Despite encouraging their children to buckle up, many adults are not following their own advice.

A new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that 91 percent of adults wear their seat belts in the driver or front passenger seats, but only 72 percent do in the rear seats. Moreover, only 57 percent use the belts in hired vehicles like taxis or ride sharing cars.

“When we asked people why they were less likely to buckle up, a quarter of the respondents told us that it’s safer in the back seat, so they don’t need to buckle up,” Jessica Jermakian, an IIHS senior research engineer, told CBS.

It’s true that in cars from the ’60s and ’70s, the back seat is generally the safest place. However, the belts, tensioners, airbags, and vehicle designs of the modern era remove any disadvantage the front seats once had. While experts still consider the rear seats to be somewhat safer, a seat belt is still necessary.

“Even if you’re in the back seat, the laws of physics are not suspended,” Jermakian warns. “You still need to buckle up in order to get the best protection in a crash.”

Crash test footage reveals that an unrestrained passenger in the back seat can slam against the front seats. That sort of collision could injure passengers anywhere in the vehicle.

In response to questions about ride sharing, four out of five adults explained that they don’t wear a seat belt because they are only traveling short distances.

“That statistic [about the risk of a crash] doesn’t change just because you’re in a ride share or a taxi,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. “We need rear-seat passengers to understand that seat belts are critical for them, too.”

Every state except New Hampshire requires adults to wear seat belts in the front seat. Only 29 states have laws that extend to the back seat as well.

About half of all fatalities in car crashes each year could have been prevented if the victim had worn their seat belt. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that seat belts saved nearly 14,000 lives in 2015 alone.

Delaney Cruickshank

Delaney Cruickshank is a Staff Writer at Law Street Media and a Maryland native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in History with minors in Creative Writing and British Studies from the College of Charleston. Contact Delaney at DCruickshank@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Adding to its recent legal woes, Uber is facing a criminal probe from the Justice Department, according to people familiar with the investigation. The investigation, which concerns the ride sharing service’s controversial Greyball tracking tool, is reportedly in its early stages. A federal inquiry does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing; criminal charges being brought against Uber executives are also not a guarantee.

Since The New York Times uncovered its existence in March, Greyball has been a lightning rod of controversy. Greyball is a technology that allows Uber to present fake versions of its app to people it does not want in its cars–like city officials looking to reign in the company’s illegal practices–and track them using credit card data and other personal information. Uber claims it used the tool to protect its drivers in new markets, some of which the service operated in illegally, like Portland, Oregon.

After the Times’ report in March, an Uber spokesman said Greyball “denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.”

But officials in cities like Portland, where Uber fought through legal hurdles in late 2014 before it began legally operating in the city in April 2015, say the tool was used for more nefarious reasons. According to Portland transportation officials, Uber intentionally skirted 16 city officials who were looking to shut-down the service because it was operating illegally at the time. Uber’s attorneys say the tool was used “exceedingly sparingly” in Portland; it had not been used since April 2015, they said.

Uber and its embattled chief executive, Travis Kalanick, has been embroiled in controversy for much of the year. From a spate of sexual assault accusations to a video of Kalanick berating an Uber driver, the $70 billion dollar behemoth is facing uncertainty as it enters Silicon Valley’s newest frontier: self-driving vehicles. In fact, Uber’s future in that field is increasingly in doubt. It was also recently hit with a lawsuit from Google’s autonomous car division, Waymo, which accused Uber of stealing its trade secrets.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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For the first three months of 2017, Uber has been mired in controversy. Many have attributed the strife to the company’s mistreatment of its employees, influenced by its toxic “bro” culture and iffy moral compass. While it’s easy to brush Uber’s woes off as growing pains for a burgeoning Silicon Valley tech company, its web controversies seem to point to bigger problems with leadership.

Compounding Controversies

Back in January, during the weekend of the first travel ban and successive protests, the company garnered harsh criticism for turning off its surge pricing for rides to New York’s JFK Airport. The opportunistic move prompted people to delete the app in favor of its competitor Lyft.

Shortly after that, Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, left President Donald Trump’s economic advisory council amidst criticism from the public and Uber’s own employees. The company was also sued by Google for allegedly stealing a key component in self-driving car technology. Then in late February, Kalanick was caught on video arguing with a driver over Uber’s fares.

