Discrimination and racial-profiling based on skin color and ethnic-appearance is unfortunately part of the world we live in. While we’ve come a long way enforcing equality throughout history, discrimination is still very much a real and sensitive issue. On the same token, living in a digital world means that we’re exposed to so much information up front, and it’s easier than ever to “judge a book by its cover”, using the primal information to make assumptions right off the bat.
It’s no secret that the sharing economy has taken the world by storm, transforming and revolutionizing the way we travel and go about our daily lives. Ride share apps such as Uber and Lyft offer a convenient, seamless, and efficient way to get a ride using your fingertips in about 5 minutes or less.
While offering streamlined improvements to transportation, it appears that a noticeable trend has come to light: the rise of ride cancellations by drivers (and I’m sure vice-versa), based on the initial profile information displayed (name and photo) once a requested-ride is accepted.
While obviously unrelated, I’ve had my fair share of cancellations from Uber drivers whenever I request a ride that starts in New Jersey and ends New York City, and it usually looks like this:
I open the door and the driver hits the “starts ride” button (revealing my destination). The driver will refuse to drive me. Since car-service laws and licensing differ between the two states, drivers are prohibited from picking up a passenger for a ride back to New Jersey. While I understand the driver’s point of view, and although I do not believe the cancellation was due to my ethnicity or gender, it is super frustrating and disruptive to be cancelled on in general.
According to a recent study, reports show a higher number of cancellations involving passengers of certain races and ethnicities. Specifically,
- Passengers with black-sounding or ethnic names experience twice as high number of cancellations (1 out of 10 vs. 1 out of 20) than those who are white or have white-sounding names.
- Uber users who were black or had black-sounding names had about a 30% longer wait time than those who were white or had white-sounding names.
Uber and Lyft both emphasize that they do not tolerate any kind of discriminatory treatment what-so-ever, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
An important aspect to note is that taxi drivers are able to pass up hails alongside the road without consequence if they so choose.
Another thing to point out is because of ride-share apps, people living in underserved areas (which may be areas that taxis have historically avoided) are now able to access convenient, affordable rides, so drivers may believe they have the same rights in place that taxi drivers do.
Of course, at the end of the day, drivers have a right to a safe work environment (aka their personal vehicle), but passing judgements on someone because of their name or photo is discriminatory and ignorant.
As an attempt to keep things fair, frequent passenger cancellations rarely go unnoticed. Uber and Lyft drivers are given “marks†for any cancellation, which could affect their rating and ability to drive for the respective companies.
Speaking of ratings, I also wonder what the correlation between gender/ethnic-appearnace/race and a user’s rating is. The Uber rating system is funny. I recently blogged “Does Your Uber Rating Go Down Because You Don’t Tip“, which brought in tons of comments. There’s certainly a connection between a higher rating and a tip. I can’t help but to wonder if racial profiling affects a rating.
Have you had a ride share experience that made you feel discriminated against? What are your overall thoughts?
I have the same issue with Uber and Lyft in Washington DC. I have complained to the government in writing but they say it’s permitted for Uber and Lyft to decline rides. I have complained to Uber and Lyft and they either deny it happens or just refuse to respond.
We’re not required to risk our lives for 80 cents a mile. Sorry.
Discrimination will always be there, but I would argue that ridesharing has greatly increased access for minority riders. Of course, I cant prove that a particular taxi passed me by because I am black, but the number of times it has happened makes me think that some of them might have. I use rideshare without the slightest concern for the impact that it has on the taxi industry because I feel like the didn’t want to give me a ride anyway.
There is no doubt that such discrimination exists. I would also point out drivers deal with cancelations as well. As a former driver I’ve had open conversations with passengers where they mentioned canceling rides because they didn’t like the way a driver looked. Whatever meanings may be hidden in this statement, I can’t know. But I thought it interesting.
I am a Uber driver. I’ve completed over 3500 trips on my city. I have experienced an increase of riders cancelling trips that I accept. For example there is a male rider I have giving rides since last year. He introduced me to his girlfriend. The girlfriend ask me if I was single and because of that conversation I had with her, her boyfriend will cancel me when I accept his requests for pick up. I feel that rider is threatened that her girlfriend will flirt with myself if they are in my car. Hence am increase of cancellations from him. That’s out of my control and I always practice professional with riders. Including them two. I hope riders are charged for excessive cancellations.
It gets me that we are so quick to call anything in question racism. Heres an Easy solution, had anyone bothered to ask the drivers why they think this happens ? Most are not professional drivers so we can’t say they have the built-in taxi basis. Ask drivers if they have cancelled and to explain reasons why without judgement. Maybe that’s the only real way to figure this out.
