Uber "Kills" First Pedestrian With Autonomous Vehicle; PS - Don't Work For Them, The Pay Is Deceptively Bad
Uber is rapidly moving up the list of companies that seriously piss me off. They have made the news again today with the dubious distinction of being the world's first company to kill a pedestrian with an autonomous vehicle.
UPDATE: Uber declared entirely not at fault. Pedestrian was acting very reckless.
ABC15 and Bloomberg are reporting out of Tempe, Arizona that one of their driver vehicles in "autonomous mode" struck and killed a pedestrian. This pedestrian may have been homeless, and was crossing illegally outside of a crosswalk. Technically speaking, this constitutes jaywalking which means the pedestrian did not have the right of way. The end result is there is no potential for criminal liability, as this pedestrian was breaking the very law designed to protect them from this outcome.
Despite this "relatively less bad" news for our driver, this does not engender confidence in the object avoidance and detection algorithms currently being used by Uber.
Frankly, I've had a host of problems with Uber for some time. Their business model relies on hiding the costs of being an Uber driver from their employees, including the lack of proper commercial insurance on most Uber vehicles "engaged in commerce." Most Uber drivers are under-insured and have no idea they are eating that cost /subsidizing that risk for Uber corporate.
Add to this the relatively low pay, high vehicle requirements (model year age, etc.), lack of any maintenance assistance, almost complete lack of cash tips....and altogether, you get a far less profitable business than what a taxi medallion used to get you.
It's gotten bad enough that new competitors to the scene are targeting Uber for this exact reason, as news gets out of their low pay rates after adjustment:
But hey, who cares as long as another corporate alphabet company can make the news, right?
You are wasting your time and potential if you work for Uber. Let them wrestle with their crappy driving robots while you do something befitting your dignity as a human being.
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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and I am not a financial advisor.
Sources: Google, Bloomberg, ABC15, Huffington Post, Slate.com, ZH
Copyright: Uber, Gett
crazy, this might set back self driving car legislation for quite a bit
Thank you for posting this. There is so much wrong with Uber. Did you hear about their financing schemes for trapping new drivers into leases that forced some of them into bankruptcy or indentured servitude?
Basically the people had no acceptable car but wanted the "job." So Uber would lease them a newish car at outrageous rates, saying the payments would easily be taken out of the driver's weekly pay. But then many times the drivers wouldn't get nearly as much pay as Uber claimed they would when they signed the lease. So then it would get to the point that people had to drive a couple days a week just to break even on the lease payments. And if a day was slow, they might actually have to take money from their regular job to pay for the lease.
It's quite the racket. They're dreadful.
Most of the leases aren't actually through Uber, but companies that "partner" with Uber. I've always suspected that Uber has a hidden stake in these companies but choose to distance themselves.
The leases themselves aren't always that bad, as they cover all costs, insurance, servicing, etc, and they could be terminated at relatively short notice.
Some of them however included an additional cost per km after a certain threshold, and this is where many drivers got screwed, because it would be impossible to pay off the car without exceeding that threshold.
And the main issue is that Uber would flood the market with too many drivers, so the guys that get these cars wouldn't be able to get enough work without putting in an insane amount of hours.
Thanks for further fleshing that out.
I think we have an example of this from Poland in the very comments of this post. Check out the top comment by @silverthoughts . It sounds like exactly what you are describing.
Yes! They get people do take that terrible deal even here in America! People are just so poorly educated that they can't do the math and realize the numbers they are being given don't add up.
This also happens to truck drivers, btw.
My friend a few days ago was in the institution of uber in poland , city Katowice. The offer to work for them was as follows : They could give him new car from 2017 year , but he have to pay them 120 $ for the 7 days , for month it will cost 480 $. You have to pay for the tank , tank costs per one liter of gasoline 1,30 $ , The car consumes 5.5 liters per 100 km . And every driver have to drive minimally 40 hours per 7 day. After the economic balance it will give 100-200 $ maximally payout for month , If YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR OWN CAR with minimally requirments don't work for uber in poland because it's not PROFITABLE. Thank you lexiconical for great post ;)
Thank you for the on-the-ground numbers.
$480 for a 2017 car is outrageous. You can own a brand new car for substantially less than that in the States, at 0% down, and it certainly shouldn't be more expensive in Euro kit.
Is it not possible that the AI just hates bicyclist also?
Ubers new AI in action
I suppose it may be too early to rule out AI malice. Perhaps Hawking was right.
Well in the AI defense , who doesn't hate bicyclists?
Ironic that I just saw an advertisement for Ford's new F150 pedestrian avoidance system built into the car.
Somehow I doubt this incident will make it into the promotional material.
Lol, they actually show a person walking out in front of the truck as part of the advertisement under "test" conditions (with typical disclaimers). They don't really show how fast the truck is going, but it couldn't have been going faster than 5 - 10.
Good post. Bantu vote me
I hope I don't injure myself scrambling to "vote you". You've made it so tantalizing.
Great post. Thanks for sharing the information.
“Uber is rapidly moving up the list of companies that seriously piss me off.”
We all have such a list. Please share the list.
You can find a number of them on my blog...Facebook, Tesla...
only human can understand the complexity of the situation.
Because GOD only give this power to humanity..
I drove Uber back in the day. It used to be great, when they were first getting started in Melbourne and were desperate for drivers. Guarantees of $45+/hr in gross fares (so around $35/hr), but even that would often be exceeded.
And then the incentives eventually stopped..
Around the same time they introduced surge, so it would still be pretty good..
And then they flooded the market with drivers by paying huge incentives for referring new drivers. Basically paying drivers to provide themselves with competition.
Of course once they flooded the market with drivers, the next thing to do was drop the rates. And then tell the drivers that they're somehow making more money with cheaper rates. Some absolute horse shit that you would have to be a total moron to believe.
I stuck it out for a while because it was a second income to me, and it's hard to find a second income that is flexible enough to work around employment and family commitments
They're also incredibly shifty. Their algorithm doesn't give you the closest drivers. They pick and choose which drivers you get based on how they profit. In Melbourne newer drivers would be on the 25% commission arrangement, whereas older drivers would only pay 20% commission. I'd often be parked waiting for a fare and someone would come and pick up a customer right where I was waiting all along, because they prioritize bigger fares to the higher commission paying drivers.
And they also are incredibly disrespectful to their drivers. Often I'd go to log on, only to realise that my account had been suspended because of an expired document. Yeah thanks for the non existent warning in advance. Sometimes my documents were actually fine and they failed to update something in their end. By the time they respond to the support ticket, you've lost a night of earnings.
It eventually reached a point where it was more beneficial for me to stay home and spend the extra time with my family and forego the little bit of extra income that I was still getting, however small that slice of the pie had become...