Uber ‘does not lower drunk driving rates’

Contrary to claims touted by the firm, the introduction of on-demand car service provider Uber has not reduced drunk driving in America, a study has claimed.

Research has found drink-driving accidents have not decreased following the launch of Uber

A new study from the American Journal of Epidemiology has revealed that the Uber app has had no effect on reducing accidents related to drunk driving in the US.

Researchers compared road death rates before and after Uber was introduced in America, analysing data for the 100 most populous US metropolitan areas between 2005 and 2014, and found that the death rate was unaffected by its arrival.

Last year the company supported an anti drunk driving campaign by Devotion Vodka at the same time as an Uber-backed report suggested that road traffic accidents involving drunk drivers aged under 30 in California fell 6.5% where the company operates.

The same report, conducted in association with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), also reported that 78% of respondents  agreed that friends are less likely to drive drunk since the arrival of ridesharing services like Uber to their city.

A statement summing up the new report, titled Uber and Metropolitan Traffic Fatalities in the United States, reads: “Given the convenience and low cost, Uber has been characterized as a potential countermeasure for reducing the estimated 121 million episodes of drunk driving and the 10,000 resulting traffic fatalities that occur annually in the United States.

“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.”

In April this year, the app gave free rides to people in Canada who were over the drunk driving limit as part of its “You Drink, We Drive” campaign.