Absolutely agree with you comment about ppl in general being so quick to throw out the race card on most things instead of really getting down to the reasons behind certain things. I guarantee there are other reason aside from race being involved with this situation. Maybe lack of professionalism being one of the most common complaints I’ve personally heard. That has come up so often in conversations I’ve had with ppl. That is just one of a few and race frankly hasn’t ever been one of the complaints I’ve heard. Just wanting to throw that out there…
Yes I cancel black riders ALL the time because their destinations are always short and they NEVER tip! So it’s not racism it’s facts. I logged a weekend where I accepted every ride I could. I did 57 trips for black people and not one tipped! Also their rides are only like 1-2miles which isn’t worth our time. So if they don’t want to be discriminated maybe they should walk or hand the driver a few bucks for their time.
I have given 4000 rides in 2 years on both platforms. The color of money knows no prejudice! Whenever I see one of these articles I just roll my eyes and can only guess how much money the writer was given by the teamsters. The Cold War is over! Live with it. Change, or fall by the wayside.
If you were doing a particularly low-paying task and noticed a trend that one or two particular areas of town and the ethnicities that inhabit them tend to be safer parts of town with better tipping riders that by-and-large rate you better in the system (help you stay activated), which parts of town would you be hanging out in and positioning yourself to be going towards? In the real world, Samantha “more often” tips better than Laquisha and takes you to a nicer neighborhood with more Samanthas. Laquisha (bless her heart) struggles in a hard part of town that the driver shuts their app off in immediately after the drop off and then has to spend time driving out of before making themselves active again. That’s not the driver’s fault, it’s just hard reality.
Guys your life isn’t cheap to risk it for saving couple dollars using ride share app, not all of them are professional drivers how can trust them, what if he is not my driver in addition ride share company taking advantage of the driver and them car by taking highest commission and cheap price for the rider so they are probably frustrated. I prefer legit driver like Towncar serve driver fully licensed and insured someone scare to loose you as customer, I have good experience with company called Limo Move in Houston Texas.
I guess I will chime in here, being from SF and driving Uber Black car for the greater bay area. Basically the issue is about discrimination against drivers who are on the platform. The pictures show up on the riders side of the app, not the drivers side. Request an Uber and the drivers picture show up, accept a request and there is no picture. The driver sees the trip details and the rider sees rating and picture of the driver. I have been cancelled because of my race that appears in my photo. That is why I photoshop my picture to appear white. Just kidding!! Uber would not allow that. Nevertheless, we all appear to do profiling and in this instance it is a persons option to be driven by whoever they care to be driven by. Myself, i would keep cancelling until I got a pretty female driver. Not kidding too much. If I am prejudice and do not care for black drivers then i do not have to be driven by one. That is my choice and I am paying for the ride. It is me who is missing out on the pleasurable, comfortable, safe,, entertaining, english speaking, professional service. It is me who is depriving myself of the colorful and warm experience. Miss Daisy did not miss out though, she preferred it. FYI I am a triple black uber driver- Black car, black inside and out vehicle, and black driver.
A rider is not required to have a picture in their profile and I’d say about half my passengers don’t. As a driver I appreciate it in busier pickup areas because it helps to spot the passenger and for safety reasons it helps me to identify I have the correct passenger in my auto. But if someone is a minority and afraid of discrimination that is one way around it. As a passenger I keep a photo in my profile because I have a lot of airport pickups and it helps the driver to spot me in a busy pick up area.
A driver has a right to decline a ping which is what I do if don’t want to do a pickup. I don’t understand why a driver would accept a ping and then cancel since he can’t do other pickups during that time period. The main reason I don’t accept a ping is because the passenger is poorly rated which usually means they are either a pain to deal with and/or a bad tipper and I don’t care if the photo is of a white person or a purple person I am not picking up a poorly rated passengers during non-surges. The times I do cancel is when I approach and it’s a supermarket (I don’t accept pings from supermarkets but if I don’t recognize the address it happens) or someone has a large cart of stuff and I cancel unless they are very highly rated regardless of their race, sex or the neighborhood or if I approach and it’s a group of kids using their mommy or daddy’s account (I refuse to take anyone unless the account holder is riding).
As far as Angelina’s issue with having drivers cancel on her for a trip from NJ to NYC, I recommend contacting the driver immediately. I live in a city where the nearest airport is 50 minutes away in a neighboring state and I can’t pick up after a drop off and I have to deadhead home all 50 minutes on my own dime. If you are requesting a ride to an area where the driver can’t pick up another fare he is allowed to cancel and won’t get dinged for the cancel. But just call first and ask the driver if he’ll do the ride. You’ll not only save the driver wasted time but you’ll also save yourself time from waiting on another Uber. In the case of going from EWR to NYC, just contact the driver as soon as he accepts the ping and tell him you’re going to NYC and ask if it will be a problem. If someone calls me about an airport ride ahead of time and they tell me on the phone they’re going to tip me, I’ll take it providing I have the time. If I don’t have the time or they don’t offer a tip on the phone (I know tipping is a touchy issue with a lot of riders, but if I have to drive almost an hour back with no tip it doesn’t pay me to do the trip) I’ll decline and they can immediately try to find another uber that may take them.
