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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

I doubt it has anything to do with Uber/Lyft specifically and everything to do with the availability of cabs. So, another way of framing this: how many DUI deaths have been caused by artificial limitations on the number of cab licences over the years?

In Seattle when I was in my early 20s, it was nearly impossible to call or catch a cab when the bars closed, so often we just walked home. And on New Year's Eve? Forget about it...

Incidentally, walking in a city while drunk is also dangerous. For about a third of U.S. pedestrian deaths, the pedestrian was drunk, according to one study. http://bigstory.ap.org/article/drunk-walking-leads-pedestria...

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>I doubt it has anything to do with Uber/Lyft

You're seeing individual trees but not the forest. It has everything to do with Uber and Lyft specifically because they're the first in (ever? my lifetime.) to break into this and in doing so, provide more cabs. Nobody is claiming that it is a specific chocolate chip cookie that Lyft gives out that is preventing DUIs. Put another way, the entire reason you're leaving a comment on this thread about the possible reduction in DUIs from alternative cab companies is because of the alternative cab companies. Give credit where credit is due—they changed the game.

I think his point is simply that if the regulation limiting the number of cabs had not been in place, DUIs would have already been reduced due to that. It's not anything about how uber of lyft work in particular that is contributing to the positive affect, just the increased ability to hitch a ride. So it sounds like you are not actually disagreeing with him, other than for the fact that uber/lyft deserve any sort of credit for it.

And unfortunately for him the original point is quite cogent, and that no doubt Uber/Lyft should be given credit, for the bypassed regulations that negatively affect the world and thus have reduced total DUI's and deaths.

In fact, I'd argue that because Uber/Lyft are more trustworthy than traditional cabs, the result on DUIs is more robust. Using Uber is far safer for a drunk person than trying to hail a taxi, haggle with a driver, and hope you make it home.

That's a hypothetical ("if the regulation limiting the number of cabs had not been in place") made real exactly by Uber/Lyft. Let me put it this way:

Hypothesis: Too few cabs mean more DUIs

Experiment: Add more "cabs"

Expected Result: More cabs will lead to fewer DUIs

Uber/Lyft is the Experiment. The argument about other Experiments is irrelevant. Sure, less regulation could mean more cabs. But that wasn't the Experiment.

That counter argument is logically equivalent to saying "Drones, Blimps, Automated Cars all could have been cabs. There's nothing special about Uber/Lyft". There the difference is between a hypothetical and an actual result.

I'd also add that Uber offers far more than just "More cabs". It offers more safety, convenience, and trust. The driver is known, the car arrives when you are ready, and you don't have to haggle about not using cash.

Isn't the purpose of Uber/Lyft exactly about increasing the number of "cabs"? I don't see a distinction here, your explanation is coincident with the causal factors driving the effect.

The implication of this reasoning is that local government policies designed to protect incumbent cab drivers have been doing more than creating tension when Uber wants to enter the market -- they've been literally killing people for years.

It wouldn't be the first time governments are biased toward entrenched interests that kill (e.g., tobacco and alcohol).

If I were Uber facing regulation, I'd drive hard after these studies. Let governments explain why they favor more risks, higher costs, and worse service.

Shows my bias as a researcher. Seems even better to market in this direction and against cabs. Give discounts for Ubers called from bars/clubs during nightlife hours. Team up with MADD. Give friends/bartenders a way to enter an address on an Uber they call for someone else. Even a way to "make Uber your designated driver" before the night begins.

> they've been literally killing people for years

Nothing strange about this implication. Many laws have similar effects. If you regulate a drug, you balance the amount of people who die because of drug toxicity vs. number of people who die because the drug wasn't available when it could fix them. If you as much as even touch employment laws, you're gambling with people's lives, changing the number of those who will die in poverty.

Hell, the laws that even allow mass population to drive cars are themselves responsible for hundreds of milions of deaths to date.

"Hundreds of millions" sounds like an exaggeration. Where did that come from?

I miscalculated; let me revise that to tens of milions deaths, extrapolating from [0] - "Approximately 1.24 million deaths occurred on the world’s roads in 2010".

http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/en/

(I couldn't find a source for a total deaths from car accidents estimate and I need to go to sleep now; any link welcome)

To be fair, it's more complicated than that. Try to get from SF to anywhere in the East Bay at or after 2am on public transportation and you might wonder why BART stops running at 1am.

