By the author's logic, public transportation also enables binge drinking. I think they just dont like driving drunk rich people as their source of income so they wrote a diary entry about it.
Yes, the made up one. Do you think someone who spends $100 to get wasted at a bar and another $30 to get home is less likely to commit domestic violence than someone who can down a whole fifth of whiskey at home with no bartender supervision for $20?
Lyft and Uber do not enable binge drinking, they enable social binge drinking. The violent drunks I knew of growing up were plenty content on getting hammered at home and becoming violent. Most would become violent well after they would have been cutoff by a bartender.
Well it’s pretty common knowledge that bartenders cutoff drunks and that alcohol is cheaper to consume in the home. Which of those would you like to dig into first?
None of those, but the implicit assumption that the pool of violent drunks won't increase when the bar (pun intended) for binge drinking in any setting is lowered.
All lyft and uber have done in terms of social drinking was give you an option to pay for a dd rather than have one of your friends on the role. This is probably still true today but bars can call taxis for you.
For me the point wasn't that much about enabling more domestic violence, but about being "in the loop" of that particular incident.
Also, yes, it is worse when the person is drinking out of the home, because that means family members have a lot less control over the drinking and less warning.
And domestic violence really doesn't have a high requirement of blood alcohol level. Even very minor levels can disinhibit a person, especially if he is already habituated to act out on his family members.
I don't agree. Convenience is a nice and valid reason to consume more and/or remove prohibitions.
When something is cheap, it's consumed more. When it's free of consequences, consuming more is easier. Like how iPhone created a spike in data usage, being not subject to DUI or reducing chances of immediate death is a nice excuse to remove prohibitions and consume more alcohol.
Sweden follow that path of logic by imposing over 100% taxes on alcohol in order to discourage consumption. When a cup of beer costs around $10 it quickly becomes very expensive to get drunk. The state also has a monopoly on sales outside of bars, and the store closes fairly early on Fridays, is only open during a short period on Saturdays, and fully closed on Sundays. All with the primary goal of limiting consumption by making the purchasing less spontaneous and less convenient.
There is however some debate if consumption is really reduced by making it expensive and inconvenient, and if it is simply a tax on poor people who are at work during weekdays.
Yeah, I don't get the point of this article, seems like venting mostly. They obviously resent being a 'designated driver on demand' but this is basically what an Uber driver is. It is also completely their choice to drive at the time when people are leaving bars.
> It is also completely their choice to drive at the time when people are leaving bars.
I browse a lot of driver subreddits (r/uberdrivers, r/doordash, r/doordash_drivers, etc) and it's surprisingly common to see people complain about things like this. Imo this is extra weird when you consider this is a major selling point of these apps - "You can work your own schedule and you won't have a boss to worry about" is part of the allure and is often even how the apps are advertised. I would be interested to know why this is such a common theme but people don't usually comment on the why on reddit
I can imagine you get a bit fed up with it after some guy pukes in your cab every night though.
But he didn't mention this in the article at all so apparently that's not his complaint. What he does complain about is indeed what a taxi service is for. I wouldn't call Uber a "rideshare" anymore, this is how it started but all Uber drivers are pros now. It's just a "taxi license (and worker rights) avoiding taxi service" now :P
The idea of ridesharing was that you'd take a trip to place X and people could chip in and join you for the trip. But literally nobody uses Uber for that anymore.
It's also a "filters out awful drivers" and "avoids price gouging and dishonest practices" service. I hope gig drivers get their rights better protected, but I hope we also never go back to the days of awful taxi drivers. As a plus it also eliminates dumb rent seeking from taxi medallion systems
Taxi drivers here aren't bad at all but perhaps that depends on the city. Here in Europe I've only experienced this in Bucharest, Romania and there it's a known problem that has its origins in more general societal developments.
The license systems were indeed pretty bad, the scarcity made them artificially expensive which was pretty ridiculous. The problem was the investment that taxi drivers had made, it made it pretty much impossible to abandon the system.
Still I don't think Uber really helps the drivers. Now they have to share their already-low wage with a megacorporation.
Public transportation does enable drinking. That is one reason why young people move to, and like to live in, cities with public transportation.
But there are still huge, important differences between public transport and "ride sharing". Public transportation almost never takes you point to point. You are expected to navigate public transportation on your own, including getting in and out at the right stops. Public transportation usually has sharply reduced service several hours before bars close. You also need a ticket, which often means you must be sober enough to work a machine that only takes cash.
If public transport is your ride home, you need to be a lot more sober than the people the author is writing about.
There are important differences compared to taxis, too. To take a taxi, you must (often) be prepared to pay in cash. You must have enough verbal control to give your address.
It is not implausible that ride sharing apps enable a kind of binge drinking that is qualitatively different from the kind people do when they have to take another way home.
> If public transport is your ride home, you need to be a lot more sober than the people the author is writing about
Having lived in London when I was younger I beg to differ. I only ended up at the last stop and having to walk home a couple of miles a few times. One time I managed to cycle from Leicester Square to Chelsea - I don't know why, I didn't live anywhere near Chelsea.
Yeah before ride sharing in the UK and later Australia, I got the train home, fell asleep, woke up in the middle of nowhere as the sun crept into view at least half a dozen times.
Ride sharing certainly increased my chances of getting home successfully, though my anecdotal experience is it wouldn't have had an impact on levity or intoxication.
I was in London on some software related business. So those brits invited me for a lunch at about 11AM. All came down to some place (my first time in London ever) and ordered pints. Talked a bit. Finished first pint then ordered another. After 5th pint I asked how about a lunch. This is a focken lunch was the answer. Loved those brits.
I think the 1970s and '80s in the UK were the heyday for this sort of thing. Typically you'd have a couple of pints at lunch time - a lot of offices had bars (rather like coworking spaces today..) and often just stay in the pub. The drinking culture had got larger because of the growth of the middle class - more people moving into office jobs.
By the time I entered the workforce in 1999, this sort of thing was on the wane, although it varied enormously by industry and company. I think the change happened because of the increasing computerisation of jobs (where you could do more damage with the tap of a finger), in addition to women joining the workforce in more senior positions. And probably longer commutes, tougher drink-driving laws, and more formalised HR policies.
A small part of me is nostalgic for it, but it was obviously ridiculously unhealthy. That said, a lot of work was actually done in the pub, and it's possible that people found solutions with their social guard down that they wouldn't have found whilst in the office.
Yeah, it hung on for ages in banking, didn't it? A lot of law firms still have a drinks trolley which goes around on Friday. Pretty sure banking is still pretty full-on.
No?! I grew up a 500 miles from public transportation, I assure you plenty of drinking happened in my community. And history is replete with people drinking in the past, more so than we drink now!
It enables "responsible" drinking. If I know I don't have to drive home, I can have that shot my buddy is pushing at me. After I've had that shot, me buying another round will seem like a great idea so I'll have another shot.
Rinse. Repeat.
I can't walk anything resembling a straight line by the end of the night but at least I won't be driving home drunk.
Pretty common to use designated drivers before ubers. Every bar would also be able to call a cab for you, at least for bars that would have rideshare coverage today.
My dad had to get a cab for one of his bar staff and take them to a hospital back in the 90s because he only thought to tell the management, on the re-opening night, that he was a haemophiliac - after he'd cut himself on a broken glass, and reminded himself he was a haemophiliac.
FWIW: I can't remember the last time I paid cash for a bus or a taxi. You don't need enough verbal control to give your address: I've taken taxis and have had language communication issues: I just show them the address on a piece of paper.
