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Uber Plans To Start Monitoring Their Drivers' Behavior (sfgate.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
Uber "has developed a new technology that it plans on using to track driver behavior, specifically if drivers are traveling too fast or braking too harshly..." according to the San Francisco Chronicle, which writes that "Information about how a driver is performing will be shared with Uber, but will also be shared with the driver, along with safety tips on how they can improve their performance." Uber will roll this out as an update to their app, using existing smartphone functionality, and "in some cities Uber will also monitor whether or not Uber drivers are picking up their phones (either to text or even just to look at maps) during a ride using the phone's gyroscope."
Ride-sharing companies seem to be growing more and more powerful. One Florida county actually received a grant to offer free Uber rides to low-income workers, and to allow the county transit authority to arrange rides for those residents without a smartphone. Uber recently even became the "official designated driving app" for Mother's Against Drunk Driving, and published a graph suggesting Uber pickups correlate to a drop in drunk-driving arrests. And in other news, Uber rides have apparently even been used by a group of human traffickers to smuggle migrants from Central America into the United States.
Ride-sharing companies seem to be growing more and more powerful. One Florida county actually received a grant to offer free Uber rides to low-income workers, and to allow the county transit authority to arrange rides for those residents without a smartphone. Uber recently even became the "official designated driving app" for Mother's Against Drunk Driving, and published a graph suggesting Uber pickups correlate to a drop in drunk-driving arrests. And in other news, Uber rides have apparently even been used by a group of human traffickers to smuggle migrants from Central America into the United States.
You talkin' to me?
Weither in a taxi, or an Uber, or any car where someone is driving me I don't want "good" driving. I was to get there as quickly as I can, with attentive driving . If the driver turns suddenly into a side street to avoid some traffic problem he spotted later, that is good driving. If the driver goes over the speed limit because the highway is empty that is good driving. If the driver saves us from an accident with a sudden swerve because some idiot decides to cross multiple lanes of traffic at once, that too is good driving.
There's not much you can get from data alone to say what is good or bad, so I don't see where neutering the Uber drivers will do anything but cost them customers. They already do vehicle inspections and take reviews, between the two that should be more than enough to weed out truly bad (i.e. scary) drivers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I take Uber and Lyft whenever I can and enjoy having these options.
However, my issues with the drivers aren't that they exceed the posted speed
limit or "brake too harshly". No, there are more annoying things that these
sort of OBD-II based systems will not detect.
1. The driver that is getting passed by everybody. The driver may be obeying
the posted speed limit but that does little to reduce annoyance when none of
the other drivers are doing that. We are being passed every few seconds and
are literally moving backward in the line of cars. There's no "rush" and "we'll
get there eventually" but why go slower than traffic? (Note: in some jurisdictions
this is known as "impeding the flow of traffic" and is in and of itself unlawful.)
If you can't "drive WITH traffic" just don't drive.
2. The driver that won't switch lanes. We're not in "Fast and Furious" here but
just because three miles ago you chose one lane doesn't mean you must stick
it out like a broken marriage. If we're coming to a traffic stop and there are three
cars at the red light in our lane and none in the other, SWITCH LANES. Also if
we're in a lane that's about to end, plan ahead and SWITCH LANES.
3. The driver that is constantly on and off the throttle. I don't have any desire to
feel my inertia being moved about my center of gravity forward and back every
three seconds. Absent something on the road, pick a throttle setting or a cruise
speed or an acceleration rate and STICK TO IT!!!
Unfortunately these things are greater annoyances than "speeding driver" or
"braking harshly" but are undetectable by the OBD-II summary reports.
All this system will do is take these drivers... and make them slower for two reasons
1: their speed is being monitored, so slow down
2: can't "brake harshly" (whatever that is) so keep an even more outrageous "safe distance"
from the vehicle in front... meaning go backward in the line of cars even faster as others
enter that safety distance...
Ehud Gavron
Tucson AZ
Uber, as a cab company, is monitoring its employees to see they provide a decent service.
Too bad Uber the cab company doesn't provide benefits or a living wage to its employees.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Uber is not ride sharing.
Ride sharing is when I intend to go from A to B and I accept to take you with me with or without financial compensation. Uber drivers have no intention doing the trip for themselves, they only do it for you in exchange for money. Unless you are using UberPool, they don't even take other passengers along the way. There is absolutely no sharing involved. If you don't want to call it taxi, call it "chauffeur" or "car with driver" service but not ride-sharing.
Real ride-sharing services exist, and they don't look at all like Uber. The difference being that the driver decide on the time and destination and the price is much lower since the driver is not expected to make a profit.
After killing the taxi industry and ruining the lives of thousands of owners who invested in government backed medallions the rent seekers at Uber will have to reinvent the same rules that the taxi industry has implemented in the past, and for the same reasons. The politicians and regulators who have allowed them to openly flaunt the law should be hung from the nearest lamp post.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
>"specifically if drivers are traveling too fast or braking too harshly."
