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Uber Face Fines Over Drunk Driving Complaints -- And Lost $2.8 Billion Last Year (usnews.com)
While Uber's bookings doubled last year, the company still showed a net lost of $2.8 billion. And now, "California regulators are recommending that Uber pay a $1.13 million fine for not investigating rider complaints that drivers were working intoxicated." An anonymous reader writes:
California "requires ride-hailing companies to have a zero-tolerance policy for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs," notes Reuters -- and yet Tuesday's order reports that investigators "found no evidence that (Uber) followed up in any way with zero-tolerance complaints several hours or even one full day after passengers filed such complaints." Investigators from the state's Public Utilities Commission are asking the full commission to examine their findings,
"To confirm the policy, regulators analyzed selected complaints against drivers who received three or more complaints," Reuters reports. Though Uber has sometimes suspended drivers within one hour of customer complaints -- 22 times -- they've apparently received 2,047 drug- or alcohol-related complaints between August 2014 and August of 2015. "The company said drivers were banned from working in 574 of those complaints, according to the order. But regulators then reviewed 154 complaints, and determined that the company failed to promptly suspend drivers in 149 complaints. The company also failed to investigate 133 complaints, and did not suspend a driver or investigate 113 complaints, the order shows... In at least 25 instances, Uber failed to suspend or investigate a driver after three or more complaints, the order states."
An Uber spokeswoman said the company had no comment, but "Adding to Uber's challenges, a Reuters investigation found a ten-fold increase in attacks on drivers in Sao Paulo last year, including several murders, after the start of cash payments on its platform at the end of July." And in addition, a judge in Brazil ruled last week that Uber's drivers are employees, which could make Uber liable for a variety of benefits, following a similar ruling in another Brazilian state court.
But there's also some good news for Uber. A court in Rome suspended a ban on Uber in Italy until the company finishes its legal appeal, and a two-month suspension in Taiwan also came to an end after Uber agreed to partner with license rental car companies.
"To confirm the policy, regulators analyzed selected complaints against drivers who received three or more complaints," Reuters reports. Though Uber has sometimes suspended drivers within one hour of customer complaints -- 22 times -- they've apparently received 2,047 drug- or alcohol-related complaints between August 2014 and August of 2015. "The company said drivers were banned from working in 574 of those complaints, according to the order. But regulators then reviewed 154 complaints, and determined that the company failed to promptly suspend drivers in 149 complaints. The company also failed to investigate 133 complaints, and did not suspend a driver or investigate 113 complaints, the order shows... In at least 25 instances, Uber failed to suspend or investigate a driver after three or more complaints, the order states."
An Uber spokeswoman said the company had no comment, but "Adding to Uber's challenges, a Reuters investigation found a ten-fold increase in attacks on drivers in Sao Paulo last year, including several murders, after the start of cash payments on its platform at the end of July." And in addition, a judge in Brazil ruled last week that Uber's drivers are employees, which could make Uber liable for a variety of benefits, following a similar ruling in another Brazilian state court.
But there's also some good news for Uber. A court in Rome suspended a ban on Uber in Italy until the company finishes its legal appeal, and a two-month suspension in Taiwan also came to an end after Uber agreed to partner with license rental car companies.
Denying that drivers due process and all and depriving them of their livelihood. I hope Commifornia gets sued.
isn't a lot of money given what's at stake. If Uber pulls off what they're trying to do they'll become the defacto transportation system for basically the entire modern world. Now, any sane society would just have public transportation instead of "Public Transportation with a private company skimming 20% off the top" but that's now how these things usually play out...
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a net lost of $2.8 billion
How can a company continue to operate and attract investors / high valuation with $2.8 billion losses?
California "requires ride-hailing companies to have a zero-tolerance policy for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs,"
That's a deeply meaningful policy definition. What about someone who had too much coffee?
Also, are some companies in California allowed to have a 1-tolerance policy?
Uber lost billions, but I bet the owners aren't eating cat food.
I mean, to me, UBER is just some form of app running company...with a few servers to handle ride requests; and some hook up to Credit Card companies.
