{"id":186506,"date":"2014-01-03T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/01\/03\/the-first-uber-death\/"},"modified":"2014-01-03T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T23:58:00","slug":"the-first-uber-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/01\/03\/the-first-uber-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Uber Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; float: right; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; text-align: center; width: 360px;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"400\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=d&amp;source=s_d&amp;saddr=union+city,+California&amp;daddr=Tenderloin,+San+Francisco,+CA&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=FTChPQIdSsK5-CmT6odRvJGPgDHuimS8bN6sWw%3BFSWHQAId5RG0-CnLN65okICFgDEKYrRS2HBatg&amp;aq=0&amp;oq=the+tenderloan&amp;sll=38.804821,-77.236967&amp;sspn=2.658152,6.696167&amp;mra=ls&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;ll=37.749001,-122.23938&amp;spn=0.434344,0.480652&amp;z=10&amp;output=embed\" width=\"350\"><\/iframe><br \/><i>30 Miles, 40 Min, over the Bay Bridge, a toll road.<\/i><br \/><i><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=d&amp;source=embed&amp;saddr=union+city,+California&amp;daddr=Tenderloin,+San+Francisco,+CA&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=FTChPQIdSsK5-CmT6odRvJGPgDHuimS8bN6sWw%3BFSWHQAId5RG0-CnLN65okICFgDEKYrRS2HBatg&amp;aq=0&amp;oq=the+tenderloan&amp;sll=38.804821,-77.236967&amp;sspn=2.658152,6.696167&amp;mra=ls&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=m&amp;ll=37.749001,-122.23938&amp;spn=0.434344,0.480652&amp;z=10\" style=\"color: blue; text-align: left;\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/span> <\/i><\/div>\n<p>Yesterday, I posted about the <a href=\"http:\/\/40yrs.blogspot.com\/2014\/01\/it-is-called-price-gouging-you-moronic.html\">Libertarian delusional dream that is Uber<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Today, I read about an <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sfweekly.com\/thesnitch\/2014\/01\/sophia_liu_uber.php\">Uber driver hitting 3 pedestrians, killing a 6-year old girl<br \/><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\"><b>Update, 11:35 a.m.:<\/b> Uber confirmed that Muzzafar was, indeed <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uber.com\/2014\/01\/01\/statement-on-new-years-eve-accident\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a contractor with the company<\/a>.  It&#8217;s since deactivated his account. An Uber spokesman stressed, again,  that Muzzafar was not &#8220;providing services through the Uber system&#8221; at  the time he struck and killed a 6 year-old girl at Polk and Ellis  Streets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: blue;\"><b>Update, 9:46 a.m.:<\/b> Police release name and photo of the self-identified Uber driver (See bottom).<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">It&#8217;s been a rough year for Uber thus far.  Just four hours before the car-hire startup planned to ring in 2014 &#8212; ideally with <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sfweekly.com\/thesnitch\/2013\/12\/uber_rules.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">an onslaught of high-priced trips<\/a> through San Francisco&#8217;s bustling downtown corridor &#8212; one of its contracted drivers allegedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JaneKimForSupervisor\/posts\/10151906297877875\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hit a family in a Tenderloin crosswalk<\/a>, killing a 6-year-old girl and critically injuring her mother and brother. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">&#8220;There are no words to express the deep sadness and grief felt for  young San Francisco resident, Sophia Liu,&#8221; Supervisor Jane Kim wrote in a  statement issued shortly after the young girl&#8217;s death. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span> <span style=\"color: blue;\">Kim  added that the accident would have been &#8220;100 percent avoidable&#8221; had the  driver followed basic traffic laws. She considered the incident a  harbinger for app-based car-hire startups, indicating that it raises  questions about driver training and compliance.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Notice the non denial denial?<\/p>\n<p>In their blog, they said that, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uber.com\/2014\/01\/01\/statement-on-new-years-eve-accident\/\">This tragedy did not involve a vehicle or provider doing a trip on the Uber system<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Notice what they did not say?&nbsp; They did not say that he wasn&#8217;t logged in, and that he wasn&#8217;t waiting for some of those lucrative,&nbsp; &#8220;Onslaughts of high-priced trips.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Why else would he be driving around San Francisco on New Years Eve?<\/p>\n<p>Driving?&nbsp; In San Francisco?&nbsp; On New Years Eve?&nbsp; That is nucking futs!&nbsp; \u2026\u2026\u2026 Unless, of course, you are there to make some bank by getting dispatches from a certain Techno-Randian transportation company.<\/p>\n<p>Then, it makes lots of sense.<\/p>\n<p>It is telling that Uber has deliberately chosen a model which is structured largely to evade any responsibility, or liability, for the misdeeds of its drivers. <\/p>\n<p>H\/t  <a href=\"http:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/2014\/01\/uber-driver-hits-kills-six-year-old-girl\">Crooks &amp; Liars<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>30 Miles, 40 Min, over the Bay Bridge, a toll road.View Larger Map Yesterday, I posted about the Libertarian delusional dream that is Uber. Today, I read about an Uber driver hitting 3 pedestrians, killing a 6-year old girl: Update, 11:35 a.m.: Uber confirmed that Muzzafar was, indeed a contractor with the company. It&#8217;s since &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1051,997,1003,985,1035],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hypocrisy","category-internet","category-philosophy","category-regulation","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}