We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Fixing Uber's Accessibility Issues

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

In this episode of "We Fixed It, You're Welcome," the hosts tackle accessibility issues with Uber, focusing on the experiences of passengers with disabilities. Michael Hingson, an author and disability advocate, shares insights on Uber's shortcomings in accommodating service animals and adhering to ADA guidelines. The discussion covers the need for better driver training, accountability measures, and transparent feedback systems. The hosts and guest explore potential solutions, including embedding accessibility into core operations, closing accountability gaps, and improving customer feedback loops. They debate the effectiveness of self-identification for passengers with disabilities and emphasize the importance of treating all customers equally. The episode concludes with a call for Uber to prioritize community needs over profit and implement meaningful changes to improve accessibility for all users. www.michaelhingson.com https://wefixeditpod.com/ A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking. Have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to We Fixed It. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride, and we try to put them back better than we found them. Welcome back. Today's episode, Uber and the ongoing experiences of passengers with disabilities. We'll look at the official company policy versus how it's played out in practice and see if we can find some ways for Uber to be a better corporate citizen while serving its customer base, everyone included. Can we fix it and leave Uber better than we found it? Today, please join me in one. welcoming Michael Hingson. He's an author, keynote speaker, disability advocate. Michael, tell us about yourself. What don't you do? I do a lot of traveling and speaking throughout the world. I've also written three books. In August of 2024, my third book was published and titled Live Like a Guy Dog, True Stories from a Blind Man and His Dogs about being brave, overcoming adversity and moving forward in faith. And that book is really about teaching people that you can control fear and not let it, as I would put it blind you or paralyze you, but rather than it overwhelming you, you can

learn to control it and use as a powerful tool. So that is also out there. And they're all available wherever you get books. Thank you, Michael. It's really great to have you here. And we are very excited for the context and all the knowledge and inspiration you'll bring to today's conversation. So thanks for being here with us. We're going to talk about Uber. So Uber has had a share of successes and also controversies over the years. We'll start from the beginning and fly through it with the always accurate web research. So Uber's journey began in 2009

when Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick founded the company in San Francisco. They were inspired by a frustrating experience trying to hail a cab in Paris. Started as Uber Cab, but by 2011, they dropped the cab, smart move. In 2012, the model, as we know it, fell into place where regular people

all of a sudden became Uber drivers in their own cars. By 2015, Uber operated in over 300 cities worldwide, and their aggressive growth strategy led to evaluation of an $82.4 billion dollar evaluation during its 2019 IPO. However, Uber's rise has also been accompanied by significant controversies. So in 2017, the CEO Travis Kalanek resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment, data breaches, and toxic corporate culture. The companies also faced numerous lawsuits over driver classification. There was a notable $8.4 million settlement in California for misclassifying drivers as independent contractors, which would be a whole episode on its own.

It was a whole thing. But since then, Uber has been through a series of image, rehabilitation, operational refinements, experimentation with autonomous driverless vehicles, and reported its first annual profit of $1.89 billion in 2023. So we could talk about all that, which we will. But Michael, tell us what we're here specifically to fix about Uber. One of the issues that Uber has faced over the years is that it hasn't dealt with passengers with disabilities extremely well. In 2016, the National Federation of the Blind sued Uber because Uber said, well, we're only a software company. We can't really enforce the ADA when it comes to drivers, which is just not true because the reality is Uber is the start of all of it. And I was one of the plaintiffs in that suit.

The lawsuit was eventually settled. The issue is that drivers said, well, we don't have to take people with dogs because we're using our own cars. Wrong. Because the reality is that when a driver becomes an Uber driver, then they have to abide by the fact that they're supposed to pick up public people, the public. And it may be their own car, but they're still obligated to do that. And the Americans with Disabilities Act is really clear about the fact that even companies like Uber are businesses. They are places where appropriate and reasonable accommodations need to be provided. So the lawsuit was filed and eventually it was settled and Uber agreed to do several things,

among which was to properly train drivers and make sure that they knew that if they refused to take blind people with guide dogs or any person with a disability in their service animal, that that was grounds for them becoming no longer an Uber driver. The problem is Uber didn't follow through with all of that. Their training wasn't very good. And also, the reality is that they didn't dismiss drivers when they misbehaved when it came to dealing with people with guide dogs. And so the problem really still exists. I know people who've documented very well some of the things that they've had to face with not getting them and their guide dogs into an Uber car and have filed their own lawsuit because there had been this settlement with. the National Federation of the Blind, and people had to go off and file other lawsuits rather than