Most recently, Uber initiated an internal investigation into sexual harassment and discrimination allegations lobbed at the company. The investigation was opened after Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, wrote a blog post outlining her disturbing experience at the company with an anonymous male executive who propositioned her for sex, prompting several female employees to also come forward.

Multiple company executives have since resigned. While Uber has reacted quickly to all of these controversies, the company’s responses have been either met with criticism or overshadowed by yet another controversy.

Uber CEO Seeks Help

Following the embarrassing squabble with one of his drivers, Kalanick admitted that he needs to “fundamentally change as a leader and grow up.” As a result, Uber announced that Kalanick was seeking to hire “leadership help.”

In early March, Uber announced that this “leadership help” would come in the form of a new COO. But the search for this position appears to have hit a snag with the news of president Jeff Jones’ resignation and a rumors of a “toxic” company culture, with Kalanick at the helm. Jones’ hiring was heavily publicized by Uber, and his departure undoubtedly adds complications to Uber’s future hiring plans.

In a statement released to Recode, who first broke the story of his departure, Jones said:

I joined Uber because of its Mission, and the challenge to build global capabilities that would help the company mature and thrive long-term.

It is now clear, however, that the beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber, and I can no longer continue as president of the ride sharing business.

Dissatisfied Drivers and Changing the Company’s Culture

Aside from the resignations and sexual assault allegations from employees, Uber is also dealing with more crises regarding drivers’ dissatisfaction with wages. Uber drivers in some states are not allowed to accept tips and Uber’s attempt to strike down a Seattle law that allows its drivers to unionize proved fruitless.

Yesterday, four top Uber officials, all notably female, conducted a media call where they attempted to field questions about Uber’s shifting company culture. Conspicuously, Kalanick was not on the call, but Arianna Huffington, who sits on the company’s board of directors, was.

“Uber must change if it is to be as successful in the next decade as it has been in the last seven years,” Huffington said on the call. “Creating a great culture will be key to their future success. Going forward there can be no room at Uber for brilliant jerks and zero tolerance for anything but totally respectable behavior in an equitable workplace environment.”

Additionally, Huffington also reiterated the company’s faith in Kalnick’s leadership abilities, while underlining the fact that Uber’s culture had to change, and that new hires would be a focus for the company moving forward.

Uber executives have responded swiftly to each controversy; however, as we have seen with their clumsy and thwarted responses thus far, there’s no real indication that the company won’t stumble as it continues to move forward.

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

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The night Uber cars went live on the streets of Portland, Erich England failed to catch a ride. At the time, news reports concluded England failed because of excessive demand. It turns out that Uber, which entered Portland’s market illegally and without approval from the city, was deliberately steering cars away from England, a code inspector who was dispatched as part of a sting operation on the ridesharing service. How was Uber ensuring England, and other city officials, did not find themselves in an Uber vehicle? By using a tracking tool known as Greyball.

Four current and former Uber employees described the Greyball tool to the New York Times as such: when a prospective rider is determined to be a law enforcement authority of any kind, he or she would see the Uber app as any other customer would. But their app would be a fake; the triangular symbols on a map that indicates where Uber cars are located, for the officials, would be “ghost cars.” If by chance a real driver picked up an official, Uber would call the driver to tell them to end the ride.

Skirting city officials, and identifying them, is accomplished through a variety of techniques. In one, Uber would set up a “geofence,” essentially a digital perimeter, around buildings where officials worked. Within the “geofence,” the people who frequently opened and closed the Uber app were sometimes flagged–“Greyballed”–as city officials. When they attempted to hail an Uber, a fake app would replace the real one, and “ghost cars” would replace actual ones. Another technique would examine users’ credit card information to determine whether the card was tied to a city agency. Uber has Greyballed authorities in Boston, Paris, Las Vegas, Australia, China, Italy, and South Korea.

Initially, Greyballing was used as a way to protect drivers in foreign countries where their safety was endangered by angry taxi drivers. In 2015, for instance, taxi companies and workers in Paris attacked Uber drivers. Uber would use the Greyball technique, part of a larger program called VTOS, or “violation of terms of service,” by identifying potentially nefarious actors. When it realized its potential uses in skirting officials from cities where it was unwelcome, the employees said, Uber used Greyball in that capacity as well.

