UBER HAS hit a few potholes on its ten-year journey. In recent years the ride-hailing company has been beset by sexual-harassment scandals, lawsuits over drivers’ contracts and battles with regulators. Its share price has fallen by a third since it went public in May. After all these bumps, it is easy to forget just how much urbanites around the world have come to rely on Uber, which is now on the streets of more than 700 cities.
Among other things, Uber has made it far easier for party-goers to get home safely. One study published in 2017 found that after Uber’s arrived in Portland, Oregon, alcohol-related car crashes declined by 62%. But at the same time, the spread of ride-hailing apps may have tempted people to drink to excess, knowing that they won’t be at the wheel.
If people are likelier to drink a lot, but less likely to drive drunk, it is hard to say what the overall public-health impact of ride-hailing firms has been. That said, there is one group of individuals who clearly benefit from the presence of Uber, Lyft and others: bartenders. Messrs Burgdorf, Lennon and Teltser find that employment at bars and restaurants increases by an average of 2% whenever Uber enters the market.
I mean, so what? They’re not driving.
Wait until they *give* us UBI.
mostafawanass
Who cares... they aren’t killing people..
So they should hook up with the alcohol companies while actively managing their PR regarding.
tylercowen Have they pinched ine of yours?
Heavy drinking in public!! Maybe
Kellblog A bit clickbaity as the article seems to imply causation whereas it's just correlation.
And it will shortly leave....bc of unions..
Imagine if US towns had a cheaper form of Uber that arrived consistently and dropped near your door.....
Amazing 😉 correlations. Why not correlate Uber with reading 📖 or mobile using 🤔 which can be causation.
Is this serious? Blaming UBER 4 increase in serious drinking? Cd it B these people always drank a lot, but decided not 2 drive, but use UBER?
Correlation not causation.
I find these graphs unintuitive. % change of alcohol consumption comparing yr before and yr of Uber arrival. I mean, I get the concept, but it requires me trying to convert % changes into standard drink changes and it’s confusing. Surely easier with standard drinks on the y axis?
As long as it’s not the Uber driver doing the drinking, I reckon this is just another pointless statistic.
augustocgl
Uber is not to blame for this. The desire to drink was there, inhibited (rightly) by DUI laws
And Uber fares AND alcohol both count in GDP. WINNING!
Cheap rides home lead to more alcohol consumption? No one saw that coming
LaraBfIy
That was one of the explicit reasons for its creation.
Why wouldn't those people have taken cabs? Oh well, back to the nonsense.
craigmatsuda Would that also coincide with Brexit?
From the graphics I can't see a strictly relation, the curves already seem to be on rising
Probably the idle taxi drivers
Alcohol related crashes declined though. Maybe it’s worth the trade?
Good they got a ride home .
Oh, no, we need to ban thousands and thousand of jobs and make people pay more for transportation now.
A drunk passenger is better than a drunk driver (as long as a bad fight does not happen inside the cabin of the vehicle).A driver not drunk while driving minimises the chances of accidents and helps the insurance companies to overcome a hectic schedule of settling claims.
Ubeer
Heavy drinking has only been done at home before Uber came to town! DUI is a big deterrent!
That’s the beauty of being an adult. If you want to binge drink every Tuesday, you can. The fact that you focus on drinking rates instead of the 62% reduction in alcohol involved accidents means you are really hard up for click bait.
Everything is related to something , true ..
kireals
RyanMaue On a more positive note, how many drunk driving / lives has it saved also?
JonahDispatch This would be a lot more convincing if the graphs didn't show the significant change occurring in the year before Über.
You wait and see what happens with driverless cars
And that’s just the Uber drivers. 😬
There is no way to isolate that cause and effect without looking at ALL economic and community events and issues in that same two years.
It was a 'saved by the bell' kinda thing....I bet less DUI tickets have been issued out as well. ubersaveslives
Come. We drink vodka. Wear fur hats. And later do some squid go pro.
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