Legislation is about to be passed in the state of Queensland, Australia that will see motorists fined $1,000 for using their mobile (cell) phone while driving.
And there's talk that a second offence will bring loss of license.
This article was originally reported in the Washington Post and while it raises real and serious concerns about rideshare driving, its conclusions apply specifically to the United States and even more specifically to Washington, D.C.
What do you think? Is this exclusively an American concern? What about where you drive? Let us know in the comments if you are concerned about any of these things where you drive.
A Georgetown University study of 40 Uber drivers in the D.C. region released Thursday found some thought the work “unsustainable,” with one-third reporting assaults or safety concerns and saying they went into debt to drive on the platform.
Based on interviews conducted in 2016, the study found 30 percent of the drivers were concerned about their safety. One driver told researchers of being robbed at gunpoint; another said he was assaulted after turning down drugs from a passenger.
Following the articles I've written recently about self-driving cars and the effect that it's going to have on us as Uber drivers, effectively making us redundant, a (small) number of Rideshare Guy subscribers have unsubscribed.
That's OK. It's human nature to bury our heads in the sand and try to ignore things we don't like. And clearly we don't like someone telling us that a source of income that we might be relying on is about to disappear.
But the fact is, folk, they are not about to go away.
Australian transport officials have travelled to Sweden to look at getting driverless buses brought to our shores.
The city of Barkaby is one of the first in the world to allow the autonomous buses to run in regular traffic.
Image Provided by Uber
Recently I've been posting about my belief that the days of the Uber driver are numbered because autonomous, self-driving cars are just around the corner. The technology advances have been so rapid that most of the potential problems are already solved and governments will be driven to early adoption in order to reduce the road toll and congestion.
I've had a lot of feedback in support but also some disagreement, from people who just can't see it happening that quickly, if at all.
That's OK. It's human nature to believe that the future will be just like the present.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm no longer driving for Uber.
This came about by accident or, perhaps more accurately, by force of circumstance. But it turned out to be a good thing.
It happened when I had a (very) expensive repair bill - $9,000 to source and replace the high pressure fuel pump, which lives inside the fuel tank and so is labour-intensive to replace. Along with all the ancillary components that support it.
Unfortunately, it happened while I was transporting Uber riders to the airport. I managed to flag down another Uber driver, who got my passengers to their destination and I then spent the rest of the day organising roadside assistance and a tow truck to get the vehicle to a specialist dealer for the repair.
Imagine if you woke up to the headline tomorrow "38,000 dead. More to come." You'd be horrified. You'd be demanding that the government do something about it.
Yet that's "just" the number of people killed on American roads last year.
In the five years from 2014, the number of US road fatalities was 181,168. That's over 180,000 lives lost in just five years. Plus even more injured or disabled for life.