Uber is assisting riders in communicating with hearing-impaired drivers

By Lulu Chang September 29, 2017

uber movement — gyddik/123RF

It’s hard to find good news for Uber these days, what with massive money losses and its expulsion from major cities, but a recent update to the app serves as a bright spot in a rather dark time for the company. On Thursday, September 28, the transportation giant debuted new tools needed to connect with drivers who use American Sign Language (ASL).

ASL, the sign language used by much of the deaf community in North America, is said to be the fourth most commonly used method of communication in the U.S. As such, it comes as little surprise that Uber is attempting to make it easier for passengers and drivers alike to communicate in this language.

While the company originally launched features aimed toward the deaf and hearing impaired back in 2015, in honor of National Deaf Awareness Month, Uber has taken things a step further. Now, you can learn how to sign basic phrases in ASL using the Uber app. “Every day, millions of Uber rides start the same way. The rider says his or her name and the driver confirms it,” Uber noted in a blog post. “It’s a typical exchange that many riders take for granted — especially since thousands of people who drive with Uber are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and collectively they’ve completed millions of trips.”

Now, in your Uber feed, you’ll see a special card that sends you to a page where you can select basic tutorials in ASL. Through the Uber app, you’ll be able to learn to sign “hello,” “thank you,” or the letters of your name. The app will also provide a GIF with the selected words in ASL, making it easier still for you to communicate with a differently abled driver.

“We believe in technology’s power to bring people together and create opportunities where they didn’t exist before,” Uber noted. “Actions mean more than words, and we’re excited to create new and meaningful ways for people to earn money and connect, regardless of how they communicate. We hope this small update will contribute to a much larger conversation between riders and drivers around the world.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…

Cars

Uber responds to gig-economy law by testing driver-led bidding system

Uber Driver

Uber drivers in California will be able to set their own fares as part of a new pilot program, which the rideshare company is testing as a response to the state’s new gig-economy law that categorizes individual contractors of a company as employees.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the company will begin testing the feature starting Tuesday, January 21. Drivers with passengers going to or from the Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, or Sacramento airports can charge their passengers up to five times the regular ride fare.

Cars

Uber just got hit with a massive fine over how it classifies its drivers

uber settles driver background check case man driving in car the city ride share lyft getaround zipcar

It’s an issue that has been rumbling on ever since the first Uber hit the streets back in 2011: Are the men and women that operate vehicles on Uber’s platforms “employees of the company,” or are they, as an Uber executive once described them, “independent, third-party transportation providers”?

Uber has always considered them as self-employed, which exempts it from having to offer the kind of labor protections and benefits enjoyed by regular company employees, saving it a huge amount of money in the process.

Cars

Uber is now arguing that it doesn’t actually have any drivers

An Uber App on a smartphone.

If you've been living a life where you thought Uber had “drivers,” it’s time to rethink your entire existence.
In 2017, Uber executive Nicholas Valentino, the operations manager for the company’s Atlanta operations at the time, repeatedly corrected the plaintiff’s attorney in a case when the latter referred to the people operating cars on Uber’s platform as “drivers,” the Washington Post reported Monday.
According to Valentino, they are not drivers. Instead, he wanted those individuals referred to as “independent, third-party transportation providers."
If that sounds like an off-the-cuff remark, think again. Apparently, Valentino repeated the claim a total of 16 times in the course of the case. The case, Jessicka Harris v. Uber, was filed by a woman who almost lost her leg when she was struck by a vehicle being operated on Uber’s behalf that she claimed had veered off the road.
In that same case, Uber was asked to “admit or deny that Uber is in the business of providing transportation,” to which the company’s attorneys also repeatedly “denied.”
Uber later settled the case out of court but has maintained throughout a number of similar cases that it does not employ its drivers, going as far as to say about one driver that it “never had an agency, employment, partnership, joint venture, or joint enterprise relationship with him.”
Gives you the warm fuzzies, right?
The transcript of the 2017 case comes as Uber is fighting a similar but different battle in its home state of California regarding whether or not its “third-party transportation providers” should be considered employees.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill AB5, which will give gig workers some of the same labor protections and benefits afforded to regular employees of companies, including health care subsidies, paid parental leave, overtime pay, and a guaranteed minimum hourly wage. It also gives employees the ability to unionize.
Uber strongly opposes the bill and said that the majority of the drivers on the platform would prefer to stay independent and have flexibility rather than be classified as employees.
“We expect we will continue to respond to claims of misclassification in arbitration and in court as necessary, just as we do now. But we will also continue to advocate for the independence and choice that drivers tell us again and again in surveys, polls, focus groups, and personal conversations that they value most,” Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, said in a blog post after Newsom signed the bill.
“Today, drivers have control over when, where, and how they work," West said. "They can choose to work for any of our competitors at the same time, and many do. In the U.S., 92% of drivers drive less than 40 hours per week, and 45% of drivers drive less than 10 hours per week. This would all change dramatically if they were employees. We will continue to defend the innovation that makes that kind of choice, flexibility, and independence a reality for over 200,000 drivers in California.”
AB5 is expected to go into effect on January 1, 2020.