17 ms·

Based on personal experiences this isn't surprising. When I was in college in a small town in the late 00's, many friends and acquaintances would drive across t

• qyv 10y ago
  It's not he accessibility of ride-sharing services that is doing this, it is the ride-sharing services policy of artificially low pricing to facilitate rapid growth that is responsible. Those $9 rides are not sustainable. When the prices go back up to sustainable levels we will see many of these benefits evaporate.
  • psiclops 10y ago
    It's still safer and cheaper than a DUI* or worse. For many people, as long as it is convenient, those benefits are enough
  • jnordwick 10y ago
    And like you know, all the other things he listed: > it's easy to call one from a crowded/loud place, you know how much it will cost, they don't use cash, they know where you are, and you don't have to give directions. p.s., why do people like you want to hate on ride sharing services so much? Is it just that nothing can ever be good enough in your mind?
    • xirdstl 10y ago
      I upvoted you, but I think this needs reinforcement. These are very valuable considerations when getting a ride home after drinking. In my personal experience, you call a cab, and they may not even come. There's no repercussion for that with traditional taxi services. Uber may be subsidizing pricing now, but there is still a higher price point that provides additional value, particularly for those drinking. Reliability, convenience, and accountability -- these are the keys.
      • visakanv 10y ago
        All of these things are also huge for people who are disabled (deaf, mute, etc) and for people who are in foreign countries, and all sorts of other situations that most of us might not typically think of.
      • Klathmon 10y ago
        Don't forget about the cost estimates. Even if ridesharing services were the same price as a taxi, knowing roughly how much it will cost before I even call the thing is a huge plus, and knowing the route they will take me on is even better. I don't need to be constantly on the lookout to make sure my uber driver isn't trying to fuck me by running the meter going the wrong direction giving me some bullshit about how his way is faster and then when we get there the credit card machine is broken and the fare is 3x what you expected (which is already 2x what it was in your home area). With uber, if someone pulls that I know I can get a refund with a pretty good chance in success. I haven't ever had a taxi company call me back about anything, half the time the fucking taxi doesn't even show up.
    • hmcdona1 10y ago
      It's not even just that. I'm not sure about everywhere in the country but in parts of Texas good luck depending on a cab to show up within even an hour+ time frame you called in for it to. Everyone here has cars so there are very few cabs and the service is poor because of it. I went to college in San Antonio and Uber was banned for about a semester or so after it became the norm. Too many people started drunk driving again. For all intents and purposes, you either found a designated driver or didn't go out. Many choose the illegal third option. No matter what the price, the fact that you CAN get a timely ride via ride sharing apps is a game changer here.
  • nsnick 10y ago
    It is not the cost of the ride, it is the fact that an Uber driver will actually show up. In many cities if you call a taxi company at 2am, no one will answer.
    • maccard 10y ago
      I've booked cabs before going out (UK) and had the agree to meeting me at 2/3am at a specific locstion, and they just don't show sometimes. I've had one no show über driver, and when he didn't show another showed up in his place.
  • nix0n 10y ago
    Uber hopes to keep fares at their current level by replacing human drivers with autonomous vehicles.
• metafunctor 10y ago
  It has always amazed me how casually people drink and drive in some countries; the US especially springs to mind. Over here, drinking and driving is an extremely shameful and embarrassing thing to do. I would say it's on par with hitting a child. You just don't do it, not to save 20 bucks, or to save you from walking an hour.
  • kneel 10y ago
    >It has always amazed me how casually people drink and drive in some countries; the US especially springs to mind. Drinking and driving is still very taboo in the US. It's just that most areas of the country require an automobile to get around and most people have a car. One more thing, no one should be surprised that people drink and drive anywhere. People make all sorts of terrible decisions when they're intoxicated, they're drunk after all.
    • metafunctor 10y ago
      Not quite as taboo as many other countries [1], unfortunately. You give two excuses to drink and drive. Both are indefensible. The first excuse is "need a car to get around, have car". I live in a sparsely populated area as well, and everyone uses a car to get around. When we go out drinking, we plan ahead. The most common options are designated drivers, taxis, sleeping over, walking, or cycling. The second excuse is "can't expect to make good decisions while drunk". That's a bit intellectually dishonest. The decision to think about how to get back later, knowing you're going to be drinking, is a bad decision made while entirely sober. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_States#International_Comparisons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_driving_in_the_United_St...
      • m-j-fox 10y ago
        Walking and cycling are going to get you killed at the same rate if not higher as driving. I guess you're not as likely to kill someone else.
