Uber must pay wheelchair user $35,000, provide accessible rides

[teruakohatu]

Where I live there are few wheelchair taxis and they need to be booked in advance, sometimes months in advance if it’s a holiday. If a driver is sick most likely all their customers are staying at home. Costs are significantly subsidised and yet still there are not enough drivers.

It is hard to scale because it requires drivers with well above average patience, empathy and a caring personality. It’s not a job for profit focused individuals.

To scale it would require drivers paid a salary not paid per trip/mile. It would also require generous allowances for time (wheelchair taxi drivers are often delayed through no fault of their own).

[mdorazio]

It’s even worse. Wheelchair accessible vehicles are extremely expensive. As in, a basic wheelchair retrofit to a standard minivan adds over $30k of cost. And then the modifications to the vehicle prevent the cabin space from being used to the same level as before (you lose seats and cargo space). So it’s monetarily a bad proposition on many levels for taxi operators.

The best way around it is to push vehicles like the Cruise Origin that come with wheelchair-ready space by default but then you’re into purpose built vehicles that have their own downsides.

[mhandley]

It's not like it cannot be done - all London taxis are required to be wheelchair accessible. But it does require political will.

https://levc.com/technology/accessibility/

[bombcar]

We have a local state/city sponsored ride share program for elderly, infirm, disabled, and it can do wheelchairs.

And it is still often simpler to just buy a (subsidized) wheelchair van for the person and let their caretaker drive them.

[ajross]

> It is hard to scale because it requires drivers with well above average patience, empathy and a caring personality. It’s not a job for profit focused individuals.

To be glib: that's ridiculous. Offer $1000/ride and I guarantee you'll find a long line of patient, empathic and caring drivers signing up for your service.

It just costs money. Maintaining a wheelchair-capable vehicle and operating rides for wheelchair-bound people is simply more expensive than driving millenials around to their dinner dates. Someone needs to pay for that. Law suits and regulation like those detailed in the linked article are part of the mechanism by which we as a society decide how to do that.

[kevincox]

> B.C.’s attorney general was named as a respondent in the complaint and in its submission said that in early 2020 it implemented a 30-cent per-trip fee under the passenger transportation act or regulation as an incentive for ride-hailing apps to provide a wheelchair accessible ride option, not to exempt them from offering one.

I think this is the interesting part. Uber was paying a fee per ride (previously $0.30, recently $0.90) which was supposed to go towards providing accessible transit options. This doesn't seem like an unreasonable way to ensure that there are accessible options while not requiring every provider to make those accommodations (which can be very expensive for smaller providers as in order to reliably offer accessible transit you need capable vesicles and always have them spread out over your operating range). It seems that raising/adjusing this fee and using the proceeds to subsidize accessible transit could be a quite efficient way to ensure that this service is available and self-balancing based on the market.

[advisedwang]

As a matter of law though it's a terrible argument.

the BC Human Rights code has a provision "If there is a conflict between this Code and any other enactment, this Code prevails." So unless the taxi fee explicitly says it supersedes the human rights code it explicitly does not.

[kohbo]

"...Uber told the 2022 hearing into Bauer’s complaint that it didn’t violate the human rights code because it’s an app and doesn’t provide a service as defined under the code."

What an argument.

[thrill]

'Taxi companies “100 per cent support that Uber should also provide (wheelchair accessible vans) because why not?”'

Because the drivers own the vehicles not Uber.

[SuperNinKenDo]

The longer you look at it the more interesting the issue is.

The fee Uber has been paying and the assertion that it doesn't protect a company from legal liability.

The fact that what initially seems like a horrid and ridiculous argument ("we're an app!") actually unpacks to something consequential.

The fact that Uber's model ostensibly relies on personal cars being used (so who's responsible for the lack of accessible cars?).

[sevenf0ur]

Wow, each ride is taxed $0.90 to hopefully provide taxi companies with wheel chair accessible vehicles so they can perform rides at a loss? The city would be better off forming a non-profit and managing the rides like public transit.

[bpye]

TransLink, the local transit operator, do have a service not unlike that you describe called HandyDART.

https://www.translink.ca/rider-guide/transit-accessibility/h...

[DANmode]

That may not be ubiquitously true, from some of the anecdotes here about those very transport firms,

and local taxi firm stories in general.

[threadweaver34]

Uber gonna Uber, but I'm surprised someone in management doesn't realize this is a bad look, read the tea leaves, and buy a few wheelchair taxis and have Uber-employed drivers to handle this in cities with over 100,000 people.

[linehedonist]

Cost is way too high. A few taxis and drivers won’t cut it.

[webnrrd2k]

I'd think that Uber would just hire the wheelchair accessible taxis directly from the taxi company. Maybe the taxi company charged 3x or more for the ride, but it's still cheaper for Uber.

[DANmode]

In the long-run, sure,

but think about how many more cents the investors made by ignoring the issue the last two+ quarters! /s

[primer42]

> But Uber told the 2022 hearing into Bauer’s complaint that it didn’t violate the human rights code because it’s an app and doesn’t provide a service as defined under the code.

What a slimy, disgusting, in-human argument to make.

[renewiltord]

Doesn't sound anything like that. It would be like if "Ask HN: Who's Hiring?" was asked why they didn't ensure that the hiring was evenly distributed among (say) races. They're just a forum, a place where people can post stuff. They can't guarantee that the people posting are of that distribution unless they themselves post it.

In this case, Uber is just a forum where people post ride availability and people look for ride availability.

It's not an outrageous argument to make, but it clearly didn't take. Presumably Uber will have to ensure there are sufficient UberWAV available in any region they offer normal services.

[paulpauper]

So much for those attention-grabbing 7-8 figure settlements that sometimes make the news. The reality is much less money. $35k so tiny can be treated as a cost of doing business.

[dghlsakjg]

That was the amount awarded to a single claimant. Living in this area I can promise you that there is more than one disabled person in the BC's largest city.

Also they are required to begin providing acceptable service.

So the business impact is much more severe than writing a check and forgetting about it. Canadian regulators are more than happy to shut down your whole business if you fail to comply with tribunal orders.

[threadweaver34]

In a strictly business sense, Uber made the right call. Paying $35,000 plus lawyers to learn this is a service they need to provide is cheaper than building it preemptively. In a human sense, it's pretty fucked.

[bilbo0s]

Paying out 35k a ride on every 20 dollar canadian ride for a handicapped person is good business?

You're losing money on every transaction.

And no, you don't make it up in volume. You need to do 1750 other 20 dollar canadian rides just to make up for each handicapped ride. That's assuming you only want to break even, and you don't pay anything to your drivers.

That's a horrible business.

[abeppu]

I wonder if there will now be a large number of similar suits from others that have been discriminated against in the same way. Maybe the eventual total liability could be meaningful?

[jmspring]

Given this was in Canada, I wonder if that was part of the reason the settlement was low.