[flaviu1]

I'm not really impressed by this article. The two main points:

> An investigation by ProPublica identified more than 60 accidents since June 2015 involving Amazon delivery contractors that resulted in serious injuries, including 10 deaths

A better investigation would count the number of miles traveled and compare the rate to the general population. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do: 37k people died on the road in 2017.

I'd like to see actual numbers here--driving is an inherently dangerous activity, and therefore needs to be looked at through statistics, not character pieces (like this article does).

> citing agreements that require them, as one puts it, to “defend, indemnify and hold harmless Amazon.”

This sounds pretty standard. However, if this is the case, then

> often Amazon directs, through an app, the order of the deliveries and the route to each destination

seems like it may be a problem. Either the contractors have the autonomy to do things like they need to to stay safe, or Amazon should take that liability themselves.

[tomatotomato37]

I agree; one thing I often see in articles critical of Amazon citing number is that they fail to account for the absolute absurd number of actors it employs, comparing more to large-scale societal elements like cities or small states rather than the generic corp that rents out the top 40 floors of a downtown skyscraper.

For some fun with with large numbers, Amazon currently employees more people than the state of Wyoming has residents(647,000 to 577,000). Over the course of four years Amazon has killed 10, (or hell, lets make it 50 to compensate for under-reporting) people by traffic accident; the population of Wyoming managed to achieve that rate of death themselves in about the span of a month (or six months for the larger figure) [https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/saved/D76/D65F000].

I think those are just direct employees too, if they are fanning out onto contractors I wouldn't be surprised if they are ultimately controlling Walmart levels of employees (2.2 million).

[notus]

Putting more vehicles on the road means more deaths though. I personally think that people's obsession with getting things quickly isn't really sustainable and panders to parts of our character that we would rather do without. "I want it now" reminds me of Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka.

[nerfhammer]

are they really putting more vehicles on the road though? That is, are they replacing a larger number of people driving themselves to stores with a smaller number of professional delivery vehicles?

[notus]

Well Amazon encourages people to make purchases they wouldn't normally make so yeah I would say they do

[justicezyx]

The parent already mentioning the factor that people get things through consolidated delivery, you are still claiming the other side solely.

Is there something wrong?

[StudentStuff]

Amazon is directly putting additional vehicles to the road as a fourth shipping carrier, where USPS, FedEx & UPS already run trucks through these neighborhoods.

If Amazon wanted, they could expand their use of existing infrastructure, namely USPS (which is legally obligated to service homes and businesses) rather than create redundant, poorly maintained secondary infrastructure.

Amazon's FBA program is entirely focused on paying as little as possible to get parcels delivered. There are no living wages, or properly maintained delivery vehicles to be had for the workers that carry Amazon's parcels.

[ses1984]

It's not like you can just fit all of Amazon's load on existing carriers, they would probably need to put more trucks on the road if they absorbed Amazon's load.

[lostapathy]

Correct. We know this to be true because UPS lacked the capacity to deliver for Amazon a few years ago around the holidays, which is what prompted Amazon to start their own service.

[dickeytk]

I don’t think you understood grandparent. He pointed out the consumers needing products would be driving themselves and not having Amazon do it for them.

[macintux]

Not necessarily. It’s quite possible that Prime drives more demand.

[smt88]

> A better investigation would count the number of miles traveled and compare the rate to the general population. Driving is the most dangerous thing most people do: 37k people died on the road in 2017.

The alternative to Amazon's delivery contractors is not civilian drivers, so that comparison wouldn't be interesting.

The comparison should be against small-to-medium delivery trucks, as used by UPS, FedEx, and USPS.

[nwallin]

Ok I agree with you. Fine great. What are those numbers?

The "drive it home" point of this article is a picture of a grieving mother flipping through a scrapbook looking at pictures of her dead kid. One of ten dead people caused by Amazon's drivers since 2015. 27 people per year are killed by lightning.

Every death is a tragedy, but I'm not that concerned about something that is an order of magnitude less deadly that lightening. Driving a car is three orders of magnitude more deadly than lightening, but it doesn't scare me enough to prevent me from from hopping into my car 2-5 times per day.

Spare me the pearls, show me the numbers.

[smt88]

The numbers would be useful, but only Amazon has them.

The qualitative case the article is making is this:

1. Amazon enforces brutal delivery speeds, giving drivers huge incentives to behave recklessly (and, in fact, rewarding the most reckless drivers).

2. Amazon profits from this.

3. People are harmed (sometimes in mild ways, like getting stuck in traffic, but sometimes by dying).

4. Amazon aggressively refuses financial, legal, or moral responsibility for the harm that's caused, sometimes suing to get away from it.

Even if it's "just" one person and lightning is more dangerous, the point is that Amazon is creating danger that would not otherwise exist, profiting from it, and refusing to be pay the costs.

It seems like almost no one commenting on this article read it.

[tracer4201]

These are pretty serious accusations, and unless you have data to back this up, it’s hard to take you seriously.

“Only Amazon has them” is an interesting way to shed yourself of any responsibility to actually defend your claims.

[smt88]

Yeah, again, it’s all in the article. That’s where the evidence is. I’m just repeatedly restating the article for people who didn’t read it.

I think it’s fairly uncontroversial that Amazon doesn’t publish data about its delivery contractors.

These types of articles were triggered by individuals being hurt or killed by Amazon contractors, trying to get Amazon to accept responsibility, and failing.

[jessaustin]

Lots of stuff that I get from Amazon I otherwise would have gotten by driving to the store.

[twothamendment]

Yes - this.

I live an hour from Costco and Wal-Mart. I've gotten over the "guilt" of having Jermey, the UPS guy, bring packages to my door. In the weeks where I don't have something delivered he is driving right past my house - and I'm kinda in the middle of nowhere. It isn't uncommon for him to hit at least 2 houses out of the dozen or so that are past me.

If I (and everyone in the area) decided to drive an hour to get to a "real" city with stores, there would be so many more cars on the road. Why not let the big brown truck bring them to our area?

[smt88]

> Why not let the big brown truck bring them to our area?

The article and controversy are explicitly about how Amazon has been replacing the big brown truck with dozens of private vehicles, most of them the size of cargo vans or smaller.

People were not accusing Amazon of causing congestion before, when they were exclusively using UPS, USPS, and FedEx.

[kennywinker]

a couple things to introspect about that:

1. how many of the things you bought on amazon were things you would have bought at the store otherwise, and how many are things you bought because it was effortless to buy?

2. how many of the things you bought did you need next day delivered? If there were delivered slowly, by a USPS or UPS/fedex driver on a regular route, that would not have been an extra car on the road.

[smt88]

I don't think you're typical. People shop at Amazon for many reasons -- price, selection, loyalty programs, etc.

Even if you are typical, your comment isn't relevant to the original topic.

The point is that Amazon created enormous demand for fast delivery, and then it replaced large delivery operations with Uber-like individual "contractors" that aren't professionals, are crunched for time, and are causing problems for urban areas.

Maybe all of that would be fine if Amazon (or there customers) were paying the price, but they're not.

What's worse is that, in some cases, "the price" is someone's life.

[cbau]

Tangent: Did you make up the term "character piece"? I've not heard that before but I don't have a name for these kind of articles that include stories of specific people.

[dredmorbius]

As the article notes:

That tally is most likely a fraction of the accidents that have occurred: Many people don’t sue, and those who do can’t always tell when Amazon is involved, court records, police reports and news accounts show.

[RaceWon]

> 37k people died on the road in 2017

In America alone 100 people a day are killed--give or take. Worldwide 1.25 Million a year are killed.