How Does Uber Driver Turnover Affect Riders?

The high Uber driver turnover rate (fewer than 5 percent of drivers stay with the company for more than a year) is not just Uber’s problem. The ridesharing giant has no problem finding replacement drivers, especially when it offers token signing bonuses that have lots of hidden strings attached to them. But victims who are injured or killed because of an Uber driver’s inexperience cannot get replacement bodies.

Instead, Uber accident victims must deal with permanent injuries. The different kinds of brain injuries are a good example. Vehicle collisions often cause sTBIs (severe Traumatic Brain Injuries). Violent motion causes the victim’s head to slam against the inside of the skull. Since dead brain cells don’t regenerate, these injuries are permanent. Uber assault victims often sustain PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) brain injuries. The extreme stress triggers chemical changes inside the brain which, at least for now, are also permanent.

A Middlesex County personal injury lawyer obtains the compensation these families need to face the future with more confidence. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, a lawyer holds Uber accountable for in-ride accidents and passenger injuries. When a North Jersey personal injury attorney files a legal action, people listen. These lawsuits usually convince companies like Uber to change their ways and make rider experiences safer for passengers and more palatable for drivers.

Distracted Drivers

Many commercial drivers who transport passengers, such as taxi drivers, know cities like Newark and Perth Amboy like the back of their hands. If a passenger says “Take me to The Armory,” the driver knows where to go and what route to take. 

Uber drivers, partially because of the high turnover rate, are different. A Perth Amboy Uber driver may not even be from Perth Amboy. In fact, s/he might not be able to find the city on a map. These drivers are entirely dependent on GPS navigation devices.

Uber’s rules forbid drivers from using hand-held devices, but this rule isn’t strictly enforced. When Uber drivers use hand-held devices, they experience three forms of distraction:

• Visual (eyes off the road),
• Manual (hand off the wheel), and
• Cognitive (mind off driving).

Because hol;ding and using a phone is so dangerous, both New York and New Jersey, along with twenty-seven other states, prohibit this activity.

Uber encourages drivers to use hands-free devices. According to researchers, these gadgets are even more dangerous. Hands-free gadgets have a twenty-seven second lag time. In other words, if Paul checks a text on his hands-free device, for the next half-minute, he’s dangerously distracted, even if both his eyes are pointing forward and both his hands are on the wheel.

Additionally, these devices give ridesharing operators a false sense of security. Most people erroneously equate “hands-free” with “risk-free,” which is exactly what manufacturers want them to think. As a result, these drivers often take unnecessary risks.

If an Uber driver was using a hand-held device in the moments before a crash, a Central Jersey personal injury lawyer typically uses the negligence per se rule to obtain compensation. Tortfeasors (wrongful actors) may be liable for damages as a matter of law if they violate a safety law and the violation substantially causes injury.

Damages in a personal injury case usually include money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.

Hands-free device use is technically legal. So, to obtain compensation, a South Jersey personal injury lawyer must establish negligence, or a lack of care. Since Uber drivers are common carriers, they must meet a higher standard of care. 

If Carl swipes away a call on his hands-free phone moments before he rear-ends Sally, that slight error may not constitute legal negligence. But if Carl is driving for Uber, he was probably negligent. As a summon carrier, he has basically no margin for error.

Passenger Injuries

High turnover also affects the risk of some passenger injuries, specifically driver sexual assaults and passenger-on-passenger physical assaults.

Many driver-on-passenger sexual assaults are non-contact assaults. In most cases, compensation is only available if the victim sustains a physical injury. So, a victim cannot obtain compensation for an incident like false imprisonment (refusing to let a passenger out of the car), right? Wrong. 

• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress: IIED occurs when a person, through extreme or outrageous behavior, intentionally (or recklessly) causes severe emotional distress, mental trauma and/or bodily harm to another. There need not be bodily harm to establish this tort. Note that intentionally refers to the conduct, not the result.
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: PTSD is a trauma-induced brain injury. Extreme trauma, like a sexual assault, changes the brain’s chemical composition. This imbalance causes symptoms like nightmares, depression, and flashbacks. As mentioned above, PTSD is usually permanent. Available medications only treat anxiety and other symptoms. A chemical solution may be on the horizon, but FDA approval is years away, at the earliest.

We discussed Uber driver device distraction above. That’s the main source of dangerous distraction, but by no means the only source. Bickering passengers distract drivers. In some cases, these arguments become violent, especially if alcohol is involved.

No one wants to get in the middle of a disagreement between family members, friends, or strangers. But at some point, Uber drivers must do just that. To maintain a safe and secure environment, as the law requires, they must know when to say “break it up or else,” and they must be able to back up those words.

Inexperienced drivers often don’t know when to step in. Furthermore, they usually don’t know the right way to intervene. In fact, when they step in at the wrong time or in the wrong way, they basically pour gasoline onto the fire.

In most cases, discretion may be the better part of valor. But due to the responsibilities that the law imposes on commercial carriers, Uber drivers cannot take the easy way out, do nothing to stop fights, and let the lawyers sort it out later.

Contact a Savvy Bergen County Lawyer

Injury victims are entitled to significant compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury lawyer in Newark, contact CourtLaw. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.