Hacker News Reader

Comment by hamdingers | Hacker News Reader

> rideshare drivers are involved in fewer serious accidents than the average person.

Do you have evidence of this? It's certainly true for some kinds of professional drivers (i.e. truck and bus drivers) but I can't find any kind of crashes/100m mile numbers for rideshare drivers.

Anecdotally as both a rider and road user I find rideshare drivers to be some of the worst. Aggressive, distracted, impatient, and overconfident. I would be very surprised to find out they are above average drivers.

View on HN

Per mile driven I expect it's true, just given their greater experience than most drivers. Not that I disagree with you that many Uber drivers are not actually great at driving, but neither is the average driver in North America. I expect we just notice rideshare drivers' mistakes more, and get exposed to them at a greater rate.

There's probably some sort of bias here when you observe someone else driving - it's like that joke - if someone drives slower than you - just curl up and die already boomer, and if they are driving faster than you - what an absolute psychopath.

Ride share companies use all kinds of techniques to off-board drivers that they deem unsafe. This can be as simple as tracking the driving record and accidents, but they also use the accelerometer in the driver app to assess the location of the car and what G-forces are being placed on it to figure out and predict high-risk (expensive) insurance.

I don't know how aggressive this filtering is, but it is a way to save money on the insurance costs associated with the gap insurance in rideshare. This filter alone would probably put rideshare drivers above average, but that's speculation on my part.

Selection bias and survivor bias

Well put!

It's a common practice for the dispatch software used in both company issued and personal smart mobile devices to log accelerometer data and score the drivers for smooth driving. Whether that's a reliable proxy for safety is another matter. Fatigue and weather conditions figure in, too, and it's hard to collect data on that.

The cars are generally in good repair. They are typically taking decent enough roads. They are sober (or more sober than the average driver). They are driving "normal" routes -- from a house to a business, or a club to an apartment, often on routes they've run many times.

I don't know where you've been getting your aggressive, distracted, impatient, overconfident drivers. Most of my ride sharing has been airport to/from home or hotel, so maybe there is some selection bias there. It all seems routine as anything.

Personally, I can't get past the car being in good condition as something which is often overlooked.

In all the rideshares I've taken (Uber, Lyft) the drivers were busy checking two-three phones and selecting/rejecting rides, and some times taking phone calls, all while driving.

surely you'd have to also control for the kind of driving rideshares do (e.g. local v. highway) to have any real sense.

maybe we could look for insurance rates?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com