Uber released a statement denying any wrongdoing. “This program denies ride requests to users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers,” a spokesman said.

With an estimated value of $70 billion and a ubiquitous presence in 70 countries, Uber seems like an implacable behemoth. But it has recently been embroiled in controversy, and many people are calling for its CEO, Travis Kalanick to step down. Earlier this week, Kalanick was videotaped by an Uber driver who he got caught in a heated exchange with. And last month, a former Uber engineer detailed sexual harassment she experienced while at the company. Her account was followed by other, similarly disturbing accounts.

Over the past few years, Uber has finagled its way into cities and markets around the world, at times without permission and without regulation. Last year, Uber lost the battle to continue its operations in China. But it remains a wealthy and powerful player in markets around the world. While Uber’s legal team authorized the use of Greyball, some in the company had qualms over the legality of the tool. As the company faces scrutiny from a number of angles, can it figure out a way to survive and continue its dominance?

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Companies such as Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, and others are smashing the traditional models of business, making it easy for anyone with a smartphone or Internet access to instantly connect with other people to acquire and share goods and services. This trend has contributed to the creation of the “sharing economy” which is quickly becoming the norm in today’s society.

The sharing economy is formally defined as “an economic model in which individuals are able to borrow or rent assets owned by someone else.” On one hand, this new economy seems to offer flexibility and greater options to consumers, while allowing nearly anyone to participate and benefit; on the other, these companies are often subject to less regulation and scrutiny than traditional businesses.

Uber and Lyft’s taxi-like services jump-started a trend that has spread to start-ups in nearly every industry imaginable including clothing, alcohol, and even, as The Daily Show noted, chickens.

This new trend has the potential to be a major disruptor to the economy, as it has already impacted the way that business is done. The ability to rent nearly anything has made ownership much less desirable, especially for the millennial generation, who make up the majority of participants in this economy. When people have the ability to easily rent just about anything, there is much less need for people to make actual purchases. Additionally, many of the largest-growing companies today don’t directly provide the good or service they sell to their consumer base: Uber does not own the cars it drives, Airbnb does not own the properties it rents, and Grubhub does not make the food it delivers. They simply act as intermediaries to connect goods or services with consumers.

Despite its newfound dominance in the modern world of commerce, the sharing economy is still young and as it continues to expand at such a rapid pace, it may face some growing pains. Many companies are coming under fire for allegedly not obeying the laws set in place for traditional businesses to protect consumers and laborers. Additionally, the prevalent usage of contractors and temporary workers in their business models has led to many criticisms claiming that they lack respect for workers’ rights.

Read on for a look at the biggest issues facing the companies of today’s sharing economy.

Consumer Safety

A major issue facing these startups is whether consumers can trust these companies to provide the same level of safety as traditional businesses. Due to their peer-to-peer model, they are often not held to the same legal and regulatory standards put in place to protect consumers, leading to a litany of criticisms.

Airbnb

Airbnb, a company that allows people to go online and list or rent properties for short-term rental, is an alternative to traditional hotels for people traveling for leisure or business. The company is a major player in the hospitality industry, despite the fact that it doesn’t actually own any hotel properties of its own. A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the company averages nearly 22 percent more guests per night than Hilton Worldwide.

However, critics are concerned about the safety procedures put in place by Airbnb. The service allows virtually anyone to put up a listing and become a host, and they do not routinely perform background checks on users. The company explains, however, that it has features in place to ensure safety, such as user reviews and a Verified ID process (in which identification is confirmed through a government-issued ID or social media profile). Still, the question remains, is that enough to ensure that both hosts and guests will have a safe experience?

This issue was put in a spotlight last month in a piece published by Matter, in which the author Zak Stone gave an account of his father’s death in a freak accident involving a rope swing in a Texas Airbnb rental. Stone’s piece is an extensive look at the legal and ethical controversies surrounding Airbnb, and includes stories such as one of a woman who died from carbon monoxide in a Taiwanese property. These stories highlight a large concern with the Airbnb business model, which is that the company cannot necessarily hold its listed properties to the same standard as a major hotel chain can with its properties. While hotels must operate under legal and regulatory standards, there are less restrictions on which properties can be posted. Whether user ratings are enough to ensure quality and safety for guests is an issue that can be debated.