        • 10y ago
• alkonaut 10y ago
  Pretty irresponsible of someone to drive drunk to save $20-30. I could never imagine doing that over the options (riding a bike, ignore going to the bar in the first place etc).
  • xxs 10y ago
    in some place drunk riding a bike might have similar repercussions [incl. criminal charges above certain levels].
    • zer0tonin 10y ago
      It's harder to kill someone on a bike tho.
      • pluma 10y ago
        Directly? Yes. Indirectly? No. You're still posing a traffic hazard.
        • alkonaut 10y ago
          I'd say the risk of killing someone or causing an incident is much lower when riding drunk on a bike than in a car. To cause a major accident while drunk on a bike (that doesn't only involve yourself) you need an unfortunate chain of events such as a car avoiding you and running into someone else. For starters, I can usually go most places by bike without doing it on the same roads as cars. (I know that's rarely the case in the US though). If that's not possible, and you are so drunk you can't ride a bike (I can certainly ride a bike safer than a car while drunk simply because the speed is much slower so the reaction times are longer) - then leave the bike too. Walk or get a cab.
          • usrusr 10y ago
            College years have provided me with both first and second person anecdotal evidence that cycling can have a higher incapability threshold than walking. That's for the motor control parts at least. Situational awareness is an entirely different story though. In the dead of night traffic is on easy mode, where you notice the indirect illumination of a car's headlights around two corners and hear them from a mile away. That's just not very challenging (and probably plays a large role in the seemingly universal pattern of more drunk driving in rural areas, unfortunately cars come with an incredible amount of risk compensation through speed). Broad daylight city cycling on the other hand I consider a bad idea even at BAC levels well within the legal limits for driving cars (speaking of Germany here, where in terms of fines, cycling is tolerated at twice the BAC level as driving, a reasonable compromise)
• sAbakumoff 10y ago
  During my first visit to the USA, back in 2007, I was shocked at casual drinking and driving habits of my co-workers. They were fine with having 5-6 bottles of beer and a couple of shots and then drop me in the hotel before driving home. Fortunately they don't have to do that anymore.
  • pluma 10y ago
    I think this might be related to another complaint you often hear about: the drinking culture in general. Where I live in Europe it's normal to have designated drivers at parties and it's socially unacceptable to pressure them into drinking. If someone offers you a drink, "I'm driving" is a no-questions-asked way to turn it down (same goes for "I'm pregnant" or "I'm a recovering alcoholic"). That doesn't seem to be the case in much of the US. But it's one of those things that are hard to judge from across the pond.
    • Broken_Hippo 10y ago
      Your judgement matches my experience. I lived in the US then moved to Northern Europe.
    • rmc 10y ago
      "I'm on antibiotics" is another excuse.
    • pm90 10y ago
      This may have to do with the troubled history of alcohol in the US. You've had the temperance movement which lead to Prohibition, which was too extreme. After its repeal, the temperance movement faded somewhat, until automobiles became more common and you have MADD pressuring states to raise the drinking age to 21, which is now effective in all the states. That has inadvertently contributed to an extremely unhealthy culture of binge drinking on college campuses all across the US. That early experience with binge drinking may partially explain the lack of healthy drinking culture in the US. However, anecdotally "I'm driving" is now pretty much the best reason to give and not to be pressured into drinking. But that's just been my personal experience.
    • 10y ago
• cmarschner 10y ago
  >Other than not going out, or not getting home, you didn't have many options. I don't understand. Of course you do! Just go out and don't drink...! When I grew up we would just take turns. A car seats 5, so you would be the driver every 5 times. That's not too bad... You could still have a beer or two, or just have a sober evening and the next day without a hang-over. Also, everyone knew the formula by which blood alcohol gets reduced over time, and how much alcohol would be in a glass of beer. At one rare event when I knew I would have pretty much maxed out my quota I once got in a police control and got tested at night. It was very accurate... I missed the limit by 0.02 per mill. I played a bit safer from then on, though. The limit in our area is at 0.5 per mill, but if you had an accident with over 0.2 you might already get in trouble with insurance coverage. Apart from the fact that of course the risk of having an accident goes up and can destroy lives.
  • mjevans 10y ago
    I envy you for not being able to count your friends on a single hand.
