Others have suggested that peer-to-peer platforms may make it possible for workers to “earn considerably more and have more autonomy over which jobs they accept.”15 But instead of improving workplace freedom, the sharing economy is returning to many of the workplace practices of the early industrial age, when workers found themselves with few protections. Why?
In some cases, the physical dangers of the work are simply inherent in the work itself. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, taxi driving, with eighteen fatal injuries per hundred thousand workers, was one of the ten most dangerous jobs in the United States in 2014—more dangerous than the jobs held by police and sheriff’s patrol officers (ranked fifteenth) or electricians (ranked nineteenth). A 2010 Occupational Safety and Health Administration fact sheet notes that taxi and for-hire drivers have a homicide victimization rate that is between twenty-one and thirty-three times higher than the national average for all workers. Although drivers for Uber, Lyft, Via, and other car-sharing services do not carry large amounts of cash, they do carry valuable smartphones, tablets, and GPS systems. Additionally, for-hire drivers using their personal vehicles lack many of the physical controls that could prevent dangerous situations, such as security cameras, silent alarms, and improved lighting inside the vehicles—all of which are recommended by OSHA.16
Partitions between drivers and passengers are an important tool for reducing assaults. In Baltimore, researchers found that assaults on drivers decreased by “56 percent the year following a citywide mandate requiring partitions between taxi drivers and passengers . . . [, and that] between 1991, when only 5 percent of cabs had shields, and 1998, when all taxis had shields, assaults decreased 90 percent.”17
The lack of barriers between drivers and passengers has also been blamed for documented cases of drivers being attacked in Arlington, Virginia; choked in Chesterfield County, Virginia; assaulted in Augusta, Georgia; slapped and hit in Orange County, California; and abused in St. Charles, Illinois; and Miami. In Boston in January 2015, an Uber driver was attacked by an off-duty police officer.18 Research comparing the experiences of for-hire drivers in New York and Boston found that a number of Uber drivers carried weapons, in violation of Uber policy, or employed neutralization strategies, such as refusing to engage with passengers, to protect themselves.19
Many of these physical assaults were caught on camera and posted to YouTube, quickly going viral and drawing public outrage. A Miami doctor who assaulted her Uber driver was fired from her hospital, and an Orange County Taco Bell executive who beat up his Uber driver was also fired. But these are only the incidences that are caught on tape. Cameras are not required by Uber or Lyft, and many drivers, whether owing to the expense or to concerns about the legality of the cameras, don’t have them. It doesn’t help that Uber has lobbied for weaker insurance protections for workplace injuries.20
Uber has not entirely ignored worker risks—it’s just that any costs associated with protecting drivers are borne by workers or customers. During Uber’s 180 Days of Change campaign, part of an effort to improve the company’s public image and driver morale, Uber announced Driver Injury Protection insurance offered via Aon. The program provides accident disability payments for lost earnings, accident medical expenses, and survivor benefits. Uber increased rates by five cents per mile in order to have customers finance the pilot, and drivers who choose to participate were charged 3.75 cents per mile. Originally piloted in eight states, the program was available in thirty-two states by April 2018. The cost to drivers, while minimal, may serve as a participation disincentive.
In addition to the documented physical assaults, three Uber drivers were murdered in March 2016: two drivers were killed in Detroit and another in Los Angeles. Police identified robbery as the motive.21 Also in March, two Uber drivers were robbed by their passengers in Boston.22 A livery driver in Brooklyn whose vehicle still featured an Uber sticker was murdered in June 2016, and several cases have arisen of people being found dead in cars with Uber stickers in Los Angeles and West Covina, California.23
When there’s no visual evidence, there tends to be less outcry. In November 2015, Maggie Young, a Seattle Uber driver, was sexually assaulted while driving on the interstate, later publishing her story in Bustle magazine. Her passenger was charged with assault and harassment with sexual motivation—a misdemeanor. Young is not the only female driver to be assaulted—a driver in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, was assaulted in February 2016. Given that sexual assaults are among the least-reported crimes, the number of assaults on drivers is likely higher. Indeed, in her Bustle essay, Young notes, “That passenger was not the first man to sexually assault me. He is just the first one I’ve reported (I am pressing charges, and a trial date has yet to be set).”24 Drivers who are attacked may be less likely to report the incident or otherwise publicize it after the experience of Artur Zawada, a driver who was removed from the Uber platform after a University of Michigan student verbally assaulted him with a tirade of antigay slurs.25
Of the drivers I interviewed, none had been physically assaulted by passengers. However, several mentioned actively trying to avoid driving on weekend nights in order to avoid dealing with drunk passengers. More than a few detailed experiences of being verbally assailed by passengers. Oybek, thirty-five, is one such driver; he got teary-eyed as he talked about being mistreated by several passengers.
