New Jersey town first in U.S. to use Uber to curb drunken driving | Hacker News Reader

New Jersey town first in U.S. to use Uber to curb drunken driving

reuters.com

44 pointsOatseller18 comments

Out of curiosity I gave driving for Uber a try during weekends for a few weeks last year. This article brings two thoughts to mind.

First I had a more than one passenger tell me during my time driving that prior to Uber they would regularly drive home after drinking from parties because they just couldn't get a cab in areas they were often in.

Second, driving drunk people is the absolute worst. Even if they don't puke in your car they are a pain to deal with[1], and less considerate of your vehicle in general. Having to deal with them one too many times was what lead me to stop driving at together. I initially found driving to be a fun way to interact with random people I wouldn't normally meet but the drunks killed it for me.

[1] During the few weekends I did it I had one drunk guy puke in my car second ride of the evening. Another belligerently refuse to tell me their location when the GPS showed them in a spot that was not near any road and become verbally abusive when I couldn't find them. Another stash a half open can of beer in the back seat pocket spilling beer all over the car. Uber pays for cleaning but they don't pay for lost income stemming for your car being out of commission until you can get it cleaned. I couldn't imagine having to rely on driving for any significant portion of my income under those working conditions.

Why didn't you just continue driving outside of times people normally leave bars/clubs?

I had/have a real job as a software engineer that pays an order of magnitude more than driving for Uber. Also the guy that puked all over my car did it at 7:00 so not exactly the time you might have expected something like that to happen. Wasn't worth it for me.

2 things:

1. Not all drunks are bad. Yes there are bad apples. Rate them badly. 2. Uber can and will deny someone from using uber.

You are missing the point. If you are someone who depends on Uber for your income and someone does something in your car that puts it out of commission even if it is only say 5% of people it can have a major effect on your income.

Did you deny low-rated riders pickups?

Pretty much all passengers have a 5 star rating, at least when I was doing it, Uber had been in my city for less than a year. I can recall maybe 1 out of 100 passengers that had a noticeably low rating and they turned out to be perfectly nice people they even told me their story about how they got their low rating. Swearing in the presence of a driver with sensitive ears, though not at them. I was driving at a time when Uber was aggressively lowering their fairs and giving out a lot of free ride credit. It might have been my imagination but it seemed like every time they cut fairs the average customer behavior got worse.

Drivers are also graded on having a high acceptance rate for ride requests so being picky about who you pick-up is strongly discouraged no matter their rating.

This reminds me of a program in Florida (and few other cities?) where police gives free rides to drunk people back from bars. http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/too-drunk-to-drive-palm...

In many European countries this is a very regular occurrence too, instead of taking drunks to jail the police take them home.

Although, this isn't a service you can request over the phone... just an (probably better) alternative to taking people to jail and charging them with public intoxication or whatever.

USC offers free Uber to students when traveling at night in the surrounding neighborhood. They've had a car service since the 70's, but before Uber it was a pain-in-the-ass to use. As a result, nobody drives drunk.

What's the liability to the city if someone gets hurt while in an Uber-cab sponsored by the city? I don't mean driver maliciousness, I mean any kind of accident that an Uber driver might get into?

If someone relies on public transport and gets injured, the city may be liable if there's some wrongdoing/negligence. But is it different if it's through Uber?

Uber has a $5 million dollar insurance policy so that's your answer.

As much as I love this idea, my concern about this is that it may encourage individuals to rely on this as a way home.

I think that this should be an indication that safe transport back home is needed during drinking hours. (Big cities have this convered via public transport)

I wonder how much of a bar tax would be required to cover the bill. If it encourages more people to go out drinking more often it might be a net financial benefit. You could even pitch it as a jobs program.

It would need to be sufficient that the average noggt's drinking is made more expensive by the cost of the average Uber ride.

So those who choose to drink within walking distance will massively subsidise those who choose to come in from out of town.

Isn't it still beneficial to the folks walking home that there are fewer drunks on the road? May not justify the full subsidy but certainly would cover part.

And it benefits everyone by keeping the roads safer.

I'd prefer to see chronic drunk drivers stop doing so and rely on something like this instead. I suspect the cost of paying for taxis will be less than the cost of all the emergency services, post crash analysis, and road modifications when someone is killed on the road. ( The average cost is 4.3 million per fatality according to the National Safety Council http://blog.safeauto.com/how-much-do-car-accidents-cost-the-... )

[edit for typo fix]

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