I only need to be sober enough to walk a short way (Bus) or go up some stairs (Taxi). [most of the ride sharing is illegal here, as they are basically alternative taxis - though they still exist. The taxi service isn't all that expensive, though, and easy to get]
Technically you can drink enough at a bar to require hailing a ride-share, once in a while, without qualifying for "binge drinking" or it affecting your health too much.
After all, one or two glasses of beer can push you over the limit. I'm not sure what the limit is in the US. Here in Germany at least the "prudent" limit can easily be reached with one glass.
US is similar, at least California is. One glass is generally legally ok, two will likely push you over the limit. Obviously the alcohol content varies between beers (but is displayed on the menu) and different people metabolize differently but seems similar to German (and U.K.) laws.
Yes and ironically this is very true if you don't drink much. Have two beers in an hour? Honestly you shouldn't be driving (at least for me personally I wouldn't)
Honestly, I can't even think straight after a single beer. In Germany, it was not uncommon to stock beers in the office fridge, but I could never understand how people can function even after a single beer.
I don't drive if I've had even a single drink in the past several hours. All it takes is one miscalculated breathalyzer and you're hosed. Even if you hire a good lawyer and beat the charge, your life is still fucked up and a whole lot of people will never believe your account of what happened.
Why risk it? Better to just not drink, or to get a ride from somebody else one way or the other. If some jackass cabbie wants to assume I'm a binge drinker because I hired their services, that's not really a problem for me because I never cared much for what cabbies think in the first place.
I'm not particularly old and I can remember a time when we called cabs to get home after a night out. Sure, it was less convenient then Uber is, but it wasn't drastically so.
I think this explains why I felt odd reading the article.
I guess there were some locations, I'm thinking rural but also just places with dysfunctional taxi regulations, where it was simply the norm to drive drunk before uber arrived. This is maybe a couple of decades longer than it was in places with decent taxi systems. So if you live in one of those areas, then you'd associate ride-sharing with this phenomenon, but if you didn't you'd have considered this as 'normal' a while ago and not see much difference when taxi's got apps.
You see the same phenomenon in reverse, where people talk about ride-sharing as a positive revolution in their lives, and they're just talking about a taxi system that works, which is their experience, but isn't universal.
The vast majority of the US. The Bay Area in all of the South Bay was like this. All of Seattle except for downtown proper was like this. Basically all of Denver. All of the DC suburbs.
It's still normal in a fair number of midsized cities. Try getting a taxi or rideshare in Flint, Michigan. The taxi will quote you a two hour wait but never show up. Uber/Lyft will show no drivers anywhere closer than Detroit. Even if one takes your fare, they will ultimately cancel it because it makes no sense for them to do.
A night out in a city like this means either a designated driver or drunk driving. There are no alternatives.
You weren’t in the suburbs then. Nearly every time we would call a cab in the 90s/00s around bar close, you would either get rejected outright, given an hour long estimate, been ghosted, or given a $80 fare for a 15 min ride and the credit card machine would conveniently be “broken”.
The decorum in London and Tokyo dictates you don't talk to your cabbie and they don't talk to you. The drivers of the black cabs in London will not make small talk as a rule. It helps them focus on doing their job, and it prevents you from boring them with the 50th tall tale of the day. It certainly rubs the general American sentiment the wrong way but it has it's perks. In the case of this article the passengers would know they're expected to shut up until they return home, pay, and get out of the cab.
This isn't to say cabbies never talk to customers (emergencies, change of plans), but the expectation that you should ask every service professional you encounter about how their day is going and what are their hobbies and what's their favorite color isn't a universal value. Some people like the author actually find it a little irritating!
This is hilariously wrong. Almost every cab driver I ever rode with in Tokyo would talk to you unless you were talking to someone else, or seemed like someone who didn't want to talk.
Even the one taking my wife to the hospital to give birth was being a television trope of a terrified stuttering teenager while he drove her there. (Despite that being a reservation with the situation being explained beforehand!)
Yes taxis are everywhere and easy to get by waving at any road. Also subway is great but for non adjacent to subway journeys they're a must. Also many get taxis when a bit tipsy versus subway. both are of course common. Also subway and then taxi at the end of station for the last 20 minutes instead of walking.
The trains shut down fairly early and there are no night buses (allegedly because of lobbying by the taxi union). In the daytime the trains are faster but only if there's a line where you want to go; if you need to change a taxi is often quicker.
Not been my experience. I've lived in Kyoto and most drivers in Kansai would talk a lot and enthusiastically whereas in Tokyo, I've only had about 20% of Taxi drivers who tried to start a conversation.
In my experience, NYC cabbies (those who drive actual licensed yellow cabs) are virtually always wearing an earpiece chattering away on bluetooth the entire time, paying no mind to your existence. Uber/Lyft drivers, however, seem to be a mix of those who clearly are just there to drive and want no part of you ala cabbies, and those who will actively engage you in conversation even if you don't initiate it or even show reluctance to engage. My last lyft driver recounted to me, virtually unprompted, several long and amusing anecdotes of his experiences driving strippers to bachelor parties.
Sorry, I've never heard of such a decorum or rule in London and I've lived there or around for 25 years. Not that I would go out of my way to have with a conversation with a cabbie, i prefer to mind my own business.
As a former cabbie, one of the best skills I learned was to quickly spot which passengers wanted to have a conversation and which didn't. I loved to talk with passengers, but sometimes people are just having a bad day and the cab ride is their moment of peace. Some others want to talk excessively, and you have to just listen to them. A good cabbie has the ability to carry on a friendly conversation with anyone if they want to talk on any subject, but also to read the room and be quiet if they want to ride in silence.
Er, couldn't be more wrong about London cabbies. Obviously you can't generalise and say all drivers love a chat but there's absolutely no expectation of not talking, that's just plain wrong!
>The decorum in London and Tokyo dictates you don't talk to your cabbie and they don't talk to you
Huh? London cabbies, particularly black cab drivers, are a notoriously chatty lot. Every cabbie I've ever used in London has talked my ear off for the entire trip.
I would agree in general, although notably not the couple of times I got a late night cab home with a date. So there is definitely some judgement on the cabbies part in my experience
Funny, one of the opening quests to one of the Yakuza games on PS3 had your passengers rate you on your conversation skills. I was under the impression that you chat with your cabbie, like where I am used to
In Japan they'd always talk and ask if you're American and make small talk. They say they watched Hollywood to learn their English. almost every taxi driver that spoke even a little English wanted to talk. maybe parent is directed at Japanese in the taxi and they don't talk as its a service. but as a foreigner they certainly were warm, friendly, and always wanted to chat.
Japanese (mostly Tokyo though some in Hakata) cabbies have been some of the most unique cabbies I've ever ridden with. I speak Japanese and have chatted with cabbies who coached me on which love hotels not to go to, the history of rail development near a small town, and even lamentations on how Japanese Kids These Days (TM) are less worldly than they were during the Bubble days. Only one cabbie I rode with was the silent sort and he was respectful and kept to himself.
The former. It's a refrain I've heard frequently from the older generation about how young Japanese have a less global outlook due to travelling abroad less for work or having fewer foreigners visit for work. I'm not Japanese myself so I can't comment as to how much I agree with this perspective.
I wish it was the case here in Australia. I used to have to take a lot of early morning taxis for flights, and invariably found the drivers wanted to chat. Ever if I had earbuds in they'd try.