the NFB necessarily being as involved as maybe they ought to have been, to deal with getting Uber to behave the appropriate way. Now, I know we're talking about Uber, but I tend to not use Uber as much as I use Lyft because Lyft also went through some of this, but agreed to do a lot more to deal with training. And when I talk with Uber drivers who drive for both Uber and Lyft, and I talk with lift drivers, I learn that when training comes up, lift stands out and Uber does not. So I think it's pretty clear that that's really one of the major issues. And Uber is not doing as well at enforcing it as they ought to be. There has been a shift a little bit of late within the last year. Uber said, well, but you know, we've got to really deal with all sides of this. And so they and the National

Federation of the Blind have come up with a program whereby when a person, with a service animal signs up or calls for a ride, they have the option to identify, for example, themselves as a blind person with a guide dog. And that information can either be sent to the driver or not. If it doesn't go to the driver, at least Uber has it in case the driver, when they arrive, refuses to take a blind person,

at least then Uber, the company knows about it, and they can take action. Question is, will they take any action? and past history would dictate probably not. But there's a bigger issue. The National Federation of the Blind and Uber agreed to this process. The problem is that there are a number of us, some more vocal than others, who say, I shouldn't have to identify that I'm blind at all.

I am a passenger. It doesn't matter whether I'm using a guide dog or service animal if I have a disability. I should be able to just get that ride as well as anyone else. That's what the Americans with Disabilities Act is all about and what it says. The ADA is really clear. If you go into an establishment or you are dealing with a place of business and you happen to use a service animal, if the entity or service providers or whoever have any concern about you, they can ask two questions. One, is your animal a service animal?

And if you answer yes, then two, they can ask you, what does the service that the animal performs? That's pretty easy with a blind person with a guide dog because we're holding on to a harness, but they can ask the question. And there are some pretty specific definitions of all that. If, for example, you say, well, my animal keeps me comfortable and I use it to keep me calm and so on, not a service animal. The definition in the ADA is that your animal has to be specifically trained to perform an action that helps provide accommodation so that you can function in society.

Emotional support is not something that you train an animal to do. But the reality is Uber helps. has not really taken still the appropriate steps on all this. And part of that has resulted in when some people don't identify that they're blind and a driver shows up, then the driver says, well, you didn't say that you were blind. I don't have to take you. That's not true. That's never been true.

Again, Uber's not training very well. And so we continue to have an issue. And there are many, many blind people, some again, more vocal than others, but many blind people, for example, who say, I shouldn't have to identify that I'm blind. I should be accepted just like anyone else. My dog is a part of my life. And if my dog misbehaves in your car, then you can kick me out. But until the dog misbehaves, that dog and I go in your vehicle.

Yep. Yeah. You've given us a lot to unpack. And, you know, you mentioned it, but it comes down to the official company policy and what's said to the public and then how individual drivers have behaved and reacted over the years. And how well they've been trained or not. For sure. Well, yeah, let's talk about institutional training.

She know Melissa. Let's get into that part. Well, I feel like Uber, you know, it's interesting because they've, you know, I guess 10 years now, they've been a company. I've found more recently they've pulled back, right? Like, this is the first time they're making a profit. But, you know, even in emergency situations where I've actually had to get out of an Uber because the driver was impaired, which was quite dangerous. This was earlier this year. And there was nowhere I could call or do anything and make any type of report that wasn't live. And so the challenge that I'm seeing here with what Michael's sharing is, you know, if somebody says no or they cancel the ride, you know, again, there's that

after, you know, you can sometimes deal with it after the fact. But the reality is like you needed a ride for whatever reason and now you're stuck. And so how is you dealing with this? And I also think because of that lack of training around what the ADA is sharing as well as, you know, their business stance, the trouble is when, you know, if you were to, you know, self-identify as someone with a guide dog, the challenge as well is a Uber driver may not pick up that ride, right? They get that option of who they accept and don't accept.