Yesterday I had five guys from Holland. So they were drunk, and . . . once they get in the car, they start to make fun of me already, you know? They’re drunk, what I can do? So I just kept driving and trying not listen to them. But they speak Dutch, right? They’re from Holland. Yeah, I can understand a little bit of the Dutch language.
They start to make fun of me; they were laughing. Okay, it’s okay. Oh, they start to give me—“Oh, you are African?” I said, “Why you think so?” “Your skin is . . .” I’m still thinking about yesterday, yesterday’s riders.
When I met Oybek, he had been driving for just four months, but had already stopped driving on weekend evenings after dealing with an intoxicated passenger who threw up on the door and window of his car, resulting in an emergency car wash. “Every time, I am afraid when the drunk people get into my car. So, I’m afraid they maybe do something,” he said. “Yeah, for pee-pee, for throw up.”
Not all of the risk is to the inside of his car, either. “I know a lot of people, people on Friday, once you are staying on the red light, they drunk, they kicking your car, my bumper, yeah,” he said. “They hold a bottle of water, can of water, they’re bumping my hood. They’re scratching the . . . so it’s really serious. I don’t know why so many people like that.”
I ask if he ever thinks about no longer driving for Uber or quitting driving entirely. “It’s not easy, so sometimes it make you nervous,” he says. “So, it’s not easy, but I have to pay my bills, I have to pay my rent, finance. It’s a lot of bills.”
THE RISE OF THE NEVER-ENDING TRIP
Even when drivers are able to avoid altercations with passengers, some dangers are simply inherent in driving. Drivers experience long hours sitting, and the difficulty of finding affordable food with easy-to-access parking means that they often consume a relatively unhealthy diet. Several drivers noted health issues such as weight gain or joint issues that had arisen from the relative immobility of driving for a car service.
For instance, Larry, fifty-four, was a competitive runner until he started driving for Uber. “I used to train pretty hard six, seven days a week, but the driving seemed to make things worse. My legs would be tight after a workout, and then I’d try to go out and drive,” he said. “My legs would just be aching, and getting in the car for eight hours just wasn’t working out.”
These issues are in addition to what medical professionals have dubbed “taxicab syndrome,” the increased voiding dysfunction, infertility, urolithiasis, bladder cancer, and urinary infections found among professional drivers compared to the general driving public. These health issues are thought to aris
e from the lack of ready access to bathrooms, a well-documented difficulty for most cabbies, but a challenge that may be especially salient for app-based drivers.26
Although taxi drivers are required to drive within the five boroughs of New York City and to Westchester and Nassau Counties (suburbs of New York City), they are free to decline other out-of-town trips. Uber drivers have no such restrictions and, although it’s not a regular occurrence, can find themselves on epic rides, such as from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Buffalo, New York, or from Santa Barbara to Palo Alto, California. As of early 2018, the longest recorded ride was Williamsburg, Virginia, to Brooklyn, New York, a “grueling 397-mile, 7-hour-42-minute jaunt” for a fare of $294.09. Factoring in the round-trip drive of fifteen and a half hours, and spending $32 on gas and tolls, the driver calculated that she made around $9 per hour.27
Thanks to a 2.75x surge, or a rate that was nearly three times higher than usual, Larry, the former runner, once found himself on a seven-hundred-dollar-drive from downtown New York City to the suburbs of Philadelphia. Although the trip was only about ninety miles, most of it was spent in traffic. “I was right by the Holland Tunnel east,” he said, “but the traffic to the Holland Tunnel was just terrible that day because [the] PATH [train] wasn’t running. Everybody must have taken cars. It was bad. It took an hour and a half to get from Christopher Street to the Holland Tunnel, and the whole time I’m like, ‘Geez, I hope this guy doesn’t cancel.’ This is going to be a really good ride. And he stuck with me.” While Larry appreciated the fare, long rides are such an uncertainty that Ahmed, thirty-two, an Uber driver and City University of New York student, stops working two hours before class to ensure that he can get to school on time.