At that hour I just want to pretend I'm asleep and maybe doze a bit.
Amazingly, almost no one will read this and see alcohol as being a significant part of the problem.
The reason for this is the extremely successful marketing that has saturated the culture.
You don't need to be an alcoholic, a wife-beater, or anything to get drunk. You just need to have one too many drinks a little too fast, and then its that much easier to make another wrong decision about the next drink.
It highly depends on the culture, also, there are cultures for which binge drinking is still seen as acceptable (for lack of a better word), especially if you're still bellow a certain age, i.e. "young".
For example in Europe there's a certain divide between Northern (and technically some port of Central, from a latitude pov) Europe and its Southern parts, there's also a strong divide when it comes to how acceptable women getting shit-drunk during a night out is.
The thing is that those Northern and Central European cultures are highly successful from an economic point of view, i.e. compared to other cultures, so whatever shitty thing they have with their culture of binge drinking is sort of hidden under the rug, instead of being put front and center and trying to fix it.
... alcohol as being a significant part of the problem.
There's a startup working on this. "Seriously, isn’t it time we came up with something beyond ethanol?"[1] They've developed something called "Alcarelle"[2] which has alcohol-like effects, but the effects max out around the 3 drink level. They are trying to get this
through clinical testing. They're looking for high net worth investors.
The amusing thing is that they have something that works, but it's a synthetic. They're trying to make it "natural", for marketing reasons, so they're trying to find some plant-based product they can bash into doing the same thing.
They have a product out, called "Sentia". It's not as good as Alcarelle, but it's "natural".[3]
There are many things which are better than alcohol, but the absurdity of War-on-Drugs prohibitionism means that most people can't get them. 1,4-B comes to mind.
Sunlight is healthy in moderation. Binge suntanning until your skin is blistered and peeling, you become incoherent, belligerent, or unable to tell someone how to get you home is another story.
"become incoherent, belligerent, or unable to tell someone how to get you home"
I don't what types of god-awful cretins you are hanging out with, but you should know that are countless adults who can get drunk, act kindly and coherently, and get themselves home with any issue whatsoever. Maybe find better friends?
After the first couple of paragraphs I began to skim, so I may have missed the point the article was trying to make, but it certainly was not stated within the first few paragraphs.
"Designated driving gigs" enable alcohol abuse among men? Alcohol abuse by men is a huge social problem? Drunk driving by men is bad but so is drinking to excess by men?
I think it would have been a stronger article were it just a series of anecdotes about driving drunk people around, without the moral and social commentary, but then, it would not have been published in Slate.
It would probably have seemed like a stronger article to you if you'd actually taken the time to do more than just skim it, although oddly that didn't stop you from taking time to publicly announce that you didn't take the time to fully read the article and admit you may have missed the point, but then proffer your opinion anyway.
After myself having taken the time to fully read the entire article, as well as all the paragraphs that you just wrote, plus most of what other people have written in this discussion, and then I've also taken the brief time to do some simple google queries, I'd like to kindly suggest that maybe some hard cold facts and statistics about reality would be stronger than a series of abstract anecdotes about driving drunk un-gendered people around.
But don't worry, I don't expect you to take the time to read my suggestion or the facts, or anything else other people have posted to this discussion, after you already announced you didn't bother to read the whole article and may have missed the point, so you're under no obligation to subject yourself to any more arduous reading or point getting.
>In 2010, men were responsible for four out of every five DUIs. And although only 11% of the adult population is made up of males between the ages of 21 and 34, this high-risk group was responsible for 32% of all drunk driving episodes. Last, but certainly not least, binge drinkers also fall into this high-risk group of those most likely to drink and drive. In fact, a male who drank at least five alcoholic beverages in a short amount of time (or a female who drank at least four) caused 85% of all reported drunk driving incidents.
And as far as moral and social commentary goes, it's usually men who sexually harass drivers, and say things like "You hold her down, and I’ll keep her mouth busy" and then criticize other men for not laughing along. It's too bad that it hurts fragile male egos to read (or skim over, in your case) moral and social commentary instead of just dishing it out, but all the evidence supports it, so "man up".
If you object to teaching science, history, facts, and statistics if they contradict your sexist, racist, and religious beliefs, or hurt your feelings by making you feel guilty about sexism and racism, then you could always move to Florida, which is now a "safe space" for bigots.
Florida Senate passes GOP-backed ban on teaching students to 'feel guilt' for history:
> it's usually men who sexually harass drivers... It's too bad that it hurts fragile male egos to read (or skim over, in your case) moral and social commentary instead of just dishing it out, but all the evidence supports it, so "man up".
You may share with the article writer a set of assumptions that makes it easier for you to understand what her point is. No need for hostility. I wrote what I wrote hoping that someone would explain it to me.
You correctly deduced that I am a man. As a man who does not sexually harass women and shuts bad behavior down immediately when I see it, I'm baffled by rest of what you say here. My fragile ego? Because I missed the point of the article?
I bear responsibility as a civilized human being for my fellow humans, even strangers. But it seems like you're saying that I bear culpability as a man for the behavior of the minority of men who behave violently or reprehensibly, specifically because I'm a man? Am I reading you correctly?
If that's your belief, I can understand your hostility. It would seem to you as if I'm denying my personal culpability. If that's a belief shared by the writer, it makes sense now why you understood the article and I did not.
To my mind, this kind of thinking is a category error to be avoided. It derives from assuming that, because most of the people who behave badly belong to some group, that therefore most members of that group behave badly. A corollary then is the idea all individuals of that group bear culpability for the actions of their most extreme individuals.
As a human being, I bear responsibility to end bad behavior. If I were in a group of drunken men, and someone said something so reprehensible, I would shut it down. If it was a man I knew, I would apologize profusely to the driver, leaving a big tip; I would have a series of seriously uncomfortable conversation with this man in the days and weeks to follow. But that's because I am a civilized human being, not because I bear culpability as a man for his behavior. That's the way I see it, anyway.
I have 2 related questions for you. Bear with me, and answer honestly: Are you a man? Do you believe that all men, deep down, are inherently violent rapists?
Wow, I have no sympathy for that driver. The sleazy beginning of that article, which glosses over the difference between drinking and drunk driving. If she doesn't like her passengers or what she's enabling, she should stop doing it.
You can read that sentence to both confirm and oppose the writer being male, FYI. Both 'like me' and 'unlike me' can be implied. You need more data than that sentence.
A lot of people do things they feel conflicted about, usually because they need the money but sometimes also because they aren't sure if what they're doing is beneficial or detrimental to society on average. Those people's stories are worth sharing I think. If you don't think they're interesting, that's fine too.
And like I said - talk to the women in your life; many of them will have been victims of some sort of sexual abuse, and I wager many more than among your male friends.
> Then she threatens to throw him out in the middle of nowhere because he was about to touch her on the shoulder.
The article was written by a male. It is “he threatens to throw him out” and “he was about to touch him on the shoulder”
It is very clearly stated in this part:
“That hadn’t happened to me, but maybe it would be less likely for male drivers.“ Also by the fact that the author is called “Peter Jakubowicz”.
The author is a female with chosen gender of male.
Its actually even worse if he was a man. He's a man attacking men and overreacting to something that obviously was much less likely to be a threat. Its a man touching another dudes shoulder, why threaten to throw him out of the car? My statement still stands regardless of this persons sex.
It might be going out on a limb, but after reading this article and following him in Twitter, I don’t think you are correct in your multiple assertions that he is a transgender man.
