Ride Sharing Services

On Thursday I was interviewed about certain personal safety issues, one of which were the potential risks and dangers of using car services, such as Uber and Lyft, as opposed to conventional taxi’s and limousine services etc. Although I’ve written a bit about this in a general sense, in this article I’m going to go into a bit more detail, and focus on the city of Boston, where my school is based.

A major concern that many people have over using ride services, is that they are not sure that the interview process, and background checks that drivers have to go through are as stringent, and tough enough as those that the City conducts on its Taxi Drivers. It is natural to think, that a firm or company that self-regulates the background checks on its own drivers will set themselves a lower standard than those that a city has for its taxi drivers, however in Boston this does not appear to be the case. In an investigation carried out by a team of Boston Globe reporters in 2015, it was discovered that about 10% of Boston Taxi Drivers who applied to be Uber drivers, failed Uber’s background checks (Uber uses three separate companies to undertake background checks on its drivers). This may not be the case in other US cities, which undertake more extensive background checks, but it would seem that in Boston, the ride sharing companies may be ahead of the City on this.

It is also worth pointing out there have been instances where Boston Taxi firm owners have bribed city officials to bypass the checks for certain of its drivers. In one case two owners, Pyotr Vaserman and Semyon Teperman, bribed a taxi clerk with $30 000 to give licenses to 20 drivers who they knew would fail the background check process. When you have low paid individuals (such clerks make around $26 000 a year), managing key parts of the background checking process, you have a vulnerability that can potentially be exploited. The fact that Uber and Lyft, use third parties to conduct such checks, means that it is unlikely to be able to influence the process; also because they are recruiting individuals who they have no personal relationship with, they have no interest in influencing the process for individual drivers.

This is also one of the criticisms that ride sharing serviced such as Uber face; that they don’t conduct any face-to-face interviews with their drivers – this is not true of all ride-sharing companies e.g. Lyft, has one of their representatives talk to/interview potential drivers. However, we have to really question the benefits of face-to-face interviews, when it comes to identifying potentially dangerous employees. Think back to the last job interview you had, and try and remember if you were asked any questions regarding any risks you might bring to the company. In most job interviews the sole focus is on your ability to do the job, not whether you potentially have anger issues, and are in fact a ticking time bomb waiting to explode etc. Many interviewers, don’t even check on your references, or give up if it’s too difficult to get hold of them e.g. if you seem like a decent and nice person, there’s no reason to expect that you aren’t etc. Done properly a face-to-face interview can be a great way to find out if a potential employee poses any threats or dangers in the workplace, however most interviewers aren’t thinking in this way and/or lack the ability to ask the right questions. It would be naïve to believe that the interview process that a taxi company employs involves such questions; in most cases they will rely solely on the background check, which in Boston, isn’t as rigorous as that employed by the ride-sharing companies.

When we look at the potential opportunities for committing criminal acts that taxi drivers have as opposed to ride-sharing drivers, we can see how technology can be used to lower such risks. Uber, Lyft and other ride sharing companies use an application on the driver’s phone to track their every movement e.g. the routes that they take, the time they spend waiting in any place etc. This is done primarily for fare calculation however it means that the technology is continually observing the location of the vehicle. A taxi driver isn’t under such scrutiny, even if there is a dispatcher involved (and there could be situations where a dispatcher is complicit in a crime). If a taxi driver decides to drive their passenger to a secluded spot in order to sexually assault them, before either abandoning them, or dropping them off at their eventual destination, there is no record of this detour. An Uber or Lyft driver knows that they are being tracked. The passenger also can hit a panic button on their app – something which the driver is aware of – and whilst this may not stop a crime from happening, this tied to the constant tracking of the vehicle means that drivers are well aware of the evidence that is being gathered against them, should they engage in any criminal activities etc.

There are a lot of things we forget to consider, where our personal safety is concerned. Whilst our focus may be on the danger we face from a criminal, we must also consider the risk of road traffic accidents. The insurance for bodily harm/injuries that Boston Taxi companies are required to have is around 85% less than the minimum which regular drivers in Massachusetts have to have. If you are injured during a Taxi journey in a Boston Cab, you may have an uphill battle to get adequate compensation. With Lyft and Uber, each ride carries its own insurance. When you consider that most Boston Cab Drivers, are shift workers, who have to work long hours, and often take rests/sleep in their cars, in order to stay on the road for long enough to make enough of a wage, it can be seen that the chances of being involved in an accident are probably greater than if you were driving yourself, or with a driver who does a few hours a day to supplement their income – the profile of the majority of ride sharing drivers.

At the end of the day there are no independent statistics about whether taxi services are safer than ride-sharing ones – the police don’t report this information in their crime statistics – however there is a lot that points to the fact that in a city like Boston, you may be safer with a ride sharing driver, whose star rating and rider feedback you can see, before they pick you up; you also know when this will be, to the minute, unlike with a taxi service. Another feature I personally like about ride-sharing services, is that the drivers will let you sit up front, where you have access to the central locking, meaning a driver who may have criminal intent towards you will not be able to keep you locked in their car.