Uber Knowingly Leased Unsafe Cars to Drivers
wsj.com
wsj.com
I think they're dreaming if they expect to get part 135 pilot requirements waived/lessened because of their augmentation systems. Not for a long, long time.
I am not defending Uber, only clarifying the legal argument. Some people claiming attempted manslaughter clearly have no idea what they are talking about. Attempted murder would be what they really mean, but then there would have to be intent. What Uber did is negligence – a purely civil issue (at least under U.S. law.)
Sometimes our outrage ventures into lynch mob territory when facts and the law actually don’t matter as much as assuaging our collective outrage.
Did Uber break the law? No. Were they negligent? It seems so. Was there malice? Not based on the facts.
If somebody had died it could have been manslaughter.
1: https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/effective-today-new-fed... 2: http://www.carconsumers.org/saferentalcaract.htm
Notwithstanding that it shouldn't take legislation to "don't rent out cars under active recall for profit until repaired", even the linked article hardly sounds "infuriating" about rental providers:
"In a commendable move, the rental car industry, including Enterprise, Hertz, Avis, Dollar- thrifty, Alamo, National, and the American Car Rental Association, as well as many smaller rental car companies, helped persuade lawmakers to vote for the Act, and worked alongside Cally Houck, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, and other supporters for passage of the new law. General Motors and Honda broke ranks with other auto manufacturers and also supported the bill"
I don't know, but the fact that many automakers didn't support the law implies that the new law might have triggered some contractual terms between automakers and fleet owners around loss of use ...
http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/01/news/companies/rental-car-re...
To summarize: in the US, rental companies had no particular responsibilities on recalls until about a year ago. Now they are required by law to have recalled cars repaired before continuing to rent them out.
Unable to read the article linked, but this is Classic Uber and the reason that capitalism needs more regulations. Cars catch fire? Oopsies!
Companies like Uber should not be allowed to operate at this insane "growth at any cost". It's not functional. It's not human. They can't be bothered to do background checks on drivers or safety checks on cars. They shouldn't be allowed to operate.
No they did not. They tried to procure her medical records to verify whether the rape claim was true. They never actively discredited the victim.
There's plenty of stuff to hate Uber for without you making up outrage.
No they didn't. They illegally gained access to the records. If they were trying to verify the situation's accuracy they would not have used illegal methods to do so and should not be given a pass since they did.
They have fought background checks at various times in various places.
You CLEARLY didn't read the article. Uber reached out to the authorities and other automative experts about this recall. There was NO objection from authorities.
Everyone is so quick to jump on Uber about literally anything. They've done a lot of terrible shit, but it doesn't seem like what they did here was so terrible. Sure, maybe they should've taken greater precautions, but after reaching out to authorities and experts, what would you have them do, pull these cars off the roads? The headline would have read "Uber takes away cars from driver depriving them of income".
From Uber in a recent response:
As soon as we learned of a Honda Vezel from the Lion City Rental fleet catching fire, we took swift action to fix the problem, in close coordination with Singapore’s Land Transport Authority as well as technical experts. But we acknowledge we could have done more—and we have done so. We’ve introduced robust protocols and hired three dedicated experts in-house at LCR whose sole job is to ensure we are fully responsive to safety recalls. Since the beginning of the year, we’ve proactively responded to six vehicle recalls and will continue to do so to protect the safety of everyone who uses Uber.
After one car caught fire, they wrote up a plan that involved talking to authorities and experts, but that would be much too late. At that point they had already ignored the problem and intentionally endangered their drivers.
> what would you have them do, pull these cars off the roads?
No, not give them to their drivers in the first place. Buy other cars. "Uber managers in Singapore were aware of the Honda recall when they bought more than 1,000 defective Vezels and rented them to Mr. Koh and other drivers without the needed repairs, according to internal Uber emails and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and interviews with people familiar with Uber’s operations in the region." Uber wouldn't have to worry about taking cars off the road if they didn't knowingly buy defective cars.
Any idea how much dangerous stuff gets covered up by governments? This isn’t a problem with capitalism; it’s a problem with Uber.
