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Uber Lowers Drunk Driving Arrests In San Francisco Dramatically
schwit1 writes: According to crime statistics from the San Francisco Police Department there were only two drunken driving arrests last New Year's Eve in San Francisco, the lowest since 2009. This news comes on the heels of a new study revealing that the introduction of UberX reduces drunk driving deaths across California. Temple University's Brad Greenwood and Sunil Wattal published a paper that shows cheap taxi-like options make it easier for people to make the safer decision to call for a ride rather than driving home themselves.
Uber rates are of course cheaper because the drivers don't carry commercial insurance, paying regular insurance rates, and thus raising the rates for everyone else as consequence.
Now, if the argument is that public subsidized taxi services can reduce drunk driving rates, then by all means, create public subsidies for taxis operating in areas and times that people often would otherwise drive drunk. Don't just use this hidden, across-the-board, everywhere-at-all-times subsidy-by-insurance-miscategorization.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Requiring taxis to have a "special" license to do something simple like driving others around is nothing more than an artificial barrier to competition.
Of course, that's what governments do - sell out to lobbying interests. So the solution must be to give governments more money and more power....
So if it was lower in 2009, and Uber didn't exist in 2009, it follows that you haven't isolated the drunk drive factor!
Also you then need to figure out what makes them not drunk-drive. If its the easy booking by phone, well taxis can be ordered by phone so the reduction in recent years might be attributed to the easy book-by-smartphone apps, not specifically the unlicensed nature of Uber taxis!
Likewise if its price, then maybe reducing the price of taxis is the solution, rather than replacing taxis with unlicensed ones.
Insurance companies should see this as an opportunity to subsidise late night taxi rides for those who have been drinking. It would cost them far less than paying out on a death or inury claim due to a drunk driver.
No. Adequate publicly available transport reduces drunk driving arrests in San Francisco dramatically. There. Fixed your headline. No need to thank me.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
According to crime statistics from the San Francisco Police Department there were only two drunken driving arrests last New Year's Eve in San Francisco
Those "crime statistics" amount to six numbers. Six. One for each year since 2009. And all of them are below 10. And we're not shown the stats before 2009, which would have helped to work out the normal variation.
This news comes on the heels of a new study revealing that the introduction of UberX reduces drunk driving deaths across California.
While I'm not going to dispute the results of the study mentioned (which covers the whole of California, and presumbly for a longer period than one day a year), it seems way too much to imply from it that Uber was also behind the "reduction" (actually more like a restoration to the 2009 figure) in DUI arrests on one single night of the year.
There must be many more factors to take into account when looking at something so specific as the number of New Year DUI arrests in SF. Temperature and day of the week spring to mind. If New Year 2011/2012 was warmer than average, more people might have gone out to celebrate. It fell on a Saturday - I don't know how public holidays work in the US, but here in the UK that would have meant an extra day off to recover, something people might well factor in when it comes to deciding how steamed to get.
In other news, the world is getting warmer. This news comes hot on the heels of a study that shows 18th-century-style piracy has been declining for centuries!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If I grok what you're saying, it sounds like the public needs to see some numbers. If taxis have high insurance premiums, then it must be that they have extraordinary risk (maybe due to being on the road an unusually high number many hours per day, or maybe location (perhaps roads around bars and airports are more dangerous)) and therefore pay an unusually high amount of claims per car.
i.e. it sounds like taxis (and Uber vehicles) have a usage pattern which results in them getting into more collisions than other cars, or they get into more serious ones, or they have more people injured.
Is that correct?
(If correct, then I see the point. If not correct, then it sounds like commercial insurance is a scam and the true "subsidee" in this story is the insurance company (and therefore we have found the true lobbying party for the anti-Uber movement in government).)
I think it'd be great for people arguing this issue (either side!) to show insurance claim dollars paid out, by vehicle and also vehicle-mile, for the two different use cases (privately used cars, and shared (taxi-like) cars).
More accurate headline: Drunk Driving Arrests went down, and also Uber was there...for most of that period.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
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That's assuming you live really close to the bar. What if the distance were longer and you had to pay $75-100, each way, so $150 minimum just for the rides? Most people can't afford $200 just for the rides.
Think of the loss of court fees, fines, legal fees, etc. Uber must be stopped!
Uber Helps reducing child abuse in Vatican City?
Uber Lowers corruption in third world countries?
Uber Helps greek economy?
Uber reduces unemployment figures in Detroit metro area?
Uber linked to lower cancer rates in mice?
Uber helps opressed woman in middle east?
HOLD ON! That was last week!
So help me out on this one, let's predict TOMORROW'S UBER HEADLINE IN SLASHDOT!
I'm sure an unlicenced cab service/mafia, can use it's illegal revenue to get the best PR and legal services around, but we all can give a hand to slashdot to keep those headlines coming!
If the price is the issue, then why not make it a requirement to get a taxis license that if someone blows drunk, they ride free and the state reimburses the taxi.
Is a heck of a lot harder than a regular license.
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So help me out on this one, let's predict TOMORROW'S UBER HEADLINE IN SLASHDOT!