And so I'd be really curious to see the numbers as to, you know, what the wait time is for somebody that does have a service animal. And I think the lack of training is, you know, there's a multitude of factors maybe being a young company. But like Michael shared, you know, Lyft is doing it better. So I don't think that's an excuse anymore. And it needs to be something that they focus on. I know that they've been trying to gain a profit this entire time. time, but I feel like they've lost their way in a sense. And I just think from an operations perspective, Melissa, I'm really curious to get kind of your take on how, you know, the operations

and the business and also making sure you're just doing the right thing by your, your customers. I think we've identified very clearly that there are major issues here, right? So there's a systematic failure. It's not an isolated incident, as Mike has said. He, you know, he shared that there's been lawsuits. It's been ongoing. It hasn't been just, oh, this just started last year, right? Broken feedback loops, Chino, what you've just said is like there's no, how do you get in touch? How do you escalate any issues you might have? I think it's interesting the training, because as someone who's been the leader of large, large, large operations for a long time, you know, there's mandatory training for a lot of different things, but it's the actual accountability to the

training and clear consequences and transparency about when it doesn't stick is really what we're seeing that Uber doesn't have, right? And then like a real time, you know, resolution. Like, what is the resolution? What is the fix? Because honestly, this is a tough situation, right? They have already said they're fixing it by doing the training, settling out of court, all those things. But like Mike has said, it's not changed to anything. So really, it's about how. How do we make them really focus on these issues? So we really have to embed accessibility into core operations. Like it does need to be embedded.

And I'm not sure, you know, like requiring proof of ADA compliance or, you know, having a sticker or something so that like you know that that the drivers have actually done it or even having a very specialized group. So one of the things I like about Lyft, so I, you know, when I was doing a lot of business travel, personally, I was more comfortable with a woman driver, just going to say, in big cities and things like that late at night, that kind of thing. And so I put that in my profile for Lyft. And to this day, I got a Lyft last night. It pops up and it's like, we understand your priority. It may take 30 seconds longer for us to find you a driver, but your priority is set as this.

And I forgot that that was what it was. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's perfect, right? But is there a way to your point, Mike, I know you mentioned that you shouldn't have to identify that way, but if it would be such that you knew for sure that you and your service dog were going to be taken care of and in a safe vehicle and with a driver that understood all of those things, I think, you know, people might be willing to to identify. that way because it's the kind of thing that I say to support my own personal safety, I'd like a woman driver, you know, and really kind of embed that into their brand and say, hey, we're trying to identify personalized experiences, right? So this is a personalized experience based on what you want, right? And, you know, and you could have other factors, right? I only want to be in electric vehicles. I only want this or whatever. And then incentivize and compensate their drivers as such. If you've gone through all of the accessibility training and you've gotten certified and we've even inspected your vehicle and know that you can't for all different types of things, right? Then maybe you get an for every one of those rides, you get an extra, I want to say star, but some sort of incentive or compensation for that. And that's a really great thing. And they become like their superstar fleet members.

But I do think the biggest thing is really accountability. And that's the thing that really has to come from the top down. So it really does need to be pushed down because if the drivers don't, they can say they took the training or they take online training for 30 minutes and they say they passed. And then they can cancel a rider. As they pull up and they see Mike and his dog, they're like, cancel. You know what with no consequences to that? That's a problem. And then Mike doesn't have a way to say, like, hey, I want to know who that driver was that just canceled on me because I, you know, that's not acceptable.

Let me jump in. So several things. Several things. First of all, I think identification, personally, I believe identification is horrible. I should not have to be treated as some sort of a separate individual who has to identify when I have a service animal with me or in my case a guide dog simply because I have that dog. There is not a vehicle that I can't get into. I understand that, for example, my wife, when she was alive, who was in a wheelchair, couldn't necessarily get in a lot of vehicles because the chair couldn't be accommodated.

She used a power chair. But for me, the reality is I can get in any car and travel. Now, some drivers will say I'm allergic to dogs, Balderdash. The reality is, even with all the things that are out there, the reality is allergy does not overtake and exceed traveling with a guide dog. The fact is very few people are so allergic that they truly are endangered of losing their life if they have a dog around them. Allergy does not overtake disability.