I'm nearly certain that running BART for longer hours would reduce drunk driving, and therefore save lives. The trouble is that BART's ticket prices don't capture enough of the value created by not being killed in a drunk driving accident, so they don't do it. The obvious solution is policy providing more public funding but requiring them to be open longer.

There's no contradiction there. Cab regulations cause an increase in DUIs. Uber and Lyft cause a reduction in DUIs.

My impression is that it's primarily the interface and reliability that makes Uber/Lyft better. Sure, short wait times are a nice bonus, but the primary problem with regular cabs isn't the speed so much as the unpredictability.

The problem is that I can't count on the voice-operated cab system. I have to call, and then wait outside at the pickup point, with a 50% chance of the cab actually getting there, at which point you call and get another 50% chance of the cab getting there within 30 minutes, at which point you repeat.

I have no idea if it's going to be 5 minutes or 120 minutes. I have to stay outside, too, because they won't call me when it's there.

If a cab took an hour but I could set it up on my phone while I was still in the bar, and it would alert me when it got there? That would be just fine with me.

Now, the local cab company could (and perhaps has, I have not checked lately) create an app that does just this; I don't really mind waiting half an hour if I had some assurance that the car would be there in half an hour.

> I don't really mind waiting half an hour if I had some assurance that the car would be there in half an hour.

But why would you, if you could get a car within minutes?

>But why would you, if you could get a car within minutes?

Obviously, given the choice between a good interface with slow service and a good interface with fast service, at similar price points, I'll pick the latter.

I was just saying that even if uber/lyft did not add more cabs to the road (decreasing my wait time) - and that's the part where some are suggesting they are engaging in "regulatory arbitrage"- just having a uber-like interface to a regular cab company would take the pre-existing cab system from "not good enough" to "good enough" for me to use on nights out. For me, at least, the interface (a lot of which is the ability to not need to watch for the cab) is more important than the speed.

(Of course, would existing cab companies bother to use a new system, when all their cabs are already full?)

Weird, the reliability of voice-dispatched cabs here is about 100%. They give you an estimate, like "we'll be there in 5 minutes", and they are almost always there within the estimated time, at worst a few minutes late. The more I hear about SF cabs, the more I wonder whether Uber's success there isn't just an anomaly due to SF having particularly bad taxi service.

that is weird. Most of my really bad service happened on the peninsula; We will get offended if you call us the suburbs of San Francisco, but in a very real sense, that is what we are. I imagine it's better in real cities.

Incidentally, walking in a city while drunk is also dangerous.

The most chilling near-miss I've ever seen was when a very drunk pedestrian stumbled across a boulevard at about 3AM and a car driven by a drunk passed within a foot of him at about 50 mph. (I know the driver was drunk because he had been at the same bar I had.) Neither drunk noticed that anything had happened.

Well, there was a third drunk person present, but I was riding my bicycle at the edge of the street.

Freakeconomics analyses how dangerous it is to walk while drunk, and found it was 8 times more dangerous than driving drunk, for the same distance. cf http://freakonomics.com/2011/12/28/the-perils-of-drunk-walki...

People drinking in urban centers are more likely to walk home drunk (since they can). Urban centers are more dangerous for pedestrians.

People drinking in remote areas are more likely to drive home drunk (since there is no other choice). These drunk drivers will come in potential contact with fewer cars, but generate a lot more miles for the statistic.

While the quoted statistic is true at a literal level ("you are 8 times more likely to die per mile walked drunk than mile driven drunk"), the intuitive implication that you'd be safer using your car is not. And that, of course, is not even considering the safety of others.

Incidentally, walking in a city while drunk is also dangerous.

I think this depends on the urban design more than anything inherently dangerous about walking while drunk. Walking and/or bicycling home while drunk is a weekly Copenhagen pasttime, and pedestrian/bike fatalities are extremely rare. Since almost all pedestrian deaths are caused by cars, two simple expedients almost entirely eliminate them: 1) don't have high-speed car traffic in the middle of a city; and 2) have a high standard of driver education, so drivers can reliably drive in a way that never hits pedestrians.

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