I guess I do not get it but where does such a huge the loss come from really?
Who the F*** is paying for all these stories about Uber and who cares so much about this one company?? It's insane. They get more press than any other company. Why should we care?? They're a big nothing, really.
This kind of logic is what creates flat earthers, moon landing hoax supporters and general conspiracy theorists. You take lots of facts, these are not being disputed, and forget how to read between the lines. Right around saying look at these facts and don't know how to contextualize them. You're not wrong, you're just the seventh rock from the sun venting hot gas.
"Black males commit over 50% of all solved murder cases in the USA"
Non-blacks get away with murder more often than blacks.
"white person is many times more likely to be shot by a black person, than vice-versa"
There are five times more whites than blacks.
"Yet if you respond ... by avoiding blacks"
Systemic racism.
uber lyft, bla bla..
when people get lazy and complacent.
Mangers are worse.. As long as their Peons appear to be producing..
who the fuck cares right..
Non-blacks get away with murder more often than blacks.
Okay - how much more often? 0.01% wouldn't really matter. 35% would. So, care to quantify or is this another drive-by posting?
If (and only if) that's true, why? Are non-black murderers smarter and harder to catch? IQ testing results broken down by racial lines would suggest yes. If not, why not and can you substantiate it?
There are five times more whites than blacks.
This suggests that murders generally happen at random. They don't. The vast majority of murder victims are murdered by someone who knows them. Thus, black males commit most murders AND they generally kill other black males. So inter-racial murders are a minority of occurrences. The "party line" is that whites are racist and tend to want to see blacks harmed. Put all this together - the fact that blacks kill whites more often than whites kill blacks really casts doubt on the whole "white racism" angle. Whites are not some 20-30-50% more likely to be mudered by blacks than the other way around. According to federal government crime stats, which you are free to look up yourself, blacks killing whites is about 12 times more likely, which is 12,000%. Blacks are inherently more violent - if this were any other subject other than race this would have been a foregone conclusion obviously supported by abundant evidence. Racial politics and the whole white-guilt thing are the only reason why this is not more widely acknowledged. That's a social pressure, not a fact-based scientific conclusion.
Systemic racism.
Racism is the belief in the genetic superiority or inferiority of a group of people. It very well could be that black culture is toxic - its disdain of fatherhood and willingness to venerate street criminals are likely causes. The reason why blacks are more violent is irrelevant in that it has no impact whatsoever on the decision making. However they came to be that way, blacks are more violent and more prone to violent crime. In light of this fact, avoiding blacks is a good step towards enhancing one's personal security. In fact if it is not genetic, then that makes it all the more incumbent on the "black community" to solve its own problems by changing their behaviors. If it really is genetic (the racist point of view) then nothing anyone can do will change things because the problem is inherent. So in fact, it is more "black-friendly" to assume it is cultural. Still, the black community does not ask me or you what it should do or what its values should be - thus, in light of my total lack of control over black priorities, avoiding blacks remains my best move. QED.
Internet troll
All things considered, $2.8B USD isn't a whole lot.
Are you trying to be cool by association, dropping big numbers like that, or are you just terrible at math? $2.8 is a whole lot of money.
If Uber continues to succeed, they will be among giants such as Delta Air Lines and Greyhound but in a more local realm.
Uber has lost more money in 2016 than the entire revenue of Greyhound. Two more years of such losses and Uber will have lost more money than the entire fleet, equipments and offices of Delta are worth.
These guys are WAY more efficient than the public sector transit solutions and are more efficient than the government-sponsored Taxi Cartels. Uber only needs to not be shut down to grow and succeed.
No they're not. The bulk of the $2.8 loss is money paid to the drivers by Uber. Their business model is not sustainable unless they figure out a way to make self-driving cars work. Knowing the current state of technology, it's unlikely to happen before investors pull the plug.
lucm, indeed.
self driving cars are. Millennials won't be able to afford cars. Their wages are dropping and there's no sign of that trend stopping. Once that hits critical mass (e.g. enough of them of voting age who can't buy cars but aren't completely crushed by poverty) they'll be demand for public transportation. That's where Uber is positioning itself. The investors are letting them bleed money because, well, 2.8 billion only sounds like a lot of money to you and me. It's not chump change to the investors, but it's not going to really put them out. We've let wealth inequity get pretty crazy and we don't punish folks at that level for mistakes; so it's not really a risk to them. Maybe it woulda been in the 60s and 70s but not today.