But the other issue really is that I don't want there to be a separate category of vehicles that will take guide dogs, for example, and a lot that won't, because that greatly limits the amount of vehicles I have accessible for me, and there may not be any in the city where I am. The fact of the matter is this is a general Uber issue that needs to be addressed. And I know we're discussing Uber, and I've mentioned that we experience this a whole lot less with Lyft. I have seen it happen with Lyft,

but it doesn't happen nearly to the extent at all of what happens with Uber. And the reason is it's the quality of training. The fact of the matter is that training isn't just 30 minutes and then you can say, well, I took the training. No, if the training is appropriately established and set up since it is online, Uber can do any number of things to make sure that its drivers are properly trained. Before you can pass the training course, you have to pass a test online that will certify that you really know and understand what we're talking about, we being the people who are providing. the training. There's no way that drivers can't be held accountable for training to the appropriate level, but it's all in the wording of the training, and it's all in the requirements that the drivers have to adhere to to get through the training and then follow beyond that. And the fact of

the matter is that Uber also should be taking the stand that if a driver refuses to take a trip simply because it's a person with a guide dog, you've got to be fired right on the spot. There shouldn't be any discussion about that because that's going to be the only way drivers are going to truly learn you can't refuse a person with a service animal in your car. Yeah. That's accountability. All valid points. Yeah.

And so, Michael, what, what accountability measures has Uber taken over the years to be punitive toward individual drivers? And do they take those measures? And what does it do anything? Problem is, we don't know. The National Federation of the Blind has a page is to NFB, that's National Federation Blind, so NFB.org slash ride share, where you can file a complaint about a driver when you have the opportunity to do it if you get the information. And you can get some of that information when,

in fact, you are reserving your ride. So there are some ways to get some of it, but you don't necessarily know what's going on. For example, I've stood waiting for a ride, and I knew that a car came up, slowed down, and then took off again. And then I saw that the ride was canceled, so I figured out what was going on. But the reality is that we don't hear what happens to those drivers. I as a passenger never hears that the driver was dealt with in any way. Now, if there's some mechanism I am not unaware of, then that's fine, glad to know it. But from all the people that I've talked with who say the same thing that I am saying, we don't know. So we do know that, drivers have not been terminated simply because they refuse to take a service animal and passenger

and person in their vehicle. And so the result is that we're stuck with that. Yeah. It's interesting because there's two, there's two parts to this, right? So the training and it's, you know, it's a little scary to think about if you're saying, you know, what is Uber's training? If it is 30 minutes and I've again, we're started, right? Like we don't know what it. There's no transparency in terms of what that looks like. And I do think, you know, as a passenger, whether it's accessibility, road safety, whatever the case may be, to know that I'm putting my life in the hands of some of that might not be trained or know the rules of, you know, what they should actually be doing, that's a problem. And for Uber, if they want to continue to be a leader in passengers to take

over taxis in the cab industry, they need to hold themselves to that same standard. So I do think there needs to be some transparency in terms of what the actual training looks like. And it must, like, accessibility training is a part of that. It's not a separate conversation. It's a part of what they should be doing. The other piece here, though, is the accountability, as we've all shared, like, and I know we've all had stories that we can share of, you know, weird things happening in Uber. But right now, there's no way. to connect with Uber Live. There's no way to truly follow up.

If somebody cancels on you, you don't know the why. So the challenges is if someone has a guide dog and, you know, the Uber is canceled miraculously with no explanation. You don't get a chance to sit in the car. You don't have that conversation with the Uber driver. You don't know. And so it's really hard for you as a passenger. And it shouldn't be the onus on you as a passenger to follow up, right?

I do think that Uber should look at the data and see, you know, between me and someone with the guide dog, how often are they getting canceled on and use that as a data piece and figure out a way to kind of do that. And if somebody is continuing to cancel on somebody with a service animal, I'm sorry, unless you have it stated where you're like that one out of a trillion person that has a life-threatening allergy to a dog. again, why are you working? If you were that, if it's like, I think that deeply. Well, I wouldn't be driving Uber personally. But if you do, you can have a special stamp and you can, you can, you know, self-identify as that person. But everybody else, which is essentially the entire Uber driver population, shouldn't be doing that. And I think, you know, as they look at their five stars, they should also look at their cancellation rates.

