Re: [OT] Uber driver kidnaps child; Uber offers mom $10 rebate

On 2025-04-21 1:54 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
 

Okay, that subject line is clickbait. It's TRUE but it omits a lot of
detail. Here's the story:

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/uber-drives-off-with-child-1.7513379

 

So, an Uber driver *did*, in effect, kidnap a 5 year old but it was
entirely inadvertent. (Mind you, the story fails to say just when the
kid woke up and realized something was amiss although it obviously did
because it was in hysterics when the mom got to the Uber.)

 Ok, there was no kidnapping, but gah, that kid must have woken up at
some point and you'd think the driver would have driven back to their
home.
 I love how there's a form for the cops to fill out, but none for the
girl's mother. "Fill out the left luggage form and we'll get back to you
in three days."

I was impressed that the police immediately mounted their own search and successfully found the Uber with the kid still in it. They could have said they didn't have the manpower to do a search like that or that they were too busy dealing with crime (or protecting pro-Hamas demonstrators elsewhere in the city) but they stepped up and got it done. I don't know how many police were actually searching but I'm guessing it would have taken several if Uber refused to give them ANY information on where the car might be.
I wonder when the driver finally realized he had a leftover passenger aboard? I'm guessing it was when the police finally found him otherwise he'd surely have taken the kid back home on his own. Perhaps he didn't have another customer, went home, and locked the car without realizing it had a kid in it.

. . .

 

I hope the mother's insistence on real improvements to the Uber
emergency protocol has the desired effect otherwise this could easily
happen again with perhaps more tragic results. There have been a number
of incidents over the years where sleeping children were left on school
buses because the driver didn't notice that they were there, including
one where a sleeping special needs child who was left in a bus for hours
and was traumatized as a result along with its parents.

 

And that prompts me to suggest a policy that we used on our school buses
which Uber drivers could follow starting immediately: make sure every
passenger has gotten out of the vehicle before you drive away.

 Yes. Even if the driver weren't thinking of the children, the fact that
there were 4 kids, that's a hell of a lot a paraphenalia. Obviously the
parents will be making multiple trips to retrieve everything. Obviously,
the driver had to make very sure the parents had completely unloaded the
vehicle.
 This guy has no business being a for-hire driver.
 Here's an even scarier thought. Was there insurance while the child was
in the vehicle?
 Some Uber and Lyft drivers rent vehicles, which means that commercial
insurance is in effect at all times. But if the driver is using a
personal vehicle, his own insurance prevents him from acting as a
commercial driver. All personal insurance policies prohibit this.
 The way it works: Driving to and from the start and end of the trip
booked through the platform, there is no commercial insurance as this is
limited to the time between pickup and dropoff. The driver's personal
insurance isn't in effect as the insurance company will argue that, at
least during the time between receiving the call and heading to the
pickup point, the driver is in commercial service even though Uber and
Lyft don't cover this period. Having left the dropoff point and until
the driver receives the next call, it's harder to argue that personal
insurance isn't in effect.
 Nevertheless, no one's personal insurance covers this scenario, in which
the child never exited the vehicle.
 The insurance carriers for both commercial and personal liability will
fight against a claim if, say, the child were hurt. That also means the
driver was driving illegally without insurance, and his personal assets
are at risk in judgment.
 Obviously Uber or Lyft can be sued, but the judgment will also go
against the driver unless the settlement from the platforms includes the
driver's liability.
 Everything about using one's personal vehicle in commercial service
without commercial insurance is beyond idiotic as it can leave you
bankrupt.
 

I will assume that you are correct about the way insurance works in your own country but I think it's different in Ontario. (Side question: isn't insurance law a state-level matter in the US rather than a federal matter? If so, then Illinois may have much different rules than other states.) I've seen questions on forms about what kind of driving you do and whether it is commercial or not but I don't *think* you have to get different insurance if you do a mix of personal and commercial driving: you just pay a higher premium. I've never driven my own vehicle for commercial purposes so I can't begin to guess how much more the premium is.

If that
means getting out of the car and looking in each door, so be it. It's
only a car: how long can it take? That alone practically precludes a
similar event from ever happening again. (I suppose there's still a
chance that a very small child could fall asleep, slip into the footwell
and half under the front seats and not be noticed, particularly if the
child is wearing dark clothing at night.) Where I worked, failing to do
this kind of check and then reporting to the dispatcher that you had
done it was a major disciplinary event; drivers, even excellent ones,
were virtually always fired if a child was actually left in the bus.

 That's reasonable.

Of course it's a bit tricker with Uber since I assume they don't talk to a live dispatcher but are directed entirely via an app. Still, I imagine they require the driver to report that the trip is completely and he's available for another run so that process could include him ticking a box on a form that says he checked to make sure all passengers and belongings were out of the car. That should have the same effect as reporting to a dispatcher. (Of course it's entirely possible/likely that ticking the box could be done without first doing the check but if ticking the box was treated as a strict requirement which would get you fired if you were found NOT to have checked the car, then that should do the job of forcing the actual check to be done.)
--
Rhino