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The Courts Transportation Businesses Technology

Equal Rights Center Sues Uber For Denying Equal Access To People Who Use Wheelchairs (techcrunch.com) 230

Posted by BeauHD from the unequal-access dept.
The Equal Rights Center is suing Uber, alleging that the company has chosen not to include wheelchair-accessible cars as an option in its standard UberX fleet of vehicles, and excludes people who use wheelchairs in Washington, D.C. According to the lawsuit, Uber is in violation of Title 3 of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the D.C. Human Rights Act. TechCrunch reports: After conducting its own investigation of Uber's services for people in wheelchairs, the ERC found that passengers had to wait an average of eight times longer for an accessible car to arrive. They also had to pay twice as much in fares, according to the ERC's study. Ultimately, the ERC wants Uber to integrate wheelchair accessible cars into its UberX fleet so that people who use wheelchairs don't have to wait longer and pay more to use the car service. Uber said in a statement provided to TechCrunch: "We take this issue seriously and are committed to continued work with the District, our partners, and stakeholders toward expanding transportation options and freedom of movement for all residents throughout the region."
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Equal Rights Center Sues Uber For Denying Equal Access To People Who Use Wheelchairs More

Equal Rights Center Sues Uber For Denying Equal Access To People Who Use Wheelchairs

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  • What can Uber do? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GlennC ( 96879 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @06:46PM (#54708809)

    Uber is dependent on people using their own cars. Most people don't have wheelchair accessible cars, and those who do aren't likely to be willing to use that vehicle to drive some random stranger around.

    If the Equal Rights Center is that upset, perhaps they can provide vehicles and drivers and create their own service instead of pointing fingers and filing lawsuits.

    • of Uber being an illegal taxi company. You don't get to say "We're an app!" and get out of complying with laws. If you did we'd be a lawless society.
    • Our local taxi companies "outsource" requests for a wheel-chair accessible vehicle by putting the booking through to single a company which has wheelchair-accessible vehicles. This is evidently good enough to comply with the UK disability legislation. I guess (but don't know) that they have to charge the customer the same rate that they would have been charged by the original company, so maybe the local companies have to pay something to the company with wheelchair accessible vehicles, who will often have t

  • The ERC should sue the entire world for not being hand-accessible!

    I mean, it really isn't - mountains, rivers, beaches - all that crap should be mandated to be accessible.

    It's almost like being handicapped sucks, and means you can't do most of the things un-handicapped people can do.

    • perhaps intentionally. The point is they have a right to take part in society. Mountains and Rivers aren't society. Public Transportation is.

      • No, they are disabled, and as such have limitations, including, potentially, limitations in participating in society. That we as a society want to help them out and make their lives a little better only reflects our morality, not the rights of the disabled. In America you have equal opportunity, but what you make of it based on you ability is up to you... The ADA completely ignores this which is why it is a draconian piece of garbage that needs to be repealed.

      • Uber isn't public transport either. It's private transport.

        They're not a bus company
        They're not a shuttle company
        They're not even a taxi company

  • Someone has to pay for it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @07:02PM (#54708899) Homepage Journal

    A van with a wheel chair lift and suitable harness is about $50k ($35k van + $15k conversion). And it gets terrible gas mileage. So if I were to use my sister's wheelchair-accessible van for Uber, I would realistically have to charge significantly more before I could even break even. Since Uber sets the prices and drivers voluntarily accept the price, there is nothing I can do. And since Uber would get their pants sued off them if they charged 2x for a wheelchair van, there is not much Uber can do either.

    If on the other hand the government or charities were willing to compensate wheelchair accessible van drivers on top of what Uber already pays, that would be something very interesting. Of course ADA only provides a way to sue businesses who do not comply with draconian rules, the Act does not offer any solutions to the problems that handicapped people face.

    • Re:Someone has to pay for it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Swave An deBwoner ( 907414 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @07:58PM (#54709151)
      Other taxi services have the same cost issues you describe and yet they somehow manage to deal with them lawfully.

      Uber could just raise all their rates a wee bit to cover this; they managed to raise prices for "surges", didn't they?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I know someone with a converted van (or people carrier as we call them) and he says that the lift makes little difference. It doesn't weigh more than the couple of seats it replaces.

      • We have one. it has the floor lowered and there is a steel plate. It depends on how you do the conversion. My sister has no real mobility so she needs something with enough room around it for a nurse to get in and out of the back of the van.

        Full size vans in general are pretty heavy and don't get great fuel mileage. When you add a top on them for the headroom they get even slower.

    • Spend a couple of weeks exclusively using a chair and see if the rules still seem draconian to you.

      • Look, my sister has been in a wheel chair all her life. My entire family is quite familiar with how all this works. And the ADA laws often result in punishments to businesses that do not comply, but offer no solution to the problems the handicap face every day. It's better than nothing, but it is draconian in the very original sense of the word.

  • Uber rolled out Uber WAV 2 years back that allows you to use their app to connect with Taxi companies that offer wheel chair service.

    https://www.uber.com/blog/wash... [uber.com]

  • hidden, unfair taxation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ooloorie ( 4394035 ) on Wednesday June 28, 2017 @07:58PM (#54709157)

    I think it's perfectly fine for society to decide to pay for special services for the handicapped. But politicians are cowards, so instead of paying for the cost of providing these services out of the general fund and raising taxes on everybody, they impose regulations; it seems so harmless: just tell people to run their business a bit differently and be nice to those poor suffering people with disabilities.

    But here is absolutely no logical reason why transportation companies should bear the full cost of making provisions to transport people in wheelchairs. The decision to provide these services to people with disabilities is something the entire nation has made, so the entire nation should pay for it, out of taxes.

    But, of course, it's not just politicians that like to hide taxes via regulations, many of the companies being regulated like it too: they pass on the costs to their customers (as a consumption tax, mostly hurting lower income people), while at the same time creating massive barriers to entry for competitors. And that's what you're seeing with this attack on Uber: once you start down the path of illogical and unfair regulations, they take on a life of their own and spiral out of control.

  • They're suing a private company for charging more to use a low-demand, high cost service?

    Wheel chair accessible vehicles cost more to buy, more to maintain and cost more to run (assuming a typical van outfitted with wheel chair ramps uses more fuel and an an average car).

    I'm all for accessibility, but you have to be reasonable. Wheel chair conversions cost between $10k and $20k according to 1800wheelchair.com. On top of that you have to buy a big van and you lose the passenger capacity advantage a van has.

  • I don't see wheelchair ramps on the taxi's in my cities. What do disabled people do there?

    • They make sure a ride that can accommodate them comes. Double standards. Its what progressives do.

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