A Vancouver Uber Eats driver, Vasu Subhashbhai Virda, has landed in the headlines after a distracted driving charge against him was upheld by B.C.’s Supreme Court.
According to Transport Canada, “distracted driving contributed to an estimated 22.5% of fatal collisions and 25.5% of serious injury collisions in 2021.” Every province and territory in Canada has laws on the books outlawing handheld cell phones while driving. Fines and suspensions are typically revisited and increased every few years as lawmakers try to curb the carnage caused by distracted drivers.
What they don’t revisit is the wording of those laws. The B.C. decision has some saying it’s time for legislation to catch up to technological and social changes. What did Virda do? He tapped his phone — once — to accept an order while he was driving. The B.C. law states: “The device, and any part or extension of it, is not held or operated by the hand, except for one touch to start, accept and/or end a call.”
The law is the law
The initial judge decided the “one touch” to be within the law, as touching a button to accept a call was little different than touching a button to reply to an app. The Crown retried the case, and the Supreme Court judge reversed the decision, but only after making it clear she had to follow the exact wording of the law. “In her written ruling, [the judge] noted Virda’s credibility, acknowledging he was “operating as safely as he could within the parameters of his job,” but stressed the need to uphold the law as written,” reports CBC.
Vancouver criminal lawyer Kyla Lee thinks it’s time for change. “These laws were set out in 2010, and 15 years is a lot of time in tech years,” she explains. As gig economy workers in B.C. seek better solutions that enable them to safely do their jobs, something like a clarification of the wording “one touch to start, accept and/or end a call” could acknowledge the myriad ways things have changed in how we interact with our devices, often to do our jobs.
I spoke to a couple of Uber drivers — one retired, one current — about how the process works for them. They will be in a central location, a call comes in, they accept the ticket through their app and proceed. Uber can track their location and upon completion, send them the next ride. Drivers should be interacting with the app while parked. Uber Eats drivers, however, are often getting multiple requests on the fly, with a tight window to respond — Virda says it’s five seconds. To stay in accordance with B.C.’s law, they would have to pull over and park every time. To touch the screen one time, just as they legally could to take or end a call.
“This affects enough people that it would be a good political move to recognize we need more logical laws, especially when it comes to gig economy jobs — and there are a lot of them. The law as it’s written is really going after low-hanging fruit. We need to be targeting the distracted drivers causing the real damage,” says Lee. Those watching videos; those texting while driving.
I’m a big fan of people having no interaction with their phones when they drive. Those stats are backed up by horrible reports of injury and death. But Lee’s request for some logic in the wording of the laws is apt. We already know that using a hands-free device to take a call is just as distracting as picking up the phone. Hands-free legislation was established as a kind of olive branch to the inevitable: people were going to use their phones. Auto manufacturers quickly followed with voice activation for their systems, and phones could easily be paired into their systems. But those same manufacturers have also gone on to make increasingly larger screens that require even more interaction with the driver. Ruling out the touch of a button on a phone properly attached to a holder seems…quaint.
That judge hit a trifecta of grey areas: an outdated wording of the law, workers trying to stay within it while also working, and Uber itself, who respond with its usual, “workers must obey the law.” I recall when Uber first started up, those driving for them were responsible for telling their insurance providers they were now driving commercially. Doing so meant their insurance rates jacked skywards, so they didn’t. While Uber eventually introduced their own insurance policy to protect workers and passengers, in the initial couple of years, drivers were left to fend for themselves. It’s not fair to workers who are already under immense pressure to not be more proactive in assisting them.
What’s the safest way for the gig economy to get its information?
The gig economy — all those services that deliver your orders, your food and ferry you around — rely on instant messaging. The quickest way to get to you, or get your order to you, relies on a continuous stream of information. The law needs to catch up to how that information is best dispensed; nobody blinked when a cabbie took calls while driving on a two-way radio back in the day, because that interchange was part of the job. I will never be a fan of anyone texting while they drive, but hitting a notification to signal “message received” is no different than activating a button to accept a call (or change radio stations, or turn on your heated seat, or select an alternate nav option, or the dozens of other interactions offered up to drivers).
There’s no shortage of news stories about rideshare drivers behaving badly, but ultimately, they rely on good reviews to stay in business. A distracted driver will be caught out by the very passengers in the car. Rideshare drivers have to follow the law, but it’s time for the law to reflect the sea-change in technology that has occurred over the past generation.
A gig worker touching a screen to accept an order is breaking the law; that same person touching their screen to accept a call is not. This is the “logic” that people like Lee, and gig economy advocates, are seeking to get an update. Seems like even the judges agree.
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