5 ms·

Uber Has Reduced Drunk Driving Deaths by 6 Percent, Study Finds

40 points by Bostonian 5y ago

taxicabjesus 5y ago
Something I didn't appreciate until I started taxi driving was Arizona's Zero-tolerance DUI enforcement. A lot of people get screwed with Zero Tolerance (that is, they're not actually impaired but get cited for DUI anyways) but it does motivate people who go out drinking to not take a chance. (Edit: there are drunks who desperately need to be taken off the road, and there are people who don't have a drinking problem but get arrested anyways, such as ↓↓↓) One fellow who I think got screwed was the passenger I picked up at the police substation next to the casino near central Scottsdale. He said the cop was right behind him when he pulled into the convenience store on his way home from the bar. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" (asking for a confession). No. Headlights were off. It was twilight, my passenger said he protested that his car had automatic headlights. Cop didn't care. The passenger said he'd had 3 beers during happy hour, & blew a 0.04 (legal) but got arrested anyways. I picked him up at the substation at 1am or 2am iirc. He was looking at a huge bill that might've been avoided if his vehicle's computer was just a little more aggressive about turning the headlights on sooner: Legal fees, tow fees, etc. (A public defender later told me "never take a breathalizer, have them take you for a blood test.") The taxi company I used to drive for had a "free rides back" program. Customers would order their taxi from the bar and request a free ride back from the scheduler. The next day they'd call the company and get a ride from their home back to the bar. It was not frictionless, but it worked pretty well, and people did take advantage of it. Here's a newswire about the company's program (2011) https://www.newswire.com/this-labor-day-discount-cab-offers/127679 https://www.newswire.com/this-labor-day-discount-cab-offers/... Drivers would be paid the standard rate for contract fares: $1.50/mile, less $0.50 for the company's fee iirc (minimum $5.50). There may have been some kind of government grant/program that paid some the program's costs? "Also available to the Phoenix and Tucson areas is the Discount Cab Free Ride Back program. This program gives drivers a free ride back to their own vehicles." - https://arizonaduiservices.com/dui/alternative-driving-services/ https://arizonaduiservices.com/dui/alternative-driving-servi... In the post-Uber downsizing they sold the old taxi yard to Waste Management (for $4 million, iirc). Looking now, the company seems to have given up on "taxis" entirely, and now focuses on other types of transportation. I do see VIP taxi and some of the others are still going. I'm out of the transportation industry now. If you've read this far, I refer you to my recent comment about how taxi driving helped me learn about "talking to strangers": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835024
cratermoon 5y ago
OK but what about the excess deaths due to the air pollution created by the extra cars on the road?
- Gortal278 5y ago
  Can you contribute useful data in addition to your angsty snark?
  - acranox 5y ago
    https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/07/uberlyft-responsible-for-a-large-share-of-traffic/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/07/uberlyft-responsible-... https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/25/139300/uber-and-lyft-are-behind-a-sharp-rise-in-us-traffic-deaths/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/25/139300/uber-and-... https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/11/16459004/uber-lyft-transportation-driving-urban-planning https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/11/16459004/uber-lyft-tra...
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  Extra cars on the road? I use transport services so that I don't have to bring my own car,but since they're pricier per mile I'm more likely to use them along with public transport. Less cars on the road.
- gameman144 5y ago
  What about them? Not sure if your position is that ride-sharing isn't an unalloyed good (sure, most things aren't), or that ride-sharing is bad (seems like that's strongly unsupported in terms of lives saved).
pope_meat 5y ago
Well, I guess the bottomless money pit that is Uber is completely justified. They never need to turn a profit, they're a public service now.
- Spivak 5y ago
  You joke but why not? Uber operating just to break even seems like a great endgame. Ridesharing services simply existing and being available has completely changed transportation for me. My family went down to one car because it’s cheaper to just get an Uber occasionally. And I no longer rent cars when I travel.
pcdoodle 5y ago
That's pretty cool. Why can't they make money?
marssaxman 5y ago
Anecdotally, in my community the norm around driving home after a night out changed from "be careful and don't get caught" to "why are you even considering that? I'm going to call you an uber, right now" over the span of about a year. Driving home at the end of the night had always been kind of a guilty normal, but it turned out that people were completely willing to take drunk driving more seriously as soon as they had some practical way of getting out and going back home again without using their own car.
thoughtstheseus 5y ago
Drunk walking is more dangerous.
vanusa 5y ago
Apart from the sugary pro-free market propaganda, you may be wondering about the so-called "national bureau" that the authors are affiliated with: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Research https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Bureau_of_Eco...