So there's a bit of that transparency there because there's no accountability right now. reality is with training, if it's done right, Uber could, for example, mandate that every driver over the next 30 days must take this online course. And we're assuming it's a course that deals with accessibility, that deals with persons with service animals and so on. And you won't be able to drive until you take the course. Now, maybe 30 days isn't long enough, but six months is way longer than necessary. But the reality is you must take the training. The training is online. By definition, it is something that's monitored. And if you don't properly answer questions and you don't properly demonstrate that you understand the training, then you're not a driver anymore.

If you do understand the training and you do understand what it is you're required to do, that will be evident by the fact of how you answer questions on the test at the end of the training. There are ways to deal with that. But it also has to be something that is emphatically stressed by the company. And I think that's the biggest issue. Yeah, because I, you know, we always had some sort of mandated, you know, I've been in very regulated companies. And so there's always been mandated training, right? And you have to take quizzes throughout, like you can't go through the training more quickly. I've tried that before where you like scroll, you know, fast forward. You have to actually take the whole thing, even if you're passing the modules, you still have to sit through all of the

dialogue and these are like three hour trainings which is a lot but and I don't disagree with you on the training is important it's the question of accountability and what Uber's going to do for against the the drivers that don't actually follow through with the training that's an easy one if you haven't done it within the first eight weeks of you know signing up as a driver you're not a driver anymore right but also to you know to your point is the feedback on like, you know, if you're, if you're canceling rights, if you're, you know, if you're doing things that aren't acceptable and there's bad feedback and you're not getting good feedback and, you know, there are algorithms. There's the data. So they should know, you know, they should be

able to go and look at that data and be able to make some very important changes. And have it be transparent to other, the other gig contractors, right, to the drivers so that they know that. But like, you can't get away with that because I always, you know, this is just an operational thing. This is not necessarily against Uber. This is against every operation that's out there. But it always amazed me how the employees could figure out how to gamify the system or game the system, right? And like, I ran call centers for years and years and years.

And instead of just taking the phone call, you know, you're a call center rep. So I'm surprised you don't know that that's what you're getting paid to do. but okay, they would figure out all the ways to cherry pick the calls, to drop, you know, like, do all these things. And I'm like, for the amount of time it took you to figure that out, you could have taken three. But, but, okay. So I think that it does require Uber to actually take a stance that they haven't in accountability and in transparency and to figure out, Chino, because I think you've brought this up a couple times. But there has to be a way in which we are able to communicate with them that we are not happy with a, besides the star system or the happy face and unhappy face, right? There needs to be a way that you can do that.

And it doesn't have to necessarily be a call center, right? It can be all of these AI agents now, right? You could have it be a chat bot and it could be something or, you know, something a lot easier where you leave a message and then you aggregate that. data and then you aggregate the data against your gig contractor as well as against the customer I mean you know customers at at Google or I mean at Google at Uber get rated right yeah so you get rated so if you slam the door too hard you might get a three star instead of a five star so I don't you know and it was interesting because I had a friend who worked there for a long time at

Uber and I asked him like how do I get my star rating up like why am I not a five And he's like, well, probably because of these, you know, whatever. Like, you know, you talk too much or, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. But I do think that there needs to be better feedback loops and definitely the accountability. And I just don't know, because you've taken them to court, Mike. I mean, I just don't know what else can we do to get them to be accountable, right? Well, I'll cancel them. Well, that's, you know, obviously.

the ultimate way to get any company to respond is to get enough of their customers to say, we don't like what you're doing and we're going to use somebody else. Right. That's the ultimate way. But the issue is that getting people to do that with a company like Uber is really tough. And also understand that there's another issue. This is also a societal issue. And a lot of people probably don't consider this very relevant.

Well, there aren't that many blind people so we don't have to worry about it. There aren't that many people with disabilities. Well, there are, but that's not the issue. The issue is that this is a societal thing. And Uber could become a whole lot better than they are if they would really take a stand and do the right thing with all of this. They would be heroes. And it wouldn't be that hard to do,

but they have to decide to take a different stand than they've apparently taken. They would say they're doing everything because now they got the self-identification thing. That's ridiculous, though. But the bottom line is they have to recognize that the rules of society are changing and people with disabilities are part of society. The Nielsen Company did a survey back in 2016

where they explored companies that provided accommodations and true accessibility for people with disabilities, whether it's through their websites or whatever. And companies that, really were open to addressing the issues and becoming more responsive to people with disabilities. We're 35 more likely to keep their clients who happen to have disabilities because we know how hard it is to get companies to do the things that we want them to do to make themselves

