Perhaps no modern advancement in transportation has been so divisive as Uber. Some cities, states, and countries have welcomed the popular ride-sharing app with open arms, while others have demonized the company and tried to block its implementation. However, Uber may now have a new bargaining chip when it comes to convincing its critics that it’s actually a good thing. A study conducted in California recently found that the use of Uber helped to reduce drunk driving fatalities in the state.

Uber has actually been claiming that it can reduce drunk driving deaths for a while. For example, earlier this year, it sent out an email stating:

Since we launched uberX in California, drunk-driving crashes decreased by 60 per month for drivers under 30. That’s 1,800 crashes likely prevented over the past 2 ½ years.

The study on which it based that claim was co-authored with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and showed that drunk driving incidences have fallen in the California cities where Uber operates. However, critics claimed that the study only showed correlation, not necessarily causation, and claimed that Uber didn’t have enough evidence to make the claim.

However, the new study, conducted independently by researchers led by Brad Greenwood from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, might get more credence. Essentially the findings of the paper were that cheap ride-sharing apps (not just Uber, but also its competitors like Lyft) lowered drunk driving incidences. This study may be better received because it attempted to show a causation rather than just a correlation. The researchers were able to test the impact that Uber had when it entered various markets, and estimate its potential future effects.

The conclusion about its future effects was interesting, and bodes well for Uber. The report stated:

Economically, results indicate that the entrance of Uber X results in a 3.6 percent – 5.6 percent decrease in the rate of motor vehicle homicides per quarter in the state of California. With more than 13k deaths occurring nationally each year due to alcohol related car crashes at a cost of 37 billion dollars, results indicate that a complete implementation of Uber X would create a public welfare net of over 1.3 billion to American taxpayers and save roughly 500 lives annually

Another interesting aspect of the study was that it discovered that only the cheap models of the apps seem to be successful at lowering the drunk driving rate. More expensive models like Uber Black don’t appear to make much of a difference.

Given some of the struggles that Uber–particularly the crowd sourced and cheaper UberX–has had getting into various markets, this promises to be a decent bargaining point. While Uber is obviously very far from being perfect, and still has some serious regulatory issues to work with, this could be a big plus in the argument to introduce Uber to new locales.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The legal side of book and magazine publishing has been off to a fast start in 2015. Check out updates below on three of the most recent cases.

Cosmopolitan Magazine

Andrew Cerett, a former Temple University football player, filed a lawsuit against his ex-girlfriend, Emily Frazer, and Cosmopolitan magazine for defamation, claiming that the magazine ruined his reputation and his potential NFL career after publishing an article entitled, “My Ex Threatened to Kill Me. Why Wasn’t He Expelled,” which appeared in the October 2014 issue.

Cerett and Frazer met each other at Temple University where Cerett was a punter on the school’s football team and Frazer played on the volleyball team. Cerett’s complaint, however, centers on the end of their relationship. Cerett states that Frazer wrote the article with freelance writer Roxanne Patel Shepleavy, which included a photo of Cerett as well as a fictionalized story of how they ended their relationship “at an alcohol-fueled weekend dorm party on or about January 21, 2011,” according to the complaint.

In his own story, however, Cerett claims that both parties became angry with each other, and although Cerett slammed his fist on a kitchen table, he never harmed Frazer. Campus officials arrested Cerrett, but they did not press charges against him. The campus board found Cerett guilty of intimidation and disorderly conduct but did not charge him with stalking or harassment.

Frazer’s article contends that after the breakup, Cerett had a mission to destroy Frazer, and the complaint states that the article portrayed Cerett as a violent thug. In light of the recent domestic violence cases against several NFL players, most notably Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, Cerett believes that the Cosmo article may prevent him from pursuing his lifelong dream of becoming an NFL player because NFL teams would not want to draft him or sign him as a free agent.

HathiTrust

Last week, the Authors Guild dropped its lawsuit against HathiTrust. In 2011, the Authors Guild sued HathiTrust because it believe it created a database that included millions of unauthorized scans created by Google. The federal district court, however, sided with HathiTrust, and the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals soon reaffirmed the district court’s decision.  Publishers Weekly noted that HathiTrust would notify the Authors Guild if it decides to change its practices in the next five years.

Georgia State University

In a related case that publishers have been keenly watching in Cambridge University Press et al. v. Patton et al., the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the plaintiff publishers’ request to hear the case en banc by every judge in the Eleventh Circuit. The Eleventh Circuit originally only had a panel of three judges hear the case. The request was unusual because the three-judge panel held in favor of the publishers after reversing the federal district court’s decision. The suit originally commenced when three academic publishers, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publications, sued Georgia State University for allegedly engaging in authorized copying and distribution of copyrighted works by the publishers through GSU’s e-reserve system.

Joseph Perry

Joseph Perry is a graduate of St. John’s University School of Law whose goal is to become a publishing and media law attorney. He has interned at William Morris Endeavor, Rodale, Inc., Columbia University Press, and is currently interning at Hachette Book Group and volunteering at the Media Law Resource Center, which has given him insight into the legal aspects of the publishing and media industries. Contact Joe at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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