Not sure why you’re so worked up about this. The guy was in the middle of telling a story about how he’d already been kicked out for inappropriate touching. If someone else didn’t like his touching enough to kick him out of their car, why would he feel the need to demonstrate it again? If some drunk creep wanted to touch me to prove his case about how it should have been okay to touch his other drivers I’d kick him out too.
The author is a man. This is an article sharing his experiences driving drunk people very late at night, which tend to be older men because women and younger men tend to leave earlier.
I do not see this article as an attack on men. It is concerned with the behavior of a subset of people who are getting excessively drunk. And again, the author seems to want to share or "vent" about what he is experiencing. Maybe even encourage people to look at the situation and consider if something needs to be changed in terms of social expectations or bars policies.
As for the touching part, I don't see how it is hard to know that one must not touch others without their permission, regardless of gender. All humans have autonomy over their bodies and in exception of times of some emergency, consent has to be given either explicitly or implicitly. Unwanted touching is especially threatening to women because they are physically smaller and in more danger. Yes, not all men are a violent threat but _too many_ men are. Women need to play it safe. It might hurt your feelings, but it might save their lives.
Another angle that might matter for this as well, is that sometimes people "de-humanize" service workers such as drivers and treat them more like tools which is often evident in ignoring their personal space, time, and opinions.
Since this is a charged topic for you, take a moment to contextualize what you read and consider your biases or insecurities before making a judgement next time. The last decade has had so much unnecessary fraught discourse online that is not helping anybody but those who want to cause harm. The internet would be a better place if we all spend a bit more time to understand each other more.
A common methodology I use to check biases for articles is to replace a target demographic with an other. In this case I could switch all reference to the demographic of the male gender to African American and check if the article becomes racist. The title would distinctly raise some alarms, as would the highlighted sections, primarily those things that the editor is likely responsible for. The article itself isn't too terrible, through I suspect that people would have some concerns about the underlying tone if African Americans would be singled out in such negative way, and would question the motives of the author.
The main takeaway from this article has nothing to do with alcohol but actually how taxis seem to be completely unknown to the author or at least irrelevant. As I read along I just couldn't stop asking myself, didn't these guys have taxis before lyft and uber? And judging from the comments here, apparently in many places around the US, probably not (or they would just refuse to give you service). That's absolutely astounding.
I've lived in plenty of towns without public transportation of any kind - including taxis. You might be able to call them from the next town over, but that's probably gonna cost you at least $100 if they'll do it at all
And then in places with Taxis, most were pretty horrible. For example: My car broke once. Called to see about getting a ride to work the next day (There was no bus service, and at least half the trip had no sidewalks). I was told I'd have to call back when I needed it, and the waiting time could be anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours after I called. Which basically means that you can't make it to any appointment in an appropriate time frame. Half the time, the taxi was a poorly running car, sometimes dirty. I was not in a place with medallions, these were just poor taxi companies.
Interesting to see this so far up the ranks on Hacker News. Despite the content not being technical, cutting edge or intellectual as most stuff here (as also noted in the comments regarding the challenge to find clear takeaways).
Maybe this indicates that a lot of people here can relate to the author's emotions regarding encountering people with alcohol problems, also in the tech scene?
I lived for a long time in a place that's super unsafe for women and members of the LGBT+ community (assault, rape, lynching, etc).
When ridesharing apps came, they made commuting so much safer for these people.
It's much, much easier to find transport, and the drivers know their locations are tracked so they tend to not misbehave.
Not to mention that they broke the previous taxi companies' monopolies which used to have crazy prices - which made safe transport inaccessible to many.
So if they're enabling people who like to get drunk to do so in a safer manner, so be it. It's a small cost to pay. Ride sharing apps aren't perfect, but they're much better than anything that came before.
For this reason I feel like rideshares have a mandate and shouldn’t have surge pricing for a customers. If you are blackout drunk and see ubers at 2am are $120, there is a nonzero chance you might just opt to drive drunk or do something else unsafe.
If I was driving a car for a living my price for a 9 am commute to the office would be much less than a 3 am possibly drunk passenger. It has a much higher chance of being a headache.
Consistent prices likely leads to drivers knocking off well before 2AM. Surge pricing is a means to create an increased supply of drivers, by giving them a powerful incentive: a more attractive price for their work.
Price is the most fair way to prioritize rides. $120 is a big amount of money for a ride, but not big enough to make you go bankcrupt. Valuable lesson learned, drink less next time and leave earlier before surge pricing.
Drunken me is more likely to agree to pay the surge price. It seems like a good mechanism to get more people driving and transport the highest possible % of the drunks safely home.
In Holland we're pretty accustomed to cycling home drunk, and drivers are pretty aware of hazardous bikers :) Especially because Taxis are unaffordable in the Netherlands.
Cycling drunk probably involves a violation of the same laws that are managed by your driving license. So it’s somewhat like “since you can’t obey the license-free part of this law, we will not allow you the licensed privileges”.
The same law perhaps, but a lot less endangerment of others and a bit more endangerment of self.
Still not great but still a lot more responsible towards others IMO.
Regarding the endangerment though I would generally be very very cautious while cycling drunk. E.g. stopping at every crossroads to check if anything was coming even if nothing was. I never even had a near miss (at least as far as I can remember, to be fair my memory is a little vague :P )
One thing that was kinda surprising is that I seemed a lot better at cycling on icy roads somehow. I'd be more relaxed as sober I'm usually super worried about slipping and tend to overcorrect etc. I've fallen lots of times sober and only once while drunk.
Germany has a surprisingly reasonable compromise: you can get a DUI, lose your driver's license and all that, but the threshold for BAC is set twice as high for cycling as it is for driving. Actually these days the limit is more than three times that of driving, because apparently when they dropped the driving threshold from 0.8 to 0.5 the cycling threshold did not get automatically updated like in some excel formula. Fortunately, because I was afraid that the difference might disappear entirely when the driving threshold gets dropped to zero (only a matter of time I think, given how much drunk driving is perceived as a "boomer thing").
When I'm out on the bike, not drunk at all, I'd rather cross paths with a hundred wildly inebriated cyclists than even just one moderately tipsy driver.
The good news is that cycling is apparently much easier than walking (don't ask me how I know!), so they'd likely underestimate your BAC if you're beyond trying funny stuff.
In Holland you technically can too, but the cops don't arrest you for it anyway.
So many times we waved bye to the cops on the main square when stumbling out of the pub at 4am and swerving off on the bike. And all they would do is wish us a safe trip home.
It's just the 'done thing' over there. At least it was when I was at the partying age.
The magic ingredient that makes cycling home drunk surprisingly safe (I carry various scars documenting the limitations of that safety) is that it usually happens at night during a time of very low traffic intensity. Be very, very careful about applying drunk cycling confidence earned in the night to the odd daytime drinking occasion. Far too many things happening at the same time to keep aware of, feels like running out of RAM.
Low traffic intensity is a two-sided sword, it can lead to speeding and to inattentiveness. But those downsides are much less pronounced for cycling than for driving: for speed it's obvious (yet all of my scars from cycling drunk are purely from liking to go fast, nobody else involved), but the difference in terms of inattentiveness is even more pronounced: sitting out in the wind on a two-wheeler that almost but not quite balances itself is so much different from sitting in a comfy chair surrounded by entertainment electronics peeking out at the world through small windows and a set of mirrors that even the sober rarely use to is full potential.
Uber and Lyft could drop the 2am surge pricing, and replace it with heavy charges for puking, pissing yourself, hitting on the driver, and making misogynistic, racist, or homophobic remarks.