accessible. When a company does that, we're going to pay attention to that. We're going to continue to use them. Well, you know, we don't know what kind of corporate training there is. Right. We do know that there are incidents that happen that are outside of what the official company total line policy is. But do do the, we could assume maybe it's, you know, the third party standardized, you know, the things you have to sit through. Maybe it's combined with harassment training and it's of the block you have to complete. Are those types of things effective? Do they have, you know? Yeah. It's as someone who does training as part of my business, you know, and I was just looking. So Uber does like a three, to five hours, you know, self-paced online course, and then you do an in-person exam. This is, again, in Toronto.

So it might be a little different in America. They have to get their private transportation company license. They have to have a background track. And then, you know, the turnaround time for all of this is usually about, you know, anywhere from two days to two weeks, right? So it's quite limited. And particularly with Uber, the other challenge here, it's like it's the gig economy, right? People aren't doing this as their career where it's like, you know, as a cab or taxi driver, there is pride to that.

There is thousands of hours that go into that. There's a lot of investment that goes into that. And so, respectively because also they're often kind of government backed or funded, you know, they have to have that training. They have to follow ADA rules and compliance and things like that. Where with Uber, again, they've been towing this middle line. I really like what you said, Michael, around, you know, of course it's the customers that, you know, it's where our money talks at the end of the day. And I do think, you know, if they want to lean into being kind of that lead for me as well as someone that doesn't have any accessibility issues, but to know that you've done that training for me as a female passenger, it makes me feel a little safer, not a little bit safer, a lot safer. I know that you're checking your, you know, checking your teas, crossing your eyes or whatever the saying goes.

But, you know, right now, again, there is no accountability for the training that they're doing. There's no way to report different things. And so for me, it's really challenging right now is because I think their brand has moved away from caring about people. It's been about, you know, trying to make a profit. We've become synonymous with our name. We've taken over some, you know, taxis and cabs. But in doing so, in the last 10 years, you can see a regression in their customer service, right? Whether that it's because of AI removing live chats and feeds where it's become unsafe all around.

And so for me, as a customer, knowing that you have this accessibility embedded into what you're doing is really important. And it's not something that should just be, you know, an hour after the fact. It should be something that's ongoing. It should be if you're an Uber driver for a year, you know, what's your checks and balances? Have you refreshed on kind of new knowledge with ADA compliance, right? There should be, you know, once a year you get maybe an ADA certificate. Because again, it's not something that it's just, okay, 30 minutes, we have a quick discussion and we move on. That will never stick to anybody.

It needs to be continuous. it needs to be long time learning and at the end of the date needs to be held accountable. We can all do a checkmark and if no one's checking our results from it or they are, but it's the one-time fleeting thing, it will never stick and this is the problem. And so Uber needs to take a stance on we care. Right now they continue to show us they don't. Again, I'm not going to say that any company is perfect, but there certainly is, at least in my experience and the experience of people that I speak,

with about it. There is some reason that Lyft doesn't seem to have the level of anger or passengers who feel that they haven't been appropriately treated, as is the case with Uber. There's something different. I believe that it's in the training and it's the wording in the training and so on. And that's an issue. Now, having said all that, and I don't remember where it is, but there is a guy who put up a video on YouTube. He's a Lyft driver, and he's saying, here's how you discriminate or not discriminate. He would just say, here's how you deny passengers with service animals.

And I don't know whether Lyft ever did anything about him or not. But the reality is in general, I have found, and you can say it's anecdotal if you wish, but I have found that people using Lyft are much more satisfied than people overall using Uber. I think a part of that, though, is because Lyft also still has a live chat component, right? As an Uber driver, you can literally be driving.

Like, I had an experience where someone was absolutely hammered in the car on my way to the airport where we had to ask them to pull over on the side of the highway to get out. That is like a life and death situation is happening. There was no way for us to contact Uber. We had to call the cops on our own and it was the, you know, accountability, 100% as a customer. That's a problem. And then when you look at folks that have disabilities, where it's like, again, you're making the onus on people with service animals. No, it shouldn't be that. Where Lyft still has that component. So there's that accountability from that driver. Because to be honest, it wasn't until, I think, seven, eight days later that Uber got back to us about someone who was driving drunk. And that's a life and death situation there. And that's a problem. And there's none of that accountability where, again, if we were able to talk to someone, if you were to say, someone just canceled on me because I had a service dog, right? You shouldn't have to self-identify, but to at least report it somewhere live, there's some culpability.