Additionally, hosts cannot always be assured by the fact that their guests are trustworthy and will take care of their property. To address this, the company does offer Host Protection Insurance that protects against liability claims liability claims up to $1 million. However, anyone who chooses to become an Airbnb host would presumably be aware that they are agreeing to undertake a certain level of risk by letting a stranger stay in their property.

Uber and Lyft 

The safety concerns that plague Airbnb can also extend to ride-sharing services such as Uber or Lyft. In order to become a driver with one of these services, drivers must pass a background check, in addition to holding a driver’s license and meeting the minimum age of 21. Cars are not maintained by the companies, but must possess a certain level of insurance in order to operate. Despite this, there is a long list of incidents such as assaults, attempted kidnappings, and driver DUIs, among others. There are also allegations that the background checks are not extensive enough, and as such, they are more likely than taxi services to have such incidents take place.

However, taxi drivers have also been accused of similar offenses, so it seems that this issue is not unique to ride-sharing companies. A Cato Institute study found that ride-sharing companies were just as safe as traditional taxis, and also claimed that background checks for such companies often had stricter requirements than those for cabs in the U.S.’s biggest cities. Additionally, users of Uber and Lyft have the personal information of the driver on their phone, making it easier to report incidents (and the same is true if a driver is attacked by a passenger).

Labor Issues

Companies involved in the sharing economy have been held responsible for the emergence of the “gig economy,” which relies on contractors to make up the majority of its workforce. Because of this, they are not offered benefits such as health insurance and vacation. In fact, both Uber and Lyft are facing lawsuits for the “misclassification of drivers” in order to save on labor costs. Because they classify workers as contractors, federal law does not let them form unions to advocate for fairer treatment. Additionally, as noted earlier, drivers are required to use their own car, smartphone, and insurance in order to operate. This may affect the ability of lower-income workers to be able to participate in the first place.

Some may argue that Uber workers are not typically full-time drivers; they often hold other jobs and drive to make some extra money on the side. As such, do these companies need to be concerned about providing them with benefits? It is true that the vast majority of drivers fall in the 18-to-24 age group, and over half of drivers are part-timers. However, Uber and Lyft have been responsible for affecting the businesses of traditional taxi drivers who often do make their living off of their profession. The majority of New York taxi drivers are immigrants, with the median falling in the 50-54 age range. The disruption of car-sharing services on traditional taxi services has been immense, causing taxi drivers all over the world to protest Uber.

Another problem sharing economy startups bring to the forefront is whether or not their models will hinder future job growth. If apps and websites can eventually take over jobs done by people, what effects will this have on the future of the job market?

In a segment on his show, Bill Maher lamented that this sharing economy is a reflection of societal greed, and will lead to greater income inequality because it will decrease the number of jobs available. These concerns, however, are more so related to technological progress rather than directly the result of the sharing economy, so it seems unreasonable to blame the sharing economy. Hillary Clinton also cited the gig economy as dampening wage growth in the U.S., and “raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future.”

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the sharing economy has had a tremendous impact on the way that business is done, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Many are still skeptical of this system because it is based on trust, and it is difficult to hold this trust without being ensured that your interests are protected by the law. The traditional legal system hasn’t caught up to these non-traditional ways of doing business, but as this business model becomes more and more prevalent, companies will need to continue to put regulations and protections in place for consumers and laborers.

Resources

Primary 

PriceWaterhouseCoopers: Consumer Intelligence Series-“The Sharing Economy”

Additional

Medium: Living and Dying on Airbnb

U.S. News and World Report: Who’s a Sharing Economy Worker?

The Seattle Times: The ‘Shared Economy’ is Further Hurting Workers’ Rights

The Guardian: Uber and the Lawlessness of ‘Sharing Economy’ Corporates

Mariam Jaffery

Mariam was an Executive Assistant at Law Street Media and a native of Northern Virginia. She has a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in Business Administration from George Washington University. Contact Mariam at mjaffery@lawstreetmedia.com.

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