Uber Eats Is Destroying Its Reputation With College Students
The recent incident in Atlanta raises questions about the safety of the service and what this means for customers using these services.
Fast Food is being delivered with a side of danger, as an Uber Eats driver allegedly shot and killed a customer on Feb. 17. Ryan Thornton a resident of Atlanta, GA, and graduate of Morehouse College ordered food from his Uber Eats app on Saturday night. His delivery person, Robert Bivines is accused of shooting Thornton after an exchange of words and fled the scene. Thornton was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital where he died from his injuries. On Feb. 19, Bivines turned himself in to the authorities.
A turn of events that no one could possibly imagine. A calm saturday night watching Netflix, waiting on a hot meal only to be met with aggression. Aggression that unfortunately turned fatal and leaves a family still looking for answers. Uber, Postmates, and similar companies can be risky trusting a stranger with your food and your life without too much information provided to you about them except their name, number, and their vehicle information. Even then you still believe that everything will be okay because they’ve gone through background checks and that they wouldn’t be working for Uber if they’re crazy.
Potential Uber employees must go through a screening of their driving history, as well as a criminal background check in the national, state and local databases. Yet, Bivines had been arrested nearly 10 years ago for aggravated assault charges pleading to a lesser charge of battery. However, Bivines still passed his background check and was a driver for almost a full week before the crime.
As a college student, I am fully aware of how many of my peers use services such as Uber Eats, Uber, and other mobile travel and delivery companies and we college students are the highest demographic to use these services.
After hearing about the incident, Ari Harris, a Student at Spelman college and Uber Eats customer shared her feelings about the recent incident.
“Makes me feel unsafe not only Uber Eats but Uber and all of that stuff in general”, Harris said.
Harris also talked about her history with the service and what she didn’t like about it.
“Some of the drivers make you reach in the window to get the food which makes me uncomfortable, like I’m in their personal space, they should get out the car and hand me my food”, Harris said.
Tariq Akins a student at Morehouse College and also an Uber Eats customer had this to say when spoken to about the incident.
“Anybody can do anything to you, I feel like it could happen at the suites around Morehouse”, Akins said.
As he expressed his feeling about the lack of security around the Otis Moss Suites at Morehouse, it made me wonder what are students doing to keep themselves safe when using services like this.
“You should share your location”, Harris said.
Morehouse student Ronjae Jones even shared some tips of his own.
“When you go to retrieve your food, try and bring a friend, and the same with regular Uber too,” Jones said.
When asked about areas of improvement for these services and safety tips an officer of campus security shared her insight.
“They need to come up with a more secure thing, they need to do it themselves and just become a full delivery services facility and company, because the whole automatic thing is not safe”, campus security said.
She stressed that students honestly need to stay away from using the services whatsoever.
“A lot of wolves in sheeps clothing”.
When I first brought up the topic of Uber and similar services, stressing that they could not be completely trusted because you never really know.
“Never know what’s going to approach you, pay attention to your surroundings and don’t go by yourself” campus security said.
Nowhere in any conversation did the people blame Uber, but stressed that they should find a better way to screen their employees. So next when you order from Uber Eats: be alert, have back up, and communicate to make sure your in a safe place to stuff your face.
Corey Rious Jr. is a student at Morehouse College.