And again, as Uber drivers, the more instances you have, you can get suspended. So there's actual tangible things as to what happens to them. But if there's no way to report anything, these people just cancel the Ryan and move on to the next. And, you know, Bob's your uncle. That's it. Yeah. Well, Michael, I get your point. about self-identification and how problematic that is.

I asked the question from Uber's perspective, if they wanted to data mine and fix the issue systematically, you know, the best way to do that from that perspective is to know the most you can about your customers. Well, yes and no. But the reality is, philosophically, I shouldn't be treated differently simply because I'm blind.

Agreed. And if it's great to know about customers and so on, and I appreciate that, that doesn't deal with the ultimate enforcement. So part of the whole identification, the self-identification that is exists today, is that I can tell Uber, I'm scheduling a ride, I am blind, I have a service animal, I don't want to communicate it with the driver, but then Uber has the data. And so, you know, and that's the issue. Maybe they do something, maybe they don't.

But the reality is, I as a person using a guide dog, should not have to be, treated differently and be classified differently because I have a service animal. That's what the Americans with Disabilities Act is all about. That is what many countries are doing and passing the laws that they pass to basically say that companies need to provide reasonable accommodations to make sure that people who, if you will, are different, are treated accordingly the same as other people. And so it's great to talk about, well, maybe Uber needs to know that information. And my response is if a driver denies me, I'm glad to say, hey, I have my guide dog and suddenly the, the, the ride was canceled. Why? But I didn't, I shouldn't have to say that in advance. There should be no

reason for me to have to identify that I am traveling with a guide dog. That's the problem. Agreed. Agreed 100%. And I think this is where that reporting comes into play where I, you should never have to, you know, self-identify as who you are, your, your customer. You're getting a, you're getting a ride. You're getting an Uber for whatever the reason you're getting that Uber. But if there's a challenge, I do think it's important to say, yeah, no, I need a place where if someone's cancel on me because I have a guide dog, absolutely I should be able to report that. That should go on that driver's record so that you can keep that data. And again, there should be some consequence, whether they're suspended, whether they get fired after like four or five instances. But without a mechanism to do that,

these Uber drivers are just kind of getting away with these things. And Uber is like, oh, well, they don't have the data because you're not allowing us to share it with you. So I do think that will be a big difference for them if they can implement that and get back to having some type of reporting live, similar to what Lyft is doing. And I think there's training definitely that needs to be that I think that could be the difference. But not knowing what either Lyft or Uber's training is, I can, the one key difference. is the accountability piece from that live reporting. And that's what Lyft has. And so I think, you know, the caliber of drivers is different because they're held to a

different standard where Uber currently there's no real standard. It's up in seven days. Yeah, I agree with all of you. I think that the thing is, Mike, that there's a different, you know, from a CX perspective, Aaron is right. When we talk about the more you know about your customer, the better. You can provide a better customer experience. Now, should, you know, people with disability should always have the accessibility to everything that everybody does, and they shouldn't have to, like you said, self-identify.

But a personalized preference and personalized experience is something that if you're willing, like I said, like I like a woman driver for safety reasons, I feel safer, then that was my preference to go ahead and share that. And that is data that they can see so that they can say, okay, we can prioritize that. We can put you into that woman driver algorithm and get you the most, you know, quickly to your place. Now that, and they do say that in the setting. They say it may not always happen because of where you're at. If you're in, you know, a small community that doesn't have a lot of drivers, you know, you have to decide what you're going to, what you're going to do. But I think, you know, for, you know, for. Uber, the real thing is, and we've been talking about this in terms of what they need to fix, is embed that accessibility into their core operations, like we said, through a really robust training and, you know, and making sure, and certification, if necessary, close that accountability gap because it's accountability that they're not making anybody, there are no consequences currently. And then the broken feedback loop, like, you know, you've just brought that up over and over again. And there's different ways in which the feedback can be given. Like, is it real-time

feedback? Like, I am in the car and this is dangerous. Or is it, you know what? That car was disgusting and it was smelly and I just want to give, you know, or something else or like the driver, like in the middle just dropped me off on the side of the road and I don't know wasn't at my destination, something like that that may not be as warranted as necessary right away or prioritized. But I do think those are the three big things that they're going to need to fix Aaron in in order for them to actually address this. And it's really not an option not to fix it. Yeah.

