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Uber Banned In Delhi After Taxi Driver Accused of Rape
RockDoctor writes BBC News is reporting that a 26-year old Indian woman is alleging rape against a driver for the embattled Uber transport-managing company. In a post on the Uber blog, one "Saad Ahmed" implicitly admits that the driver was a Uber driver, that the lift was arranged through Uber's service, and that the full range of Uber's safety mechanisms had been applied to his employment, and by implication, that Uber accepts some culpability for putting this (alleged) rapist into contact with his (alleged) victim. "Our initial investigations have revealed shortcomings of the private cab company which didn't have GPS installed in its cabs and the staff wasn't verified," Delhi Special Commissioner Deepak Mishra said. But Uber says safety was paramount, and added it had GPS traces of all journeys. "We work with licensed driver-partners to provide a safe transportation option, with layers of safeguards such as driver and vehicle information, and ETA-sharing [estimated time of arrival] to ensure there is accountability and traceability of all trips that occur on the Uber platform," its statement added.
Sadly, it appears that rapes are so common in India that they should also ban public parks, buses, trains and Starbucks.
While that may be true, I think that the point being made in this case is that Uber said one thing about their cars/drivers safety, yet post-indicdent it seems that they may not have told the truth.
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Uber. It means super in German. That's misleading. It should be called Rides with Strangers Without Background Checks.
Let's take Uber at its word and accept that the "full range of safety mechanisms" was truly applied, and those mechanisms comport with contemporary acceptable standards for background checks in India.
If that is the case, and the guy came up clean but yet still went on to do X, how is Uber any more culpable than a taxi company hiring a cabbie with no record, who subsequently goes out and does X, or a tour company hiring a bus driver with a spotless background, who nonetheless does X?
Nothing posted to
Could you then please sketch what an Uber advertorial should like like?
We aim to disrupt public transportation by skirting the law, through predatory price increases when the services are most needed, use drivers that are not bonded or properly insured, and if you dare to say anything we don't like, we'll threaten to harass you and your families.
Hello and welcome to Uber.
We are going to pretend that we offer you a service like a taxi, you know - licensed and regulated so that we manage to keep whack jobs out of the driving seat and you can feel a measure of safety in your journey.
But instead, for half the price we are going to send you some completely random fucker that we have no real record of. He could be anyone, and probably is. So basically you are hitchhiking with all of the associated risks, but you are paying us for the privilege.
Yay for Uber. Please feel free to call* and ask questions if you survive your trip.
* actually not really, this would push up costs. But you know, it's the thought that counts.
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Having spent many years living in Asia, I can tell you confidently how to solve *much* of the rape problem in India: Legalize and institutionalize prostitution.
Unlike every nation in Asia, India has a tiny sex-trade per capita. Smaller even than in the United States. Couple poverty with truly intense social mores, highly limited pre-marital sex and a defacto caste system (despite the propaganda) and you have a recipe for pent up male sexuality. The standard modern response mechanism is to demonize said sexuality and hope to preach morality and respect to a seething mass of adolescent male anger and hormones. To say this policy of condemnation has failed is an understatement. When policy fails, pursuing more of it is insane.
Prostitution is a rational free-market solution which carries many additional economic benefits besides reduced sexual violence.
Now cue scores of sexist, white-knight "do-gooders" who will say things like "sex-work endangers women" and other sexist statements that treat women like children. (If you're going to insist, show me the stats please, and then cross reference against miners, fishermen, industrial labor, law enforcement and the military).
Male sexuality is male sexuality. And in societies where it is deprived to hundreds of millions of men (for decades) until said men prove themselves worthy of marriage is an exercise in social disaster.
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So why don't do the same thing with police officers? Make an app so that people can sign up and when a real police is sick, some random guy gets a gun and a badge for a day. If he makes a mistake, it's not the end of the world, because real police officers also make mistakes. Right?
Hell, we could do it with surgeons too...