In addition to the possibility of longer rides, the rise of uberPOOL and LyftLine, too, can result in a lack of bathroom breaks. UberPOOL and LyftLine—where a driver picks up multiple passengers, acting as an “instant bus line” that spans multiple drop-offs and pickups—have been hailed as environmental godsends for allegedly “reducing traffic, gas use and automobile emissions.” But grouping multiple rides can also lead to epic journeys. One such trip lasted “nearly an hour and meander[ed] over 10 miles across San Francisco, stopping nine times to pick up and drop off passengers.”28
Although a never-ending trip makes it easier for Uber to claim an increase in the percentage of time that drivers spend with passengers (as opposed to driving without a fare or sitting curbside) and can increase driver income, it also means less opportunity for a break. Drivers cannot refuse LyftLine or uberPOOL requests when they’re already on a ride, further reducing their control over the length of their workday. Whereas a taxicab can drop off a passenger and then go immediately “off duty,” a driver on these “party-line rides” has to finish the journey before going off duty. In August 2017, Uber implemented a long-trip notification, in which drivers are warned that a trip is expected to last forty-five minutes or more and given a chance to accept or decline it accordingly. However, the notification tool doesn’t address the Pool problem.
Furthermore, long rides can leave workers in places where bathroom access is especially limited. Even purchasing a product at a shop and claiming customer status may not be sufficient. Oybek describes restricted access to bathrooms as a problem that he has encountered since day one as an Uber driver. “My first day when I came home, I said to my wife, ‘Wow, you know what? I would like to use the bathroom.’”
Even when bathrooms are available, parking may not be. “I can’t park anywhere. Even to use a restroom,” Oybek said. “[I could try a] coffee shop, but the problem is parking. So I have to pay for parking [and, once I] find good parking, park, pay, and go. And sometimes it’s only for customers.” Although many stores and restaurants feature a prominent “Restrooms are for customers only” sign, Starbucks has been called “the city’s bathroom” for both its prevalence across the city and easy access.29 But even so, company policy gives managers discretion over who is allowed to use the restroom, and the high-end coffee shop is found only in gentrified neighborhoods. “My idea was to visit the Starbucks. So I said I’m gonna buy the coffee, just let me go, and some of them, ‘No, no,’” he said. “I took my money, my wallet, and [I] go, ‘Give me the coffee please, but I want to use your bathroom.’ They said, ‘No, no, no.’”
“It’s very difficult in Manhattan,” Oybek explained. “So, I’m planning. In another half an hour, I have to stop and go. I’m going to Brooklyn, to any gas station. The best thing is gas stations.”
DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES, OR “GOING” ON THE GO
Desperate drivers sometimes resort to desperate measures. “For drivers, bathrooms are our biggest problem,” said Hector, thirty-one. “There is no public bathroom. If I go to McDonalds—like most places I have gone to—they will have a key; so in order for me to get that key, I’ve got to buy something. You have to be a customer. So I do spend a lot buying frappes or a small burger. I figure I might as well get something to eat, so it’s packing on [the weight]. And then at night, when it’s real late and things close, it’s even harder to find a bathroom; and that’s when you have to use a cup. They tell me Yellow Cabs normally have their cups and they’ll just open the door and toss it out. A guy I was driving with yesterday told me his window is tinted so he pees while he’s driving.”30
“How do you avoid spilling on the seat?” I asked.