Uber is declared known to cause cancer by the State of California?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Society may claim they want a certain thing but it is almost always a false claim. The city takes in a fortune from drunk drivers as do numerous businesses. If Uber cuts down on drunk driving the system may find a way to stop Uber. I know of a situation in which two cops started pulling over people leaving a certain bar near closing time and almost every car pulled over had a drunk driver. The cops were ordered to stop doing that as it cut down sales at the bar and the city wanted the taxes generated by that bar as it was the only bar in the town. The same is already being mentioned in the case of self driving cars. Cars that can not break traffic laws will bankrupt almost every police department in the nation as law enforcement makes its living over traffic fines. No violations = no police departments. That translates into the system must have violators and will do what it takes to make certain that people break laws.
How much do you wanna bet that this will turn out to be statistically wankery at its worst?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Revenue from traffic fines are going down. How are they going to make up for the budget shortfall? I guess they could just average it out and fine Uber for every ticket not written.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Of course it's a public subsidy. Just indirect.
RE: which may deny any claims, because the car had been used for commercial reasons (even if it was not at the time of accident or the event that leads to the claim).
In other words socialize the risk, privatize the profits.
Everything old is new again.
Did the study exclude the possibility that DUI arrests dramatically decreased not because of the availability of Uber but instead because of reduced police enforcement?
I'm asking this in all seriousness because traffic enforcement in NYC where I live has become nearly nonexistent. So the number of tickets for "failure to yield right of way", "reckless driving", passing a red light, and the rest of the traffic violations has "dramatically decreased" in NYC. But the number of drivers who do these things has increased to the point where it's not only dangerous to ride a bike or to cross the street, with the light, in a crosswalk (one is likely to get hit by a car making a turn on that same green light) but there are numerous instances of vehicles plowing into pedestrians on the sidewalk and crashing through the windows of stores and restaurants. Our mayor Bill deBlasio initiated a "Vision Zero" campaign to control this traffic carnage but it hasn't really accomplished much to date.
... and neither will Uber drivers once they've had enough bad experiences.
They pass out in cabs.
They vomit in cabs.
They become belligerent and refuse to pay or they don't have enough money.
They forget where they're going.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
This isn't anything new over the regular, licensed, picks-up-anyone taxi service.
This "study" sounds suspicious enough to be a Uber puff-piece.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Yes, Taxis would be expensive, but they're often 'cheaper' in the sense that a taxi business will insure ALL of it's vehicles under an umbrella policy for a fairly major discount. Still not cheap, but there.
However, remember we're looking at Uber and such. Uber's black car services are professional full time drivers with commercial insurance. They're technically not taxis in most locations, but in the same category as dealer convenience shuttles(Where they'll do things like drop you off at work while your car is being worked on).
The question is for the 'part time' drivers. Now, Uber covers you from the time you have a 'match' to dropping off the customer. It even covers you when you have the app on, though they wait for your primary personal insurance to reject you first in that case(does not apply in all states; in some they're now primary there as well). When the app is off and you're driving for personal stuff, then your personal insurance covers you.
All that said, a uber driver who's NOT black-car shouldn't be paying taxi rates, because he's going to be the only driver of the vehicle and it's not going to be getting taxi miles on it.
I don't read AC A human right
Using "grok" might have labeled you as a hippie decades ago. It only labels you as a hipster if you're using it ironically, or if you point out that you were using it before it was retro when you're too young to have been around then.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If some states have taxi driver licenses, or chauffeur licenses, or similar licenses that require you to have a higher level of driving skill or rules knowledge, that's not a significant artificial barrier to becoming a taxi driver (as long as there's not a language restriction involved.)
Taxi medallions and similar restrictions on the number of taxis permitted in an city definitely are artificial barriers, but they're more than that - they're a mechanism for taxi companies to extort money from drivers in return for renting them use of the medallion, and to extort money from the public by keeping taxi rates high (to pay the medallion owners, not to keep taxi driver pay high which is the excuse given for those systems existing), and they also restrict taxi access to parts of the city which can afford to pay more for medallion cabs. Friends of mine live in parts of San Francisco where the chance of a yellow cab driving by their front door today are near-zero, and San Francisco limits the number of medallion cabs allowed to operate. And if you live in a poor black part of NYC, good luck getting a cab, at least without walking out to a main avenue. Uber will show up.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
In the United States, which is where California is, comprehensive insurance does not cover business-use of your vehicle.
The thing is, I think in every state in the US (may be wrong) every single driver MUST by law have liability insurance for every vehicle they own. The cost of this insurance is dependent on many things, but the amount of miles driven on a particular car per year is one of the main determinants. So as long as people are honest and stating the true amount of miles driven each year, it's difficult to see how any further insurance can possibly be needed just because someone delivers pizza. Everyone is already covered, period. Note that we're talking about pizza delivery and similar professions only, jobs that don't add any liability factors beyond the amount of miles driven. When you add passengers to the mix there is indeed an increase in liability, so this argument does NOT in fact apply to taxi drivers or absolve Uber. But passenger pickup should be the sole exception, for everything else no further insurance can possibly be needed. Requiring extra insurance for a delivery person smells of insurance company greed, to me.
After all, the USA excels in keeping people entwined in the criminal justice system, that's arguably the one thing we do best.
From the Google Docs, they had 2 this year.
They had 3 last year. The last six years is 2,3,5,9,3,2.
So while it's technically true that this was a good year, trying to claim that this is proof of *anything* other than being a very-slightly lower year is marketing BS at it's worst.