Too GTA?
In a video game like GTA, everything you do is without real consequences, so you can freely go on rampages, drive recklessly, disregard pedestrians and red lights. It is all fair game to complete your missions (as long as you avoid the cops, I guess). In real life, well, it is different. It does not take much to realize as you start delivering that this is a dangerous job. The thing is, there is not just one, but multiple layers of danger for them.
We saw how food deliveries are big in large cities. Metropoles are known also for their traffic, which can get insanely chaotic at some times of the day. Biking is per se quite dangerous, with 3,500 cyclist being seriously injured or killed in the UK in 2016. Motorbikes are not better. Delivering makes either even worse. First, you always change route, it’s not like your home-work-home routine. Every delivery has a different address, you are not familiar with the road and its more critical points. On top of that, you need to constantly check your phone for the indication on where to turn next, distracting you from driving. Second, you have a large, often heavy backpack on your shoulders that may make your more easily lose balance if not used to.
Lastly, delivering is inevitably a time-sensitive job. You don’t want to disappoint your customer, by making him wait hungry while his food is getting cold. You also want to squeeze in as many orders as possible, if you are paid per delivery. So you do feel a time pressure which makes you want to go faster, take shortcuts, sometimes beyond what you should. There are so many newspaper articles talking about how delivery drivers often put the lives of drivers and pedestrians around them in danger.
That’s not all. Big cities are famous also for the high number of theft of bikes and motorbikes that happen everyday. Every 71 seconds to be precise for bicycles in London. It felt quite awkward the first times I arrived at the restaurant to pick the food or at customer’s houses. It’s not always easy to find a spot and sometimes you are away from your bike a few minutes, so you fear it could not be there anymore when you come back. Getting mugged is also a possibility. At time for the food, or for the money when payments or tips are in cash, as it is often the case in the US.
Finally, what scared me most as I started delivering: entering random people’s apartment buildings. I have to say that, even in the few deliveries I have done, I have been in some requiteally sketchy apartment blocks and came by some very weird people. I guess that is why there is so few female delivery drivers around, and I have absolute sympathy for them. Google around, there are scary stories of people asking them to come inside or opening the door with little clothes on.
