs, they don't need access to public buildings like court houses, libraries, or restaurants. They should just stay home and reduce the burden on the rest of us.
      2. If someone can't see the traffic lights, they don't need to cross street. They certainly don't need those yellow textured sidewalk inserts so they can tell where the

      • Public buildings are an entirely separate matter, they are paid for by general revenue to begin with. There is no question of unjustly forcing the cost of accommodation on a small part of the population.

        For private companies I think ADA requirements are a massive over reach and selective government subsidies to pay private parties for accommodating the disabled where simple charity alone does not suffice would make for a better world.

  • .... goes to pick up a customer in a wheelchair. Who sues whom?

    • I was thinking about that type of situation too. There certainly are some rideshare drivers who are a lot less able to offer physical assistance than others.

      As a former Lyft driver myself, I went out of my way to help people with walkers, wheelchairs, groceries, whatever. It definitely cost me time and money, though, as well as getting more dirt, grass & tiny rocks in my trunk. I constantly saw comments & posts in the related subreddits where other drivers (presumably not disabled) would prett
  • if the drive is disabled themselves and can't physically fold the chair etc?

  • Doesn't this actually discriminate against disabled drivers?

    What about the Lyft driver who uses a wheelchair? Or has a broken leg? Or a broken arm? Or can't lift a wheelchair?

    I thought the job was "driving". Not "serving the public".

    This is the problem I've had from day-one. If it's a private driving service, then that's what it is.

    If it's a transportation service, then it ought to have been regulated in all the ways that we regulate transportation services.

    Pick one. You don't get to be neither.

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