DUI’s Drop In Silicon Valley (And The Rest of California, Too) Thanks To Uber and Lyft
Some of California’s largest cities are seeing dramatically fewer arrests for driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and many believe this to be directly related to the increase in the amount of people taking advantage of ride sharing services like Uber and Lyft.
According to information released by the University of California at Davis, DUI arrests have dropped by 32% in the San Diego community, 28% in the San Jose community, 26% in the Sacramento community, and 14% in LA, San Francisco/