Yeah, I never understood why the government wasn't one blamed for this insanity. Transferable licenses? Okay, selling company sure, but in any other case it should be returned to pool and reallocated for marginal fee(a few hundred at max).
I wonder how many other industries would provide reasonable rates if they had to buy a license to operate from someone else currently operating.
Ride sharing apps are shit, especially because of the prices, like are you really suggesting that workers need to be paid like shit without benefits and social security, because you want to go out even if you can't afford it? If taxis and means that allow people to live with dignity for their work are too expensive, then don't go out, go out less often, find a better job
I sort of agree that it's like a race to the bottom. It's not necessarily easy to find a higher paying job though. And someone has to fill the shitty jobs, so the real solution is worker protection policy like unions, minimum wage, and international trade asymmetries.
Taxis are expensive mostly because of the monopolies. You are basically arguing that it's ok they are expensive. You argue that the group of people should be allowed to monopolize as elemental activity as providing safe transportation and price it however high they like. And the rest of us should just accept it and either do without access to safe transportation or struggle even more in our lives than we do to afford it. Just so a group of monopolist can earn money off of us that they couldn't have if they didn't manage to write their little monopoly into the law.
I know driving for Uber is not really a stellar job. But some people do it because that's the best they can do at the moment. They could never afford to drive a taxi. They could never be able to pay the dues for entering the monopoly. They would have to undertake even worse job.
The problem is not that those jobs pay little and provide no security. The problem is that people who decide to take those jobs are left without help to such a degree that they take them.
Introduce basic income and look how the conditions of ride-share drivers improve when they have a choice and some bargaining power.
You got to be kidding ! I would say Taxis are shit. It's not like taxi drivers are leading stellar lives in their mansions. Most of them are struggling to make ends meet, while benefiting the taxi union or whatever shit that runs the monopoly. How is this any different from Uber/Lyft. At least, here you have an option you can drive for multiple ride share without having to fork out your kidney for a deposit at the taxi union.
Local transportation is a basic service. Ideally, your taxpayer money goes into providing one. But we all know how inefficient that is, especially in areas with low population density. So, short of that, Uber and Lyft are the next best thing to happen in transportation. Will that increase binge drinking, yes, so be it. So be it, because people who binge drink will do it anyway. If they don't drink at a bar they will drink at home. The correlation of binge drinking to the availability of ride hailing needs to be questioned.
Before Lyft and Uber, back in 2007-08 I worked for a DD startup called Zingo. Their pitch was you find yourself hammered at a bar with you car outside. Call Zingo, we dispatch a driver on a foldable two-stroke scooter. Pop it in the trunk, drive you home, and we disappear into the night. We had no app or even GPS nav (because I was in their car). I carried a Motorola radio and wore an orange safety jacket. Because it was explicitly a DD service and you had to have a car to start with, my customers were exclusively hammered, and it was a dark time for me to live through.
I took 5-15 people home each night, and saw exactly the characters this article described. I actually plan to write about this in more detail one day, but after reading this I can't help but share a few anecdotes.
On my very first night, very first pick-up, I puttered up to a steakhouse where a guy in a suit standing by a Mercedes waved at me and yelled "Zippy! Over here!" When we got in his car, the first thing he said is "you might as well put a fucking bullet in my head, 'cause I'm fucking dead when my wife hears that I just got fired." We don't provide that service, sir. The rest of the ride he told me about his leased AMG that I was driving and kept telling me to punch it every time we got a green light.
I had nightly drunk Adams that were too hammered to even give me directions home. One quest I went on with Adam was first to go get chicken wings at a restaurant that I knew was certainly closed at 3:30, a half-hour past last call. After driving for 20-30 minutes to go see the closed restaurant I convinced him we should get him home. Like most hammered drunk men, he was confident he could give me turn-by-turn directions. He alternated between directions and spontaneous ideas of other places we could go to get him something to eat, and finally blacked out cold. I pulled over and shook him trying to wake him up, but he would just groan and push me away. I dug out his wallet, got his license and took him to the address on it. Luckily it wasn't that far. I walked him to the door and kept asking him "This is your place, right? We're home, right?" "Mmmm nnggg." His key didn't work. He was so noisy that someone came to the door. Apparently an old roommate that knew where he lived now, I wrote down the directions and drove him there. When we got there he was so out-cold that I couldn't get him to wake up at all. I left him in the car and hid his keys in the mailbox.
Another story that sticks with me is a cantankerous old widow. I was dispatched to a fancy restaurant. Restaurant had called, not the customer, which is always a bad sign. When I arrived they were clearly in a dispute and she was angry that she had to leave. She didn't understand the concept of my job, and seemed to think I was some kind of escort or something. She didn't like my reflective orange jacket, "you really don't have anything nicer to wear? What kind of shirt do you have on under it?" She wasn't happy with my shirt either, so she said "fine, that'll have to do." I explained I was just taking her home. "Oh no you're not. Not yet". First I had to accompany her to the bar at another fancy restaurant. We charged by the hour and by the mile so, a stop along the way was technically part of our service if you wanted that. I felt beyond awkward as we walked to the door of this fancy place, me dressed like a street rat in a reflective jacket, and her a 60-70-year-old Miss Daisy, drunk as hell and ready to chew somebody out. By the grace of god, they wouldn't let me in because because of dress code.
I don't know how I feel about the effect of ride-share apps upon alcoholism, but I know that chronically interacting with drunks was one of the most degrading and demoralizing experiences I've had. I have many more awful stories. The girl that threw up all over the inside of her own car. The woman, a regular I often picked up with her ...
I drove a cab in Boston in the 70's (yes, I'm probably older than most here). The work was hard, tedious, dangerous, and uneven in terms of income: some nights you'd make out ok, others barely enough to break even. But dealing with drunk people was a huge problem, for all the reasons you describe in your account. I have similar stories, humorous to think of now, but hugely depressing and demoralizing at the time. I imagine ride sharing as a job to be far worse: at least I didn't have to worry about the vehicle.
You should publish your piece. I don't know where, but I found it the most interesting response in this thread.
This is the best comment on this thread. Other commentators seem to try to brush their drunken behaviors under the rug. I know because I used to be one of those drunk louts.
You're a saint, and deserve to be compensated for all that you did for Adam, without even providing him with wallet cleaning services, and the service you didn't provide for the guy who called you Zippy, even though he clearly asked for it.
I'm guessing that Zingo went out of business because they couldn't compensate their drivers as much as they deserved, amiright?
Lots of people here are treating the transportation part of this as the part we can influence, but as someone from a society that rarely gets blackout-drunk when going out, it's perplexing to me why people can't simply drink less.
Maybe if Uber and Lyft delivered cannabis and pizza, more people would stay home and get stoned playing video games, watching netflix, and chilling, instead of going out and binge drinking.
Uber enters booming cannabis market with orders in Ontario:
What a hack article, trying to make something that's obviously a good service to many people look bad, not via hard evidence by shady insinuations, and thus failing at it miserably.
"The night before I picked up James, I picked up Adam, at the same West Union Sports Pub. I pick up a lot of these Adams. I suspect most are fiftysomethings who’ve made gobs of money at nearby big-tech campuses, like Intel’s, but I can’t be sure"
Based on the article's title initially I thought most of his clients are broken young men in their early 20s. Apparently not and the fact is quite the opposite with the majority are the wealthy old drunk men. It seems that money cannot buy you happiness.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 222 ms ] threadLyft and Uber do not enable binge drinking, they enable social binge drinking. The violent drunks I knew of growing up were plenty content on getting hammered at home and becoming violent. Most would become violent well after they would have been cutoff by a bartender.
