[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.