40 points by Bostonian 5y ago

Something I didn't appreciate until I started taxi driving was Arizona's Zero-tolerance DUI enforcement. A lot of people get screwed with Zero Tolerance (that is, they're not actually impaired but get cited for DUI anyways) but it does motivate people who go out drinking to not take a chance. (Edit: there are drunks who desperately need to be taken off the road, and there are people who don't have a drinking problem but get arrested anyways, such as ↓↓↓) One fellow who I think got screwed was the passenger I picked up at the police substation next to the casino near central Scottsdale. He said the cop was right behind him when he pulled into the convenience store on his way home from the bar. "Do you know why I pulled you over?" (asking for a confession). No. Headlights were off. It was twilight, my passenger said he protested that his car had automatic headlights. Cop didn't care. The passenger said he'd had 3 beers during happy hour, & blew a 0.04 (legal) but got arrested anyways. I picked him up at the substation at 1am or 2am iirc. He was looking at a huge bill that might've been avoided if his vehicle's computer was just a little more aggressive about turning the headlights on sooner: Legal fees, tow fees, etc. (A public defender later told me "never take a breathalizer, have them take you for a blood test.") The taxi company I used to drive for had a "free rides back" program. Customers would order their taxi from the bar and request a free ride back from the scheduler. The next day they'd call the company and get a ride from their home back to the bar. It was not frictionless, but it worked pretty well, and people did take advantage of it. Here's a newswire about the company's program (2011) https://www.newswire.com/this-labor-day-discount-cab-offers/127679 https://www.newswire.com/this-labor-day-discount-cab-offers/... Drivers would be paid the standard rate for contract fares: $1.50/mile, less $0.50 for the company's fee iirc (minimum $5.50). There may have been some kind of government grant/program that paid some the program's costs? "Also available to the Phoenix and Tucson areas is the Discount Cab Free Ride Back program. This program gives drivers a free ride back to their own vehicles." - https://arizonaduiservices.com/dui/alternative-driving-services/ https://arizonaduiservices.com/dui/alternative-driving-servi... In the post-Uber downsizing they sold the old taxi yard to Waste Management (for $4 million, iirc). Looking now, the company seems to have given up on "taxis" entirely, and now focuses on other types of transportation. I do see VIP taxi and some of the others are still going. I'm out of the transportation industry now. If you've read this far, I refer you to my recent comment about how taxi driving helped me learn about "talking to strangers": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835024

cratermoon 5y ago

OK but what about the excess deaths due to the air pollution created by the extra cars on the road?

Gortal278 5y ago
Can you contribute useful data in addition to your angsty snark?
- acranox 5y ago
  https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/07/uberlyft-responsible-for-a-large-share-of-traffic/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/08/07/uberlyft-responsible-... https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/25/139300/uber-and-lyft-are-behind-a-sharp-rise-in-us-traffic-deaths/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/25/139300/uber-and-... https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/11/16459004/uber-lyft-transportation-driving-urban-planning https://archive.curbed.com/2017/10/11/16459004/uber-lyft-tra...
carlhjerpe 5y ago
Extra cars on the road? I use transport services so that I don't have to bring my own car,but since they're pricier per mile I'm more likely to use them along with public transport. Less cars on the road.
gameman144 5y ago
What about them? Not sure if your position is that ride-sharing isn't an unalloyed good (sure, most things aren't), or that ride-sharing is bad (seems like that's strongly unsupported in terms of lives saved).

pope_meat 5y ago

Well, I guess the bottomless money pit that is Uber is completely justified. They never need to turn a profit, they're a public service now.

Spivak 5y ago
You joke but why not? Uber operating just to break even seems like a great endgame. Ridesharing services simply existing and being available has completely changed transportation for me. My family went down to one car because it’s cheaper to just get an Uber occasionally. And I no longer rent cars when I travel.

pcdoodle 5y ago

That's pretty cool. Why can't they make money?

marssaxman 5y ago

Anecdotally, in my community the norm around driving home after a night out changed from "be careful and don't get caught" to "why are you even considering that? I'm going to call you an uber, right now" over the span of about a year. Driving home at the end of the night had always been kind of a guilty normal, but it turned out that people were completely willing to take drunk driving more seriously as soon as they had some practical way of getting out and going back home again without using their own car.

thoughtstheseus 5y ago

Drunk walking is more dangerous.

vanusa 5y ago

Apart from the sugary pro-free market propaganda, you may be wondering about the so-called "national bureau" that the authors are affiliated with: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Bureau_of_Economic_Research https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/National_Bureau_of_Eco...