Also, yes, it is worse when the person is drinking out of the home, because that means family members have a lot less control over the drinking and less warning.
And domestic violence really doesn't have a high requirement of blood alcohol level. Even very minor levels can disinhibit a person, especially if he is already habituated to act out on his family members.
When something is cheap, it's consumed more. When it's free of consequences, consuming more is easier. Like how iPhone created a spike in data usage, being not subject to DUI or reducing chances of immediate death is a nice excuse to remove prohibitions and consume more alcohol.
I can also speculate: Population centers have a higher density of bars and taxis. Simply because there is a larger client base.
Without evidence, you cannot tell.
There is however some debate if consumption is really reduced by making it expensive and inconvenient, and if it is simply a tax on poor people who are at work during weekdays.
"Hold her down, and I'll keep her mouth busy". And of course they ask him why he isn't laughing.
It just sounds made up for article dramitism.
Do people drink more because of cheap ride share--yes.
The problem is ride share is not cheap anymore.
I browse a lot of driver subreddits (r/uberdrivers, r/doordash, r/doordash_drivers, etc) and it's surprisingly common to see people complain about things like this. Imo this is extra weird when you consider this is a major selling point of these apps - "You can work your own schedule and you won't have a boss to worry about" is part of the allure and is often even how the apps are advertised. I would be interested to know why this is such a common theme but people don't usually comment on the why on reddit
But he didn't mention this in the article at all so apparently that's not his complaint. What he does complain about is indeed what a taxi service is for. I wouldn't call Uber a "rideshare" anymore, this is how it started but all Uber drivers are pros now. It's just a "taxi license (and worker rights) avoiding taxi service" now :P
The idea of ridesharing was that you'd take a trip to place X and people could chip in and join you for the trip. But literally nobody uses Uber for that anymore.
The license systems were indeed pretty bad, the scarcity made them artificially expensive which was pretty ridiculous. The problem was the investment that taxi drivers had made, it made it pretty much impossible to abandon the system.
Still I don't think Uber really helps the drivers. Now they have to share their already-low wage with a megacorporation.
But there are still huge, important differences between public transport and "ride sharing". Public transportation almost never takes you point to point. You are expected to navigate public transportation on your own, including getting in and out at the right stops. Public transportation usually has sharply reduced service several hours before bars close. You also need a ticket, which often means you must be sober enough to work a machine that only takes cash.
If public transport is your ride home, you need to be a lot more sober than the people the author is writing about.
There are important differences compared to taxis, too. To take a taxi, you must (often) be prepared to pay in cash. You must have enough verbal control to give your address.
It is not implausible that ride sharing apps enable a kind of binge drinking that is qualitatively different from the kind people do when they have to take another way home.
Having lived in London when I was younger I beg to differ. I only ended up at the last stop and having to walk home a couple of miles a few times. One time I managed to cycle from Leicester Square to Chelsea - I don't know why, I didn't live anywhere near Chelsea.
Ride sharing certainly increased my chances of getting home successfully, though my anecdotal experience is it wouldn't have had an impact on levity or intoxication.
By the time I entered the workforce in 1999, this sort of thing was on the wane, although it varied enormously by industry and company. I think the change happened because of the increasing computerisation of jobs (where you could do more damage with the tap of a finger), in addition to women joining the workforce in more senior positions. And probably longer commutes, tougher drink-driving laws, and more formalised HR policies.
A small part of me is nostalgic for it, but it was obviously ridiculously unhealthy. That said, a lot of work was actually done in the pub, and it's possible that people found solutions with their social guard down that they wouldn't have found whilst in the office.
This was the end of 1998. The company was traders and there were numerous bottles of hard alcohol in the open. I was amazed.
No?! I grew up a 500 miles from public transportation, I assure you plenty of drinking happened in my community. And history is replete with people drinking in the past, more so than we drink now!
This part of your statement baffles me.
Rinse. Repeat.
I can't walk anything resembling a straight line by the end of the night but at least I won't be driving home drunk.
At no point, ever, did they say anything like public transport being a necessary condition to have people drinking. Come on.
I've simply never heard anyone suggest a move to the city, so they could drink more easily, or more often.
That includes people I grew up with in a rural setting, and people I know well in the large city I now live in.
I feel that this is perhaps a thought given rise, by people who haven't lived without public transit. It just doesn't scan.
Designated drivers have been a thing forever, as well as passing out on a buddy's couch.
If anything, people in rural areas seem to drink more, due to boredom, compared to city dwellers.
Maybe your experiences are different, but it sure seems strange on this side of the screen.
I only need to be sober enough to walk a short way (Bus) or go up some stairs (Taxi). [most of the ride sharing is illegal here, as they are basically alternative taxis - though they still exist. The taxi service isn't all that expensive, though, and easy to get]
(Some) Taxi companies have apps too.
Showing a piece of paper with your address on it is not harder than using an app.
After all, one or two glasses of beer can push you over the limit. I'm not sure what the limit is in the US. Here in Germany at least the "prudent" limit can easily be reached with one glass.
Why risk it? Better to just not drink, or to get a ride from somebody else one way or the other. If some jackass cabbie wants to assume I'm a binge drinker because I hired their services, that's not really a problem for me because I never cared much for what cabbies think in the first place.
I guess there were some locations, I'm thinking rural but also just places with dysfunctional taxi regulations, where it was simply the norm to drive drunk before uber arrived. This is maybe a couple of decades longer than it was in places with decent taxi systems. So if you live in one of those areas, then you'd associate ride-sharing with this phenomenon, but if you didn't you'd have considered this as 'normal' a while ago and not see much difference when taxi's got apps.
You see the same phenomenon in reverse, where people talk about ride-sharing as a positive revolution in their lives, and they're just talking about a taxi system that works, which is their experience, but isn't universal.
The vast majority of the US. The Bay Area in all of the South Bay was like this. All of Seattle except for downtown proper was like this. Basically all of Denver. All of the DC suburbs.
A night out in a city like this means either a designated driver or drunk driving. There are no alternatives.
This isn't to say cabbies never talk to customers (emergencies, change of plans), but the expectation that you should ask every service professional you encounter about how their day is going and what are their hobbies and what's their favorite color isn't a universal value. Some people like the author actually find it a little irritating!
Even the one taking my wife to the hospital to give birth was being a television trope of a terrified stuttering teenager while he drove her there. (Despite that being a reservation with the situation being explained beforehand!)
Yes yes, anecdotal. I've also read Japanese-language books by cab drivers (ex: https://read.amazon.ca/kp/kshare?ref_=r_sa_glf_b_0_hdrw_ss_A...) and the idea does not come up — ever.
So yeah maybe an issue in some parts of Japan but not in Tokyo.
edit: The Japanese are also famous for treating foreigners and tourists differently.
I also used the taxi to get home from Haneda - cheaper and easier than taking the train for 5 people with 5-8 bags.
If I can chat while driving without getting distracted then a professional driver probably can.
Huh? London cabbies, particularly black cab drivers, are a notoriously chatty lot. Every cabbie I've ever used in London has talked my ear off for the entire trip.
Only if you get in and clear show you don’t want to talk will they refrain from engaging you in a conversation.
"Less worldly" in the sense of less knowledgeable about people and the world or in the sense of less sex?
