Uber may be saving lives
On ride-hailing apps, impaired drivers, and where saved lives are coming from
University of California researchers looking into the nature of ride-sharing say, “Our results imply that ridesharing has decreased U.S. traffic fatalities by 5.2% in areas where it operates.” If true, that would be a big and highly commendable effect.
■ Technology is often marveled-at because of big things it makes possible. But it’s perhaps equally exciting to see the things that don’t happen because technology was doing its work.
■ An intervention that eliminated one of every 20 deaths would be hailed as a significant breakthrough. Here, though, what matters is what didn’t happen. Intuitively, it makes sense that if fewer impaired drivers chose to drive and instead chose to take a ride-share, the net total of deaths might fall.
■ But what seems a little remarkable about the ride-share story is that it’s hardly new technology; people have been hailing cabs and splitting rides for a long time. What apps like Uber did was remove the obstacles to those requests. It’s a lesson well worth understanding: Sometimes all that’s needed is to remove the impediments to getting a job done.
Anecdotally, a number of years ago, I spoke to a friend who is a Prosecutor in Polk County... and at that time, he was on the OWI Docket. Back when Uber and Lyft became far more prevalent in Des Moines (maybe 2015 or so), he went to the Des Moines Police and complained to them that drunk driving arrests were down something like 20-30%... only to find out that, indeed, Uber and Lyft were the primary factor in that drop. It was truly an exciting development, although, as you said, one that should have been expected!