Here we go again. As if some desk jockey can know or predict how "good" someone is driving based on braking, acceleration, speed, or other factors WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT IS OR WAS HAPPENING WITH TRAFFIC AT THE TIME. Brake hard = avoid hitting something that wasn't your fault. Serve= avoiding collision with some idiot going into your lane while looking at their damn phone. Accelerate hard= not wasting time or trying to merge smoothly and safely. Speed = keeping up with the flow of traffic so you don't piss off everyone and become a hazard.
And yet they WON'T and CAN'T monitor if you have good following distance, if you are sharp and unaltered, if you use proper turn signals and look over your shoulders, if you have your mirrors adjusted correctly, if your car is in excellent condition (brakes, steering, suspension. tires), if you are courteous, if you are able to converse or use controls without them being a distraction, if you don't have loose items all over the place or handing from mirrors.
It is the same crap the insurance companies are trying to push with their spyware "dongles" attached to our cars. NO THANKS. Keep your blindfolded, remote, uninformed, statistics-only, past-tense, backseat driving out of my car.
After all, they're just an app that connects private contractors with customers, right? What possible use would they have for all that information. It's not like they have any control over their driver's behavior. That would make them just like employers, wouldn't it?
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I don't like Uber because they're part of a global race to the bottom that redefines the (largely broken) social contract between employee and employer that says when you work hard and play by the rules in America you'll succeed in life. When people say the game is rigged Uber is one of the parts their talking about.
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LOL, rent seekers.
Uber gives me service I could never get in areas without it.
The taxi medallions racket was a prohibitive barrier to entry, not at all what Capitalism should be about, and deserve to die.
If those medallion owners (many of whom, by the way, rented their medallions out, and thus were also rent seekers) had kept their businesses up to date then Uber wouldn't exist. They spent years fighting Uber, even trying to ban the idea of smartphone ride-hailing, rather than building their own alternative.
Don't feel bad for the taxi business, it stagnated and had to be replaced before it became a drag on society.
I don't like a lot of things about Uber. I'd really prefer that all of the vehicles and drivers be tested thoroughly for safety. Up front fares (which they seem to be implementing) would be nice too. I do like the idea of being able to report bad drivers, and pooling cars. I also like that Uber can review routes taken by drivers, it's a frequent problem in NYC that drivers intentionally take a longer route to increase their fare, or refuse to take riders to or from certain parts of the city. Don't forget that Uber was founded because the taxi cartel in San Francisco had successfully captured its regulators, keeping the number of medallions too low (restricting available service, but increasing the resale value of their medallions).
Banning Uber and forcing us all to go back to the discriminatory, fraud-ridden, unreliable taxi system is just not an option.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
Gonna have to dispute that once. Speed limits don't exist just for the sake of other motorists.
You're right; mostly they exist for the sake of revenue collection, because drivers all mostly drive around the speed they are comfortable driving and that is higher than the speed limit anywhere I have ever driven, across multiple countries.
They are also set according to proximity to businesses and homes
Which do not exist anywhere near a highway... and the relevance of such lowers depending on time of day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When they let the taxi business run unregulated it was dangerous and bad for the cities residents. So they introduce controls on the market and it's too corrupt for you. What's the solution then?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When they let the taxi business run unregulated it was dangerous and bad for the cities residents.
Do you have a citation for this assertion?
So they introduce controls on the market and it's too corrupt for you.
How do medallion fees make taxis safer?
What about monitoring when an uber driver offers me a French fry from their dinner? Or when they offer me a sip of their soda? Or when they give me a business card for their laundry detergent business? Or the driver that was alternating delivering Indian food and giving uber rides in their stinky car? Uber just keeps getting tackier and tackier. They need to raise their rates to attract better quality drivers.
When they let the taxi business run unregulated it was dangerous and bad for the cities residents
I know two women who were raped by the same taxi driver... who had been reported both to police and to the taxi company multiple times.
Maybe you should give up the idea that taxi licensing systems protect people, because they don't. They absolutely. fucking. do. not. However, Uber drivers get reviewed by every rider and drivers who get poor ratings are dropped from the system. We can all hope that a rapist would be filtered out before their rating dropped, but the sad truth is that this is probably equally likely (if not more likely) to stop rapists for driving from Uber than a medallion system is to stop them from driving for taxi companies.
So they introduce controls on the market and it's too corrupt for you.
That's how controls always work. They are always abused. That's why we need the minimum controls.
What's the solution then?
Implement UBI, implement meaningful vehicle inspection laws, force insurance companies to cover people on their way to or from picking up a fare, and eliminate taxi licensing. Take rape reports seriously.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Banning Uber and forcing us all to go back to the discriminatory, fraud-ridden, unreliable taxi system is just not an option.
In the not too distant future, Uber will be discriminatory, fraud ridden, and unreliable. Unless they become the only monopoly that avoided it.
Enjoy
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.