That’s kind of an ironic question. Of course they don’t. At least some of them don’t.
I’ve done some gig work before and still do from time to time. For reasons that will become painfully obvious, I’m not going to be specific about which ones.
Now, don’t get me wrong; I don’t really have deep emotional attachment with the companies I contract with, either. I do have some standards, though, and they don’t always meet them.
In this case, I’m referring to honesty. Almost every company I’ve ever contracted with or considered contracting with says, often, some version of this sentence: “Your safety is the most important thing to us.”
Some of them are lying.
Table of Contents
Check out this story.
Woman driver defends herself and is deactivated.
Let’s be clear; there’s no ambiguity here. Lyft would prefer this woman be beaten, robbed, raped, and/or murdered than to have the means to defend herself. When asked about the deactivation, “A spokesperson for Lyft told 19 News the company stands by its decision.”
I just saw this story today so I grabbed it as the example for this article. It’s hardly the first time I’ve seen something like it.
I’ve also seen stories of people driving for these companies who did get murdered. Here are just a few examples I found in about 30 seconds by searching for: “food delivery driver killed” and “ride share driver murdered.”
Lyft Driver killed. Another Lyft driver killed. This one’s food delivery.
Caveat: I’m not saying that all, or any, of these people’s lives could have been saved had they been armed. I’m just using these as examples of what can happen doing this kind of work.
I’m going to break down a few policies of different types of businesses below.
Remember, every one of them claims to care about their driver’s safety.
Ride share policies.
These policies do apply to both drivers and riders. Bad actors will, of course, be deterred by the words on their phone that they never even read.
That was sarcasm.
Here is Uber’s. I have to say, it’s a lot more sensible than Lyft’s, but still nonsense. At least it’s simple, direct, and to the point. And it’s specifically about firearms; it says nothing about other types of defensive tools, like pepper spray and stun guns.
Lyft, on the other hand… I have to take a few minutes to point out all the absurdities in this one.
Feeeeeeeelings: “We approach this from a community perspective. It’s hard to know what someone else is or isn’t comfortable with. The mere presence of a weapon might make another community member distressed and fear for his or her own personal safety.”
In other words, whether someone feels safe is far more important than whether or not they are. Side note: I both feel, and am, safer when I’m armed.
Remember those stories from above where the drivers were killed? I wonder if they felt safe before they were murdered.
Then there’s this gem: “There are many items that could be considered weapons besides firearms, such as handguns, stun guns, explosives, knives, sling shots and tasers.”
- Handguns aren’t firearms? Are they talking about rubber band guns, because that could put someone’s eye out?
- Sling shots?
- I’ve been carrying a pocket knife since I was about eight years old. I’m not stopping now.
- Explosives. Yes. A hand grenade is clearly my go-to for defending myself in an enclosed space.
One last thing on ride share. The majority of attention seems to be focused on keeping passengers safe. There’s even an entire law firm dedicated to riders who were assaulted by their drivers.
The safety of the drivers seems to be besides the point to a lot of these people. A few years ago, Uber released some data on sexual assault on their platform. It created quite the storm among people who can’t do basic math.
One thing not mentioned often is the fact that the alleged victims were drivers 45% of the time. Just under half. What about driver safety?
Drivers have to provide ID and picture, they’re background checked, have to be insured, etc. Passengers need a debit card. That’s it. The riders in the first attack I mention here had the username “NBA.” No picture. If they don’t get caught, they can just get a different debit card, create a new account, and go victimize someone else.
Lyft claims to care; I don’t see that in their actions.
Food delivery.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this category. I’d never really looked into this before for food delivery.
I have to say, I was unaware of this statistic: apparently, delivery drivers do one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the country. Police officers is #22 on the list.
Uber Eats policy will be the same as Uber’s for drivers.
DoorDash. I couldn’t find a single policy against firearms on their site. Further, I found this article about whack jobs trying to change that.
GrubHub is the same as DoorDash. No policy. Also Postmates.
There are some others out there and I’m not going to look at them all. If you want to drive for one, I’d suggest searching their Terms and Conditions.
Amazon.
Amazon gets their own category. I’m going to be specifically referring to Amazon Flex here. Flex is where people use their own cars to deliver. Amazon van drivers are employees of a company contracted with Amazon. They have different rules.
Flex delivers Amazon packages and Whole Foods grocery orders. At least in my market. I know there are other markets that have more options.
I live in AZ, and some of these deliveries are in rural areas. I’m much less concerned with two-legged threats than I am those with either four or zero legs (rattlesnakes.)
I’m sure that, at some point, I saw a “no guns” policy on Amazon’s Flex site. It’s not there now. The closest I could find was this little gem: “As an independent contractor, you can bring anything with you to aid in your deliveries.”
Interpret as you will.
The caveat here is that I’m fairly certain that where you pick the packages up may have a no guns policy.
Conclusion
The name of this site is not opencarrytomakeapointforbigguys.com. I talk about other things, yes, but when I carry it’s concealed. This is just another good reason why.
As I said at the top, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s only really the ride share companies that are awful in this regard. And Lyft seems perversely proud of deactivating people for not letting themselves get murdered. If Uber does these deactivations, it’s a lot quieter about it.
The point here is, it’s called “concealed carry.” So conceal the damn thing. You can’t be deactivated for what they don’t know.
