If you take Uber instead of drink and drive, you can save thousands of dollars in San Diego DUI fines, programs, insurance, San Diego DUI attorneys, Ignition Interlock Device, Vehicle Impound, and loss of employment time. Uber is working with MADD to help people avoid drinking & driving.
But can all Uber drivers be trusted? Not according to this San Diego DUI Lawyer Center blog of recent reports.
If you sign up to drive with Uber in San Diego, then you are lawfully within a restricted license to drive to and from work and during Uber work if your driving privilege was suspended by California Department of Motor Vehicles after a San Diego DUI charge. You can be your own boss and help others avoid a San Diego DUI by driving those in need of a ride instead of having them drive drunk. Sign up here.
If you are a California Senator, you get to use Uber for free. Uber drives drunk members of the California Senate 24 hours a day so they do not drive drunk or DUI. Four California lawmakers have been arrested for DUI in the past five years so it avoids further humiliation. Read about this nice perk at taxpayer cost of over $2,500 / month.
As an update to this Article, On July 31st, the Los Angeles Times reports that due to low-cost on-demand transportation like UberX, Lyft and Sidecar could reduce the rate of drunk driving-related deaths by as much as 3.6%, according to new independent research at Temple University’s Fox School of Business.
The study is based on data from the California Highway Patrol about alcohol-related vehicular fatalities from 540 townships in California from January 2009 through September 2014. The Temple researchers, Brad Greenwood and Sunil Wattal, will present their findings at the Academy of Management’s annual meeting in August.
The research found that the introduction of more expensive transportation services like Uber had little effect on alcohol-related fatalities, but the introduction of Uber’s cheaper service, UberX, made a noticeable difference. When the researchers factored in competitors like Lyft and Sidecar, which offer similarly priced services, “the results were actually stronger,” Greenwood said.
The research concluded that low cost was a critical factor. The one thing that people who are under the influence of alcohol are convinced of more than anything else, is, that they are able to drive while they are drunk. In addition to comparing the number of fatalities in cities where on-demand transportation was introduced and where it was not, the researchers considered a community’s population, median income, number of college graduates, the population over the age of 65, the population living in poverty, and the number of individuals within the county working in law enforcement.