I mean, it really isn't an option for them. Well, it isn't to you. But if Uber isn't feeling enough pain from it, they don't care. Right. But that's what I'm saying is that I think that there should be enough when you think about their focus, which is always on profit, right? That they're going to, they're hitting a point where it is a juncture where they're going to need to really focus on these types of things. Because this isn't just about people that have disabilities. It's about the communities that supports that, right?

And so as we have seen, the council culture is very strong in today's world. And we just need to make sure that this gets amplified in the right way. Yeah. I like how you put it, Melissa, and we're getting our wrap-up signal. So I'll go with your better reporting, better feedback loop. Don't put the burden on your passengers and your user community to solve your institutional issues, solve it for your passengers and make the experience better for everyone. And accountability, zero-tolerance,

policy and make that known throughout the company. And Mike, like he said, fired on the spot. There's no question. So if we put those measures in the place, if we ran Uber and we, you know, ran that up the flagpole and said, this is how you're going to act from now on. Michael, do you think we would fix the issue? Right. And, you know, I think that there has to be understanding all the way around, but I think it's extremely important that we make sure that Uber understands that if they want to be truly part of the community, then they have to treat all of us as part of the community. Absolutely. Melissa, do you think we fixed it if we put those measures into place?

If we were able to put those measures into place because I think Uber thinks they're already in place and they're not. I think it would be huge strikes towards fixing. And I think that as Mike has mentioned before, there are examples where there is accountability and there are better services. So they should be definitely looking at that because their competition is going to erode their base, the customer base, if they don't. Agreed. How about you, Tina? You know, we've shared really great examples of how they can fix it. To be honest, I don't think we have because, you know, Uber needs to care.

And I think that's the fundamental challenge that we have right now. It's profit over community. and if they're not being held accountable through government, you know, through public transportation agencies that's saying that you need to comply with ADA standards, period point blank. You know, we can give them all the fixes in the world if they're not willing to do them. There's no accountability for Uber. Unfortunately, I don't think it's a fix. So, you know, either you care Uber.

And I think that is a huge profitable thing if you can lean into that. otherwise the track record in which you're going and your lack of empathy and care for the community and removing some of that accountability for your drivers is not a great sign for me. And I've actually stopped using Uber as much personally because of all of this. So, you know, they need to start caring. Well, said, Gina. Well, that takes us to the end of the road on this one. Another episode of We Fixed It, Your Welcome is closing out.

But before we go, I would like to again thank our special guest, Michael Hengsen. And Michael, tell our listeners where they can find you. Well, they can go to my website, Michael Hingsen.com. That's M-I-C-E-L-H-I-N-G-S-O-N.com. As I said earlier, I am a keynote speaker. I travel talking about trust and teamwork leadership. I tell my story of escaping with my guide dog Roselle from the World Trade Center. And I talk about things like moving from diversity to inclusion,

because typical DEI folks don't talk about disability. very much. They can email me if they'd like to explore me being a speaker at their event. They can email me at speaker at Michael Hinkson, M-I-C-H-A-E-L-N-G-S-O-N-G-O-N-G-O-N-com, and would love to explore that. We also have a podcast called Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity in the unexpected meet, and Aaron knows about that. But if anybody would like to be a guest, we're always looking for people who want to tell their stories, because I believe everyone has a story that shows they're more unstoppable than I think they are, and you can email me, and we can talk about that.

So you can just use the same email address speaker at Michael Hinkson.com. And I'll get it and respond. We're always looking for people who want to come on and visit with us. Thank you so much, Michael. And thank you again for joining us. My pleasure. Filling us with wisdom. Thank you to you, everyone else, for tuning in.

Thank you for companies for breaking so we can fix them. You as listeners and Fixaholics can catch up on all episodes on our official website at we fixeditpod.com. And we'll be back next week with an all new one. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed It, you're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. All trademarks, IP, and brand elements remain property of their respective owners.