She Reported Being Assaulted by Her Uber Driver. He Was Allowed Back on the Road | Hacker News Reader

She Reported Being Assaulted by Her Uber Driver. He Was Allowed Back on the Road

buzzfeednews.com

10 pointselectic23 comments

Wait a second, there hasn't been a finding yet, even from the police investigation. While this lady seems like she went through an awful experience, we have to maintain our standard of innocent until proven guilty. There's a reason we try to abide by Blackstone's Principle. It wouldn't make any more sense for Uber to just fire the guy without any proof.

That said, this seems like an open-and-shut case. God willing, they'll find this guy guilty and lock him away for forever-and-a-day.

People get fired for misconduct all the time without being "found guilty". Corporate HR does not have a "presumption of innocence".

Uber drivers aren't even employees, they're contractors. You can literally just decide to terminate a contract for any reason as long as you fulfill the terms.

And companies get sued all the time for doing it. Regardless, it's still morally gray to fire someone for an allegation alone.

I'm not saying Uber can't legally do it, I'm saying it is of questionable morality.

>Uber spoke to the driver and temporarily suspended him, according to a spokesperson, but said they had a hard time following up with the woman.

>Meanwhile, police are conducting a criminal investigation into the assault, but Uber said they didn’t know about it. Police didn’t seek evidence from Uber, and Uber didn’t ask police what was going on. The driver's suspension ended, and he returned to carrying passengers.

Later:

>But ahead of formal charges, the company depends on victim reports or for police to contact them. Uber doesn’t proactively communicate with police about alleged incidents, a policy based on advice from experts on how to respect victims' privacy, the Uber spokesperson said.

I'm really not sure what Uber is supposed to do here. Fire the drive based on an assault claim that both the driver and the rider claim? They have no other info to go on...

They suspsended the rider's account, the very least they could do is suspend the driver's account till the matter is resolved (Seattle Police Dept lists cases online FYI). Without suspensions, your letting two people who have been in a violent altercation continue to put the rest of your drivers & riders in jeopardy.

Sometimes police cases drag on for months, or years without closing, so Uber waiting would essentially put people out of work.

I don’t think it’s their responsibility. It’s the governments. If police do not think he is a danger to society that must be arrested, then he should be treated normally by his employer.

Surely if someone sexually assaults you and the justice system confirms it beyond a reasonable doubt, they should either be locked up or under house arrest or something like that, and so the issue of whether they're driving again is irrelevant?

After their punishment is served and they're re-integrated into society I think they should be able to take up their previous employment?

I mean, imagine a situation in which Uber didn't exist, say there's some magic decentralized app, and individuals were actually _real_ free contractors.

It's a policing issue no? I can see that Uber can be more or less helpful, but ultimately a crime is a crime regardless of whether an employee does it, a contractor does it, whatever?

San Francisco has a weird justice system: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/08/14/victim-outraged...

Note: The south end of the bridge the Uber driver sped across is the most ticketed intersection in Seattle.

I had a very similar experience on OfferUp, where a person threatened to kill me via OfferUp Messages after I wouldn't meet him in the middle of a protest (he had driven into the protest, right past the starbucks where I was waiting for him).

OfferUp ignored my report in app, emails and calls, this user has kept accreting more reviews since.

Craigslist has been far safer for me, OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace seem to have peeled off the hot headed 15 to 30 year old user demographic, leaving 40+yo buyers that have been straightforward to deal with.

I expected Craigslist to be made irrelevant by FB Marketplace and apps like OfferUp, but for me, it's still the most reliable for buying and selling. I don't understand it at all.

Yeah, OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace have taken many of the flaky people off Craigslist, improving CL's reliability.

Uber and other ridesharing services should require back-looking dash cams that stream directly to company servers and be accessible and downloadable by both customers and drivers.

But this would be common sense and in-line with the fact that this setup is in nearly every confederated cab company in Canada and, IIRC, the US.

I've encountered some drivers who do this, probably for liability reasons.

>After BuzzFeed News began asking questions and Uber learned about the police investigation, that changed. The driver is now off the platform and will remain off unless authorities determine the matter should be dropped, a spokesperson for the ridesharing app said.

So the guy loses his income until the police determines if he's actually guilty or not. Guilty until proven otherwise. Oookay.

Try physically assaulting someone at your office, and you'll probably lose your income long before the justice system determines you to be guilty.

I don't need a jury of 12 peers to voluntarily choose to stop associating with you, and neither does your employer. Unless, of course, you think that every firing should be done by a jury trial..?

Cool. Where's the proof that he actually did any of this? I mean, other than what that woman said.

It doesn't matter. I don't need a jury of 12 peers to fire an employee, for any reason whatsoever, or no reason whatsoever, and I sure as shit don't need one to can a contractor.

People get fired from blue-collar jobs for much less, all the fucking time, without a shred of evidence beyond he-said-she-said. You don't even need to allegedly commit a crime to be fired on the spot from a lot of jobs.

Nice. So, as I said, he loses his income without any proof that he did rape anybody. All cool and dandy indeed.

> People get fired from blue-collar jobs for much less, all the fucking time

That says more about our at-will, "Right To Work" employment economy than it does about the morality of firing this individual.

The jury isn't there just for show you know, or to give a semblance of credibility.

The jury's not for show, but their decision has no bearing on whether or not I want to employ a contractor in an at-will capacity.

Maybe they can fire him after an arrest?

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