Hacker News Reader

Comment by allthecybers | Hacker News Reader

> I hope she really sticks it to Lyft

I agree. This is not just piss poor customer service but IMO (criminal?) negligence to not protect other passengers from this person until the allegations are either proven or disproven. Also it is a shit response to charge the person for the ride.

Seems like the only way these companies will change these days is getting sued and shamed into doing the right thing. It boggles the mind why management at these companies can't put themselves in the shoes of the victim er customer.

Guess its time to #deletelyft

View on HN

> but IMO (criminal?) negligence to not protect other passengers from this person

So, what's your suggested fix? We should let any unproven accusation be enough to deny someone their income?

As far as I can see, the only reasonable course of action is to provide as much data as you can about the driver and location of the vehicle to police and let them sort it out before acting against the driver.

This kind of situation is what "paid leave" is for. Ride-share companies have the extra employee/contractor divide, but in this case, getting the driver off the road is probably worth the cost in both damages and reputation while the issue is sorted out.

The police themselves would put an officer on paid leave during the investigation, right?

Lyft could suspend the driver, paying them temporarily into escrow, then release that if the allegation is false. Not perfect, but that would mean they had acted quickly and the driver didn't go without income if they were innocent. If it started a rash of false claims so drivers could be paid without working, you can investigate the claimant for fraud (?) and flag the driver's account for review.

Or look into what taxi companies do in these situations.

You can't give someone paid leave if they don't work regular hours. I know everyone likes to mock them for calling them "contractors", but in some ways it makes sense - they're employees doing work on a per-contract basis. There's no magic number you can use to accommodate that, especially if something like this could cause them to lose other jobs and need the income.

Looks like some taxi companies suspend without pay over a lot less though, so do we just call that fair enough? I dunno. Doesn't seem ideal really.

You can pay them some sort of living wage, if the alternative is uproar over innocent drivers being suspended by fake allegations. That's all I'm saying.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com