At that hour I just want to pretend I'm asleep and maybe doze a bit.
The reason for this is the extremely successful marketing that has saturated the culture.
You don't need to be an alcoholic, a wife-beater, or anything to get drunk. You just need to have one too many drinks a little too fast, and then its that much easier to make another wrong decision about the next drink.
For example in Europe there's a certain divide between Northern (and technically some port of Central, from a latitude pov) Europe and its Southern parts, there's also a strong divide when it comes to how acceptable women getting shit-drunk during a night out is.
The thing is that those Northern and Central European cultures are highly successful from an economic point of view, i.e. compared to other cultures, so whatever shitty thing they have with their culture of binge drinking is sort of hidden under the rug, instead of being put front and center and trying to fix it.
There's a startup working on this. "Seriously, isn’t it time we came up with something beyond ethanol?"[1] They've developed something called "Alcarelle"[2] which has alcohol-like effects, but the effects max out around the 3 drink level. They are trying to get this through clinical testing. They're looking for high net worth investors.
The amusing thing is that they have something that works, but it's a synthetic. They're trying to make it "natural", for marketing reasons, so they're trying to find some plant-based product they can bash into doing the same thing.
They have a product out, called "Sentia". It's not as good as Alcarelle, but it's "natural".[3]
[1] https://gabalabs.com/
[2] https://www.menshealth.com/uk/nutrition/a30117412/alcohol-ha...
[3] https://sentiaspirits.com/
I don't what types of god-awful cretins you are hanging out with, but you should know that are countless adults who can get drunk, act kindly and coherently, and get themselves home with any issue whatsoever. Maybe find better friends?
"Designated driving gigs" enable alcohol abuse among men? Alcohol abuse by men is a huge social problem? Drunk driving by men is bad but so is drinking to excess by men?
I think it would have been a stronger article were it just a series of anecdotes about driving drunk people around, without the moral and social commentary, but then, it would not have been published in Slate.
After myself having taken the time to fully read the entire article, as well as all the paragraphs that you just wrote, plus most of what other people have written in this discussion, and then I've also taken the brief time to do some simple google queries, I'd like to kindly suggest that maybe some hard cold facts and statistics about reality would be stronger than a series of abstract anecdotes about driving drunk un-gendered people around.
But don't worry, I don't expect you to take the time to read my suggestion or the facts, or anything else other people have posted to this discussion, after you already announced you didn't bother to read the whole article and may have missed the point, so you're under no obligation to subject yourself to any more arduous reading or point getting.
http://www.drunkdrivingstats.org/menversuswomendrunkdrivings...
>Who Is At A Higher Risk Of Driving Drunk?
>In 2010, men were responsible for four out of every five DUIs. And although only 11% of the adult population is made up of males between the ages of 21 and 34, this high-risk group was responsible for 32% of all drunk driving episodes. Last, but certainly not least, binge drinkers also fall into this high-risk group of those most likely to drink and drive. In fact, a male who drank at least five alcoholic beverages in a short amount of time (or a female who drank at least four) caused 85% of all reported drunk driving incidents.
And as far as moral and social commentary goes, it's usually men who sexually harass drivers, and say things like "You hold her down, and I’ll keep her mouth busy" and then criticize other men for not laughing along. It's too bad that it hurts fragile male egos to read (or skim over, in your case) moral and social commentary instead of just dishing it out, but all the evidence supports it, so "man up".
If you object to teaching science, history, facts, and statistics if they contradict your sexist, racist, and religious beliefs, or hurt your feelings by making you feel guilty about sexism and racism, then you could always move to Florida, which is now a "safe space" for bigots.
Florida Senate passes GOP-backed ban on teaching students to 'feel guilt' for history:
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/10/politics/florida-senate-c...
You may share with the article writer a set of assumptions that makes it easier for you to understand what her point is. No need for hostility. I wrote what I wrote hoping that someone would explain it to me.
You correctly deduced that I am a man. As a man who does not sexually harass women and shuts bad behavior down immediately when I see it, I'm baffled by rest of what you say here. My fragile ego? Because I missed the point of the article?
I bear responsibility as a civilized human being for my fellow humans, even strangers. But it seems like you're saying that I bear culpability as a man for the behavior of the minority of men who behave violently or reprehensibly, specifically because I'm a man? Am I reading you correctly?
If that's your belief, I can understand your hostility. It would seem to you as if I'm denying my personal culpability. If that's a belief shared by the writer, it makes sense now why you understood the article and I did not.
To my mind, this kind of thinking is a category error to be avoided. It derives from assuming that, because most of the people who behave badly belong to some group, that therefore most members of that group behave badly. A corollary then is the idea all individuals of that group bear culpability for the actions of their most extreme individuals.
As a human being, I bear responsibility to end bad behavior. If I were in a group of drunken men, and someone said something so reprehensible, I would shut it down. If it was a man I knew, I would apologize profusely to the driver, leaving a big tip; I would have a series of seriously uncomfortable conversation with this man in the days and weeks to follow. But that's because I am a civilized human being, not because I bear culpability as a man for his behavior. That's the way I see it, anyway.
I have 2 related questions for you. Bear with me, and answer honestly: Are you a man? Do you believe that all men, deep down, are inherently violent rapists?
Your tirade gets a pass after that statement. It is an embarrassing reveal. You apparently think it's an insult to be a woman.
If you're a man, look inward. Your hatred and distrust of men is self hate. You can break free.
Know that I'll read whatever you write next, but will not respond. Be well.
Because many men are a violent threat to women (particular when drunk) and there's no way to be sure until it's too late.
Also the author appears to be male.
https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-dom...
And like I said - talk to the women in your life; many of them will have been victims of some sort of sexual abuse, and I wager many more than among your male friends.
The article was written by a male. It is “he threatens to throw him out” and “he was about to touch him on the shoulder”
It is very clearly stated in this part: “That hadn’t happened to me, but maybe it would be less likely for male drivers.“ Also by the fact that the author is called “Peter Jakubowicz”.
I’m wondering what made you miss this?
Its actually even worse if he was a man. He's a man attacking men and overreacting to something that obviously was much less likely to be a threat. Its a man touching another dudes shoulder, why threaten to throw him out of the car? My statement still stands regardless of this persons sex.
https://twitter.com/pfjakubowicz
Not sure why you’re so worked up about this. The guy was in the middle of telling a story about how he’d already been kicked out for inappropriate touching. If someone else didn’t like his touching enough to kick him out of their car, why would he feel the need to demonstrate it again? If some drunk creep wanted to touch me to prove his case about how it should have been okay to touch his other drivers I’d kick him out too.
I do not see this article as an attack on men. It is concerned with the behavior of a subset of people who are getting excessively drunk. And again, the author seems to want to share or "vent" about what he is experiencing. Maybe even encourage people to look at the situation and consider if something needs to be changed in terms of social expectations or bars policies.
As for the touching part, I don't see how it is hard to know that one must not touch others without their permission, regardless of gender. All humans have autonomy over their bodies and in exception of times of some emergency, consent has to be given either explicitly or implicitly. Unwanted touching is especially threatening to women because they are physically smaller and in more danger. Yes, not all men are a violent threat but _too many_ men are. Women need to play it safe. It might hurt your feelings, but it might save their lives.
Another angle that might matter for this as well, is that sometimes people "de-humanize" service workers such as drivers and treat them more like tools which is often evident in ignoring their personal space, time, and opinions.