“It’s tough. I don’t know. I only did it once, and it was a bad experience,” Hector said. “I had a big cup. It was, I think, twenty ounces. I almost overflowed it. That’s because there was no bathroom anywhere, and I was in Jersey; and all their places close early over there. I had to use the cup.” When he was done, he tossed it out the window. “I only did that once. Now I just . . . Yesterday—not yesterday, two days ago, I held it for like five hours. It was just that busy, that I was like, ‘You know what, I’m just going to hold it and just keep driving, not think about it.’ But it does become difficult,” he said. “I think that’s what takes away from my profits, having to stop for the bathroom, look for a place, and then turn off the app so I don’t get a ping. But I can’t hold it anymore. That can kill a half hour in getting to a place, McDonalds or Burger King.”
But while drivers are often holding their urine, their passengers don’t always demonstrate the same restraint. Taxis, in New York City at least, have vinyl seats that do not absorb water or stains. Most uberX vehicles, as personal cars, have cloth upholstery, while UberBLACK vehicles generally feature leather-clad seats. Neither of these materials repel water or, more specifically, urine. Private Facebook groups for drivers, and the public Uberdrivers.net discussion site, feature numerous stories of drivers having to deal with passengers exiting their vehicles while their bodily fluids remain behind.
Some critics have suggested that the posts must be fakes; surely no self-respecting adult would pee on the seat of a car. Yet, several of the drivers I interviewed found themselves dealing with the type of bodily fluids more often found in a bathroom or medical office than in a vehicle. In Gerald’s experience, he wasn’t the only one who ended up encountering more than he expected in his Uber that evening.
I picked this guy up with his wife over on the west side of Harlem. He was in a suit and tie. He didn’t say much, but you know, his wife was—she was doing most of the talking. She was a very pleasant lady. I took them . . . Where did I take them? I don’t know if it was Connecticut or it was some part of upper New York. It was one of those areas where you drive up the hills, and there’s a house on every layer of the hill, and winding roads, and all woods and trees. It’s not cheap to live there. It was one of those areas; so it was a good drive. He didn’t say anything the whole time, and she was talking most of the time. She would talk to him, and when he wouldn’t reply I guess he was falling asleep.
So I get them up there, beautiful house. It was on another part of the hill. So I drive back. I go pick up this girl. She comes out in a minidress—miniskirt—anyway
, she’s going out for the night. So she gets in on his side. I guess she put her hand down. She said, “This seat is wet.” I’m like, “Oh no.” In my mind, I’m saying, “Why is this seat wet? They didn’t have no bottles with them. They weren’t drinking.” All this is processing, and I’m like, “There’s only one reason why that seat is wet.”
I couldn’t tell her. I mean that would have opened up, you know. She could have gone after Uber. She could have gone after me. I couldn’t tell her. I felt so upset.
She said, “It is really wet.” So I said, “Well, just go over to the other side,” because his wife sat on the other side. I said, “I had somebody, they had a bottle; must be spilled wine or whatever.” I felt so bad I had to lie to this woman because I could not tell her I knew what it was. So she went over to the other side. I was so upset with myself because I . . . I gave her the disinfectant. “Yeah, just clean your hands and whatever you touched, because I don’t know if it was wine or you know. I don’t want you smelling like liquor or whatever.” That’s all I could do. I felt so bad. So after I took her to where she had to go, I pulled over. I texted Uber. I emailed them and texted. I said, “This man urinated in my car.”
When I went to the gas station—you know, they have those paper towels that you pull down. I pulled out tons of them just to be sure; and when I wiped that backseat, that backseat was soaked. You could see the yellowness, and I said “Damn.” Grown man and obviously very successful. . . . I feel bad because I had to lie to this woman about what her hand went into, because if I had told her the truth, we would be in trouble.
Although urine and vomit are not generally considered to be dangerous from a public health standpoint, basic health precautions generally call for gloves and eye protection—items that are rarely available when drivers find themselves cleaning a vehicle at a gas station or when passengers encounter such surprises. Although drivers can contact Uber and file a complaint against the passenger, Uber is notorious for being difficult to contact. Contact is generally limited to email and tweets. And every day with a dirty car is another day of missed work and income. While drivers can file for a cleaning fee of up to two hundred dollars, some feel the hassle isn’t worth it—they’d rather clean the mess themselves so they can get back on the road that much faster. In addition to paying to get the car shampooed, Gerald took the rest of the evening off while the car dried: “I was so pissed, because as soon as she got out, you know, I couldn’t get nobody else in the car.”
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