I’ll take airport trips all day. I average $80 for the run. I can afford the $10 in gas to get back.
I can empathize with drivers who do this, but my personal acceptance rate is 100%. That being said we mitigate our risk by avoiding certain areas. Like if I lived in Chicago I’d stay far away from the South side of town. If we place ourselves far enough away from urban centers we don’t get those calls. There’s plenty of money to be made without worrying about getting robbed. We read about it all the time. That’s why pizza places don’t deliver to certain areas. Rob enough delivery guys and your street gets blacklisted. It’s not because of your skin color, it’s because the area isn’t safe. Same customer living in Beverly Hills will never get turned down. It’s a common sense issue. Rideshare drivers aren’t allowed to carry weapons, not even mace, they can’t have bullet-proof shields like taxicabs have, and are at the mercy of the app. One good way to get a ride is to walk out of the area you’re in, like a project and go somewhere down the street where we can safely get to you. And don’t make us wait in a bad area. That’s going to make us really nervous and likely to cancel if we see drug/gang activity on the road.
I agree. I just started driving for Uber and do not pick up from the south side of Chicago usually. The majority of shootings are down there and I prefer not to risk my life for a few bucks. I’m not discrimating on race. I am discriminating on where I feel safe. If the area is black, thats not my fault. Mine has nothing to do with raciscm and people seem to jump to that right away. Particularly people who don’t even drive or tried it. Have them try and see how they feel about going into gang areas.
One thing I won’t do is cancel. If someone gets in and I’ve accepted I honor that and where they want to be dropped off. I just don’t go to dangerous areas looking for rides. And if I drop someone off in the Southside I turn the app off. That’s life. Fix up your areas, talk to your community activists and lower crime and I’ll be there.
I’m a female driver for both Lyft and Uber. I never cancel a ride due to race/ethnicity or ethnic sounding names. I am white and I live in an area that is 80% hispanic. I pick up passengers of all races, ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientations, classes, etc. I don’t expect tips from my riders, treat all my passengers the same, am always friendly and have water and snacks for my passengers. Have I been screwed over for this? Yes. However, because of the way I personally look, I have actually been screwed over by more passengers than I can count.
I am not going to lie, I relate more to the “lower class” lifestyle, and honestly in my city, that’s the kind of money I make as well. My family is white, affluent and I’ve probably had more advantages in life than most people. However, I also have tattoos, facial piercings and colored hair. If I lived in one of the bigger cities near me I would probably not have as many problems as I do here, but people continuously cancel on me here all the time, and the people that cancel on me are almost always white people from affluent neighborhoods. The conclusion I have come to is they either don’t like the wait time (which seems unlikely because a lot of the rich white people in my city live in an area that is not central and takes a while to get to, also there are usually not uber and lyft drivers out there for this reason) or that they don’t like my appearance, and when I accept the ride they see my picture and cancel. I also get cancelled on second-most often by black female passengers. When these types of people do not cancel on me, one of a few things happens. Usually, black female passengers do not speak to me at all. I start off my rides trying to talk to my passengers and have found that most black females do not wish to speak to me, while most black males are flirtatious if alone or are with other black males. Rich white women also tend to not speak to me and will often ignore me if I speak to them unless they are very intoxicated (I work primarily at night). However, rich white men from ages 35-60 are the most likely passengers to sexually harass me or to straight up try to pay me for sex and this has happened far more than once. I don’t know if it’s because of my breast size or because people tend to think that “alternative” looking girls are easy or they think I really need the money that badly or what, but this continues to happen to me at least once a week and sometimes up to 5 times a week.
So do I agree that Lyft and Uber drivers discriminate based on location and race? Absolutely. In fact, a lot of people tell me that I’m the only one that would come pick them up from a bad neighborhood. However, race and income are not the only variables here when it comes to discrimination. I am a white female that is discriminated upon by other white people as well as black people. I don’t think that it is right for this to happen and it upsets me a bit when it does because I try hard to treat everyone the same regardless of their background. It isn’t an excuse, but I guess maybe people try to get drivers/passengers that look like them, maybe out of safety concerns on both sides because like I said, black females also seem to not like me as a driver as well. I don’t know really what the answer is here, but my two cents is that appearance, including race as well as other factors, is a cause for discrimination for both passengers and drivers, in general.