    • swozey 10y ago
      And that as a grown adult his/her friends all live in the same general area so that one person can drop everyone off. That'd be absolutely ludicrous here in Austin. Everyone lives in the opposite 30 minute direction. I don't even ask where people live anymore because there's almost no chance they live within 30 minutes (10 miles) of me and I'm central so I'll probably never visit them. The nights I can plan for a sober driver vs using a TNC are few and far between and usually on the weekend when one of my friends husbands or wives doesn't mind being the DD. This doesn't help during happy hour, etc at all. Uber/Lyft/TNCs made going out far less anxiety ridden ("will I even be able to get a cab? When do the buses stop?")
• cm2187 10y ago
  I completely agree. I wonder how self driving cars (i.e. no driver to watch you) are going to change that. The consensus is that we will be using shared cars as opposed to owning your own car. But if the tube in London gives us any indication, when you order a self driving car in London on a Saturday night, you are likely to find it covered with vomit and other bodily fluids. I do believe that owning a self driving car will still be a thing. (and for another reason: everyone will need it at the same time).
  • jdietrich 10y ago
    It's a lot easier to pull a self-driving car out of service for cleaning than a six-carriage train. It's not unreasonable to expect that some combination of machine vision, Mechanical Turk and hands-on inspection will be able to detect a car with a soiled interior before it gets dispatched to another customer. I imagine there will be plenty of teething problems and horror stories, but I don't think it's an insoluble problem.
  • dx034 10y ago
    I think you might have a wrong impression of the tube. I use it quite often but cannot remember when I last saw vomit on a train. If at all rather on the platform as many people try to get off if they feel very sick but don't make it to the exit of the station. There are certainly many drunk people but also a fair share of people going from/to work late at night.
• rbcgerard 10y ago
  Actually one of the things that's most interesting about this study is that it's a study of NYC - where access to public transport might be the best in the United States. Purely supposition on my part but my guess is that the market ride sharing services are capturing are suburbanites who are actually paying $50 to go to NJ/LI/CT as opposed to driving - as it's hard to imagine many locals driving anywhere, let alone drunk driving. The staten island graph is curious though (does it mean there is no non-locals visiting?
  • tedmiston 10y ago
    > NYC - where access to public transport might be the best in the United States Same with access to taxis… being able to just walk outside and find one vs in many other cities having to call one (and have their phone number already) and wait.
• dreen 10y ago
  This may not be the case for most people, but an hour walk after heavy drinking with music in my ears and nothing but empty road and darkness is something I really miss because of uber.
• cafard 10y ago
  A ten to fifteen minute walk is less than a mile, unless heavy drinking somehow speeds one up. Where does that distance cost $20 in a cab? The NYC taxi & limousine website shows one mile in Manhattan as costing about $6.30--$5 for the fare, .80 for MTA and improvement surcharges, .50 for night surcharge. Edit: My mistake, misread the text.
  • dx034 10y ago
    It's probably not just the cost but finding a cab at all. You have to call them and will likely go home when everyone leaves. Without surge pricing, there's no fluctuation in supply so that you don't get a cab. That's my experience at least. It's also cheaper in the end but with an uber you know pretty well when you'll be in the car.
  • eloff 10y ago
    It was a 10-15 min drive, or one hour walking. Which sounds about right (maybe a little less than $20.)
  • Nav_Panel 10y ago
    NYC actually has far cheaper cabs than most US cities (who don't have Uber) because the market is extremely different. High demand and high supply 24/7 as opposed to surges. The pricing is also more tightly regulated iirc (haven't looked into the specifics). When I took the train up to Albany, I wanted a cab to a coffee shop across the bridge. It was a half hour walk vs a 7min car ride. The cab was flat rate into the city so it would have cost $20+ just to take me across the bridge. This would've been a sub-$10 ride in NYC. I walked it, despite the rain.
    • narrowrail 10y ago
      I just saw a stat yesterday that NYC taxi medallions reached their lowest value with a total of 13.6k medallions in existence; compare with 50k Uber/Lyft drivers.
• swah 10y ago
  Also if you go out as a couple, its very boring if both can't have a glass of wine.. I'm thinking of selling my car just because of how well Uber works, and how expensive having a second car is (in Brazil at least).
• weavie 10y ago
  I remember in South Africa talking to a gentleman who was obviously quite inebriated about how he was going to get home. His response "I just put my head down, press the accelerator and get home as quickly as possible." I was horrified!
• ythn 10y ago
  People that drive drunk should be charged with attempted homicide because apparently the current penalties are not enough. Drunk drivers are just as deadly as your average mass shooting. Ram head first into a van and kill a family of 5 in one swoop. Nobody talks about it. The president doesn't address the nation if drunk drivers kill too many people in one year. Nobody seems to care. It's just "the price to be paid" for legal booze.