As far as background checks, why should that be required? If it’s known that Uber doesn’t need do background checks, then consumers are free to choose another option. They can choose the level of risk they want to assume. Millions of Uber rides – so there are bound to be some outlier cases of bad actors. Taxi drivers have never committed a crime?
We aren’t talking water systems here, we are talking about a ride share/taxi service that nobody has any obligation to use. Using Uber is completely voluntary.
Don’t agree with Uber? Don’t use Uber! I haven’t used Uber for several years now. That’s how capitalism works – you vote with your money.
I personally think that the entire private car transportation business is filled with terrible people: taxi drivers in Seoul trying to rip you off, Shanghai taxi drivers refusing to give change, New York taxi drivers expecting a tip for driving all over Brooklyn to run up the meter. Taxi mobsters controlling medallions. Drivers showing up hours late for a scheduled pickup. I paid the French SNCF for a taxi booking to make a Sunday morning train and the driver never showed up. Missed my train and never could get my money back without Kafka-level bureaucratic insanity.
Uber does some bad things, but you obviously have never spent any time in the highly regulated taxi business. It’s a cesspool of dishonesty and cutthroat drivers, corrupt business practices and more. Look at how taxi companies exploit drivers – ridiculous things like charging 10% for credit card transactions, charging drivers for no-fault car damage despite being covered by insurance. “Leasing” taxis with extortionare terms which essentially make the drivers indentured servants. The drivers pay it forward by doing everything they can to scam customers out of an extra dollar here and there. There are plenty of good taxi drivers but you’re playing airport roulette when you arrive in Delhi late in the evening and need to get to your hotel. Good luck – you will need it. Only place I have always had a good taxi experience was London. But being a London cabbie is incredibly difficult. It isn’t a job for fresh-of-the-boat drivers, but for highly trained professionals.
The private car business is a dirty one and it has nothing to do with regulations or lack thereof.
It means they show no compassion, either as executives or a company.
> Don’t agree with Uber? Don’t use Uber
Uber has far reaching consequences that affect all of society regardless of whether I use the service or not. In this case those consequences are negative and I'm morally right to oppose the service even if I don't use it.
Your argument is full of logical fallacies.
And living in a mostly-democratic society, I'd prefer to vote with my vote and have laws reflect better standards of behavior than "lol here's your car, might need a fire extinguisher lol".
Voting with your dollars is fine, once a basic level of decency is achieved; my laundry soap isn't actively poisoning anyone no matter which brand I choose, because the factories have to meet regulations, the soap itself has to meet safety standards, and so on.
I'll vote with my dollars on my laundry detergent, but when it comes to how society is structured (what people are allowed to do or prohibited from doing), there's no substitute for voting with your vote.
Leading laundry detergents emit chemicals determined to be toxic and don't need to list ingredients.. :(
http://www.washington.edu/news/2008/07/23/toxic-chemicals-fo...
It’s too late to vote with your wallet after you have been raped, isn’t it?
"Slippery slope" is the term used to describe the fallacy of logic in that sentence. Who must perform this proactive protection? Why should/must they do it? What constitutes "vulnerable"? This sounds like the musings of a privileged youth.
It's not too late to avoid making the same mistakes you made that resulted in your original grievance. No one put a gun to your head and made you become an Uber driver/passenger. You/they decided to take on that role, and failed to assess and appreciate the risk involved.
tldr; those unpleasant things in your life that have happened, are happening, and will eventually happen in your life are ultimately your fault.
PS: I'm not advocating whatever happened or didn't happen to whatever circumstance you are attributing "rape" to. I'm not sure if you chose that verb for hyperbolic reasons or not.
Fun fact: "Slippery slope" is the term used to describe the fallacy of logic in your sentences. The slippery slope fallacy lies in you rejecting the -- admittetly vague -- claim "Vulnerable people must be proactively protected." just because you can imagine that bad things might happen if this mind-set was applied excessively.
This is a fallacy of logic, since it leads you to reject a claim just because it is not as precise as you'd like it to be. However, a claim isn't invalid per se just because it is vague.
It's not hyperbole, because rape is what happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/technology/uber-fires-exe...