Ridesharing services such as Uber have led to a significant reduction in drunk driving deaths.
"Now that I get apparently there there's a lot less death due to drunk driving because of Uber." (said at 1:16:42)
The evidence on whether ridesharing services such as Uber reduce alcohol-related traffic fatalities is mixed and highly conditional. While some observational and economic analyses suggest localized or period-specific reductions in drunk driving crashes, nationwide epidemiological evaluations in the United States and international studies (such as in Chile) have found no overall statistically significant association between the deployment of Uber and reductions in total or drunk-driving traffic fatalities. Furthermore, systematic reviews of alternative transportation programs emphasize mixed effectiveness across different settings and populations.
- contradicts: Uber and Metropolitan Traffic Fatalities in the United States. (American journal of epidemiology 2016)
"We found that the deployment of Uber services in a given metropolitan county had no association with the number of subsequent traffic fatalities, whether measured in aggregate or specific to drunk-driving fatalities or fatalities during weekends and holidays." (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi) - contradicts: State or market? How to effectively decrease alcohol-related crash fatalities and injuries… (Journal of epidemiology and community health 2020)
"In Chile, concomitant decreases of alcohol-related crashes were observed after two state interventions were implemented but not with the introduction of Uber." (abstract, conclusions, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi) - context: The effectiveness of alternative transportation programs in reducing impaired driving: A l… (Journal of safety research 2020)
"There is mixed evidence regarding the effectiveness of AT programs. Evaluations with more rigorous quasi-experimental and experimental designs are needed to identify which types of AT programs work best for different types of communities and target groups." (abstract, conclusions, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi)