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Comment by claudeganon | Hacker News Reader

Not just wheelchair users. People with epilepsy and other chronic conditions unfortunately have to rely on these services for gaps in public transit.

I wish Uber and Lyft had focused on sustainability vs monopoly and not foisted so much of their costs off onto their drivers, but here we are.

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I'm not able to drive because of epilepsy and have to rely on ride share apps when family members can't drive me. It's expensive but public transportation doesn't exist here. Around 1/100 people are epileptic and the chance of a seizure during one's life is double digits, so it's not an insignificant amount of people. Mine is "well controlled" but the consequences of accidents can be extreme. Plenty of other conditions exist which also prevent people from driving.

Unfortunately it's difficult to participate in a lot of our society unless you can drive.

Honest question: Has there been a mass action lawsuit against this lack of options for you and other people in your situation? It would seem to me that your county or municipality is in violation of some ADA regulations.

If not, and lawyers agree there is no case (yet), then there is an obvious gap in the ADA regulation, and it should be fixed. Everyone has equal rights to get around their community, and it is massively unfair if a significant number of people are left behind because of their disabilities.

Not the OP, but the ADA only requires that existing businesses/services accommodate disabilities, not provide them where they don’t exist. There’s no mandate to provide transportation for the disabled in the US.

Unsurprisingly, Uber and Lyft have also been violating the ADA for pretty much their entire existence, arguing that they don’t have to comply and settling with states and cities when they lose cases:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90343921/lyft-claims-its-not-a-t...

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