Since this is a charged topic for you, take a moment to contextualize what you read and consider your biases or insecurities before making a judgement next time. The last decade has had so much unnecessary fraught discourse online that is not helping anybody but those who want to cause harm. The internet would be a better place if we all spend a bit more time to understand each other more.
And then in places with Taxis, most were pretty horrible. For example: My car broke once. Called to see about getting a ride to work the next day (There was no bus service, and at least half the trip had no sidewalks). I was told I'd have to call back when I needed it, and the waiting time could be anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours after I called. Which basically means that you can't make it to any appointment in an appropriate time frame. Half the time, the taxi was a poorly running car, sometimes dirty. I was not in a place with medallions, these were just poor taxi companies.
Maybe this indicates that a lot of people here can relate to the author's emotions regarding encountering people with alcohol problems, also in the tech scene?
If his job evokes such emotions and dread, perhaps this isn't the job for him.
When ridesharing apps came, they made commuting so much safer for these people.
It's much, much easier to find transport, and the drivers know their locations are tracked so they tend to not misbehave.
Not to mention that they broke the previous taxi companies' monopolies which used to have crazy prices - which made safe transport inaccessible to many.
So if they're enabling people who like to get drunk to do so in a safer manner, so be it. It's a small cost to pay. Ride sharing apps aren't perfect, but they're much better than anything that came before.
Perhaps minimum loading after 10pm to help with driver availability and service providers providing a minimum of x vehicles per hour slot?
I think that really depends on the person, also drunk people are not anywhere known for their good planning and reasoning skills.
In Holland we're pretty accustomed to cycling home drunk, and drivers are pretty aware of hazardous bikers :) Especially because Taxis are unaffordable in the Netherlands.
I wonder if you also lose your pilot license :) Or the sailing one.
Still not great but still a lot more responsible towards others IMO.
Regarding the endangerment though I would generally be very very cautious while cycling drunk. E.g. stopping at every crossroads to check if anything was coming even if nothing was. I never even had a near miss (at least as far as I can remember, to be fair my memory is a little vague :P )
One thing that was kinda surprising is that I seemed a lot better at cycling on icy roads somehow. I'd be more relaxed as sober I'm usually super worried about slipping and tend to overcorrect etc. I've fallen lots of times sober and only once while drunk.
When I'm out on the bike, not drunk at all, I'd rather cross paths with a hundred wildly inebriated cyclists than even just one moderately tipsy driver.
So many times we waved bye to the cops on the main square when stumbling out of the pub at 4am and swerving off on the bike. And all they would do is wish us a safe trip home.
It's just the 'done thing' over there. At least it was when I was at the partying age.
Low traffic intensity is a two-sided sword, it can lead to speeding and to inattentiveness. But those downsides are much less pronounced for cycling than for driving: for speed it's obvious (yet all of my scars from cycling drunk are purely from liking to go fast, nobody else involved), but the difference in terms of inattentiveness is even more pronounced: sitting out in the wind on a two-wheeler that almost but not quite balances itself is so much different from sitting in a comfy chair surrounded by entertainment electronics peeking out at the world through small windows and a set of mirrors that even the sober rarely use to is full potential.
Define crazy prices for someone trying to provide for a family on a 40 hour week, working at unsociable hours.
I wonder how many other industries would provide reasonable rates if they had to buy a license to operate from someone else currently operating.
I know driving for Uber is not really a stellar job. But some people do it because that's the best they can do at the moment. They could never afford to drive a taxi. They could never be able to pay the dues for entering the monopoly. They would have to undertake even worse job.
The problem is not that those jobs pay little and provide no security. The problem is that people who decide to take those jobs are left without help to such a degree that they take them.
Introduce basic income and look how the conditions of ride-share drivers improve when they have a choice and some bargaining power.
Local transportation is a basic service. Ideally, your taxpayer money goes into providing one. But we all know how inefficient that is, especially in areas with low population density. So, short of that, Uber and Lyft are the next best thing to happen in transportation. Will that increase binge drinking, yes, so be it. So be it, because people who binge drink will do it anyway. If they don't drink at a bar they will drink at home. The correlation of binge drinking to the availability of ride hailing needs to be questioned.
Where did I suggest that?
A socially accepted and ritualized poison, but a poison nonetheless.
I took 5-15 people home each night, and saw exactly the characters this article described. I actually plan to write about this in more detail one day, but after reading this I can't help but share a few anecdotes.
On my very first night, very first pick-up, I puttered up to a steakhouse where a guy in a suit standing by a Mercedes waved at me and yelled "Zippy! Over here!" When we got in his car, the first thing he said is "you might as well put a fucking bullet in my head, 'cause I'm fucking dead when my wife hears that I just got fired." We don't provide that service, sir. The rest of the ride he told me about his leased AMG that I was driving and kept telling me to punch it every time we got a green light.
I had nightly drunk Adams that were too hammered to even give me directions home. One quest I went on with Adam was first to go get chicken wings at a restaurant that I knew was certainly closed at 3:30, a half-hour past last call. After driving for 20-30 minutes to go see the closed restaurant I convinced him we should get him home. Like most hammered drunk men, he was confident he could give me turn-by-turn directions. He alternated between directions and spontaneous ideas of other places we could go to get him something to eat, and finally blacked out cold. I pulled over and shook him trying to wake him up, but he would just groan and push me away. I dug out his wallet, got his license and took him to the address on it. Luckily it wasn't that far. I walked him to the door and kept asking him "This is your place, right? We're home, right?" "Mmmm nnggg." His key didn't work. He was so noisy that someone came to the door. Apparently an old roommate that knew where he lived now, I wrote down the directions and drove him there. When we got there he was so out-cold that I couldn't get him to wake up at all. I left him in the car and hid his keys in the mailbox.
Another story that sticks with me is a cantankerous old widow. I was dispatched to a fancy restaurant. Restaurant had called, not the customer, which is always a bad sign. When I arrived they were clearly in a dispute and she was angry that she had to leave. She didn't understand the concept of my job, and seemed to think I was some kind of escort or something. She didn't like my reflective orange jacket, "you really don't have anything nicer to wear? What kind of shirt do you have on under it?" She wasn't happy with my shirt either, so she said "fine, that'll have to do." I explained I was just taking her home. "Oh no you're not. Not yet". First I had to accompany her to the bar at another fancy restaurant. We charged by the hour and by the mile so, a stop along the way was technically part of our service if you wanted that. I felt beyond awkward as we walked to the door of this fancy place, me dressed like a street rat in a reflective jacket, and her a 60-70-year-old Miss Daisy, drunk as hell and ready to chew somebody out. By the grace of god, they wouldn't let me in because because of dress code.
I don't know how I feel about the effect of ride-share apps upon alcoholism, but I know that chronically interacting with drunks was one of the most degrading and demoralizing experiences I've had. I have many more awful stories. The girl that threw up all over the inside of her own car. The woman, a regular I often picked up with her ...
You should publish your piece. I don't know where, but I found it the most interesting response in this thread.
I'm guessing that Zingo went out of business because they couldn't compensate their drivers as much as they deserved, amiright?
I hope you share more of those stories!
That surprised me. I would have thought most Uber/Lyft middle of the night drunk customers would be young adults.
What society are you in that doesn't heavily drink?
Uber enters booming cannabis market with orders in Ontario:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/exclusive-uber-t...
Based on the article's title initially I thought most of his clients are broken young men in their early 20s. Apparently not and the fact is quite the opposite with the majority are the wealthy old drunk men. It seems that money cannot buy you happiness.