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bop it like it's hotRIDE-SHARING APP Uber has revealed new measures it is taking to curb drunken passengers disturbing their drivers.
Distracted drivers cause thousands of road deaths worldwide every year and the taxi app company feel the children’s toy Bop It could be the remedy to their problem.
An Uber experiment in Charlotte, North Carolina has seen drivers introduce the noisy toy into the backseat of their taxis for late night journeys to entertain passengers and discourage them from distracting the driver.
First released in the mid-1990s, Bop It is designed to be engrossing for children and the mix of nostalgia and loud noises appears to be registering well with Uber passengers.
Passenger and driver safety
A major pitfall Uber has suffered from in recent years has been driver and passenger safety. Incidents such as drivers assaulting passengers, and vice versa, have marred the company’s rise since 2009.
Uber’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan said ensuring the safety of all parties is a top priority and distracting passengers is an approach that is producing results.
An intoxicated rider who is engaged in something interesting is less likely to be irritable and aiming aggression at the driver.
Improving safety is a two way street, however, with Uber also experimenting with new methods of investigating passenger complaints about dangerous driving they experience.
A statement on the company’s website reveals a new pilot programme that will use technology in smartphones to detect if drivers are speeding and even if the car brakes suddenly.
“Gyrometers in phones can measure small movements, while GPS and accelerometers show how often a vehicle starts and stops, as well as its overall speed,” the statement reads.
If a rider complains that a driver accelerated too fast and broke too hard, we can review that trip using data. If the feedback is accurate, then we can get in touch with the driver.
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They’re sick waiting.
And we’re sick paying.
Workers in social housing pay 15% of their wages. But don’t get to own it after 25 years.
Our retail workers can’t afford private landlord prices, workers who buy someone else’s second home/mortgage.
I feel for the people who are gonna be lumbered with some of the ‘ lovely ‘ folk from that complex when they are re housed elsewhere, same thing happened with O’Devaney flats, corpo moved them as far from there as they could, turned parts of bray in to a kip.
@Uncle Montys oaf: No one from O’Devaney moved to Bray.
@Uncle Montys oaf: Can you Tell us about the bad experiences you’ve with some people from Oliver Bond House?
Maybe get a job and stop living off the hardworking people who are paying for your keep
If the residents contributed to a sinking fund after a few months they would have enough in it to begin work.
Rory J Leonard: if SF had a plan it would probably be to build new housing so that these people could be moved while making the Flats more liveable in the interim. Sadly it would not be in scenic Phoenix Park. They would likely choose some empty council land that is not being developed due to politics or NIMBYism. Perhaps in your neighborhood . . . .
Crazy alternative plan, but why not get a job in another county where rents are cheaper!
put MM on trial
i have seen the dire conditions there, outside dog poop etc. i say knock them down and rebuild and rehouse the people in meantime.
@michael macken:
That is exactly what needs to be done, Michael!
If our Taoiseach operated under a similar political system to China, he could Decree that a Section of the many under utilised Phoenix Park’s 1,700 acres, be set aside for the construction of a large number of modern apartment blocks.
Oliver Bond tenants could then be temporarily relocated, whilst their existing homes were given that long overdue make over. This could all be achieved possibly within five years, not fifteen.
And it wouldn’t take long to fill all of those almost-new homes in The Park when all done and dusted!
But this not China! So under our system, how can this particular type of conundrum be solved expeditiously?
Perhaps SF has a masterplan in the works for a solution. We await with bated breath!
@Rory J Leonard: if our Taoiseach operated under a similar system to China the flats would be bulldozed to make way for fancy condos and the residents sent to a labour camp for complaining….!
@michael macken: and whose dogs are popping, whose rubbish is just flung into the grounds, who burnt the pitch and playground? The millions of tourists and visitors to the flats every year?
@Paul Clancy: The part time Taoisach Martin and the policy of FFG are the problem. As for China…A lot of criminal bankers. Developers, who were facilated by members of the above named parties would have deservedly have been put against a wall .
@Rory J Leonard: China can get stuffed for all the ruination it’s done over the past few years.
They moved resident’s from Dolphin House Flat’s while they were being renovated and families that wanted move back got a place. Why not offer same scheme to Oliver Bond resident’s.
@Mick McGuinness: as long as they only give flats to people who work locally.
If you never worked, why should you be housed beside where all the jobs are, while workers in those jobs commute for hours?
have your say