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Uber drivers in several states have been reported cutting off mattress labels that plainly say, DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG.
and a good chunk is research and patents. What you're seeing here is basic research being done. The investors used to be able to get the gov't to do it for them for free but they traded that for tax cuts. Given we've gone from 90% top tax brackets to effectively 0 (thanks to Dutch Sandwiches and such) I'd say it was a good deal.
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Great job.
Black males commit over 50% of all solved murder cases in the USA. They are about 6.5%-7% of the population. Most of these murders are black on black crime. Still, a white person is many times more likely to be shot by a black person, than vice-versa. Yet if you respond to these facts rationally - by avoiding blacks - you're somehow a bad person.
You're a bad person because you posted this off-topic shit on a Slashdot discussion about Uber.
They're certainly more efficient at losing money than taxi companies.
If it really is genetic (the racist point of view) then nothing anyone can do will change things because the problem is inherent.
And if you travel around, meet enough Africans and black Americans... you'll know it's not; it's clearly cultural.
If it was a post lamenting the inclusion of systemd it would be fine though
Stating the truth will never be racism. You are just enabling censorship with Newspeak.
Pity I have modded things here, otherwise it would not be anonymous.
Or united airlines.
Maybe I'm getting my uber and lyfts confused, but i was under the impression that if you have less than 4 stars, you can't drive for the company. Uber driver intoxicated? Give him zero stars. A driver should only be able to weather about 3 zero stars before they can't drive anymore.
Are riders not giving their drunk drivers zero stars? Or is the state of California just complaining that this system to remove drivers isn't fast ENOUGH?
"they will be among giants such as Delta Air Lines and Greyhound but in a more local realm"
Delta filed for bankruptcy once, and Greyhound has gone bankrupt twice. Now, that's an efficient business model to aspire to.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Clearly, the California regulators didn't get the memo that Uber Bros don't follow the law because they believe they know better. And the public is dumb enough to give them business and let them destroy the taxi industry.
Uber: We lost 2.8 billion
Hillary Clinton: Hold my beer
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
I have very mixed feelings about Uber (and ride sharing in general), and I think it's hard not to when you really think about it.
One one hand, cost aside, the user experience for Uber is simply much better than cab companies. If I need a ride somewhere, all I have to do is pull up an app. It will tell me exactly how soon someone can get to me, when I will likely arrive at my destination, and how much it will cost. By contrast, if I call a cab, I have no idea where they will dispatch it from or when it will arrive. With meters, it can be hard to even guess how much it's going to cost me. Another feature is the ability to contact your driver. My wife recently left her phone in an Uber. In a cab, she would have probably been totally SOL. With Uber, we were able to contact the driver who was nice enough to mail it to us (out of town even). Regarding background checks, I've had far more sketchy drivers in yellow cabs than Ubers. As a result of this, I take ubers on trips I would have never called a cab for- especially when I'm traveling. I now rely on Uber when I might otherwise have rented a car, or might otherwise have just not taken the trip at all.
On the other hand, I totally see what Uber is doing by essentially "dumping" services by driving the cab companies out of business, when they can jack up the rates. I also object to their treatment of customers and horrid corporate culture. And its hard to reconcile that with use of their service.
Overall, I just don't see how the traditional cab model makes it in the long run, unless yellow cab companies form a national app of equivalent quality (not the flaky local ones that often exist) and start being able to compete on service as well as price. I think our salvation (to the extent we get it) is more likely to be competition from other ride sharing companies. However, with automation, I think the game will change yet again. I'm not convinced that Uber will necessarily be the winner if and when autonomous vehicles become common.
Zero tolerance policies are unworkable, IMO.