Miami Personal Injury Attorney – Do Uber & Lyft Services Decrease Drunk Driving Accidents?
Are services such as Uber & Lyft helping to decrease accidents by drunk drivers? A recent study by a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Injury Science Center was conducted to determine whether ride-sharing services, such as Uber & Lyft, have contributed to a decrease in accidents related to driving under the influence. Results showed that people who may be too intoxicated to drive are in fact calling services like Uber & Lyft to provide them with a ride home as they showed less drunk drivers on the road causing accidents. However, this is not necessarily the case in all American cities. If you have been seriously injured in an Uber or Lyft car accident in Miami, call Shamis & Gentile, P.A., your Miami Personal Injury Attorney today.
The study looked at the availability of the ride share service Uber (currently the largest among ride-sharing companies, which purportedly also include: Lyft, Line, Sidecar, Wingz, Summon, Taxify, and Haxi) from 2013-2016 in four major cities in the United States. Interestingly, results showed that while alcohol related accidents were reduced by more than half in one of the cities for which data was examined, alcohol related car accidents were not reduced at all in another.
Uber & Lyft Application Distractions
Surprisingly, the author stated that even where there was a decrease in the number of alcohol related accidents, there was no reduction in total car crashes overall. This implies that Uber drivers may have been involved in some of the accidents that filled the gaps of less Americans driving themselves. It probably does not help that many, if not all, of these ride-sharing services rely on apps and other smartphone based technology that quite literally require the drivers to fiddle with their phones while driving.
Car accidents still remain the primary cause of death for people from the ages of 13 to 25 in the United States. Researchers found that in the year of 2015, approximately one third of crashes resulting in fatality were attributed to the use of alcohol. In that same year roughly 6.3 million car accidents happened on roadways across America, injuring more than 2.4 million and killing more than 35,000.
Contact a Miami Personal Injury Attorney For Uber or Lyft Accidents
If you have been seriously injured in an Uber accident in Miami or Lyft accident in Miami, call a Miami Personal Injury Attorney today. Our personal injury attorney law firm has experience in dealing with injuries sustained from a Miami Uber or Lyft car accident. At Shamis & Gentile, P.A. our Miami Uber & Lyft car accident lawyers know how to hold ride-sharing drivers accountable for the serious harms they cause. Contact us today in order to discuss your case. Call us today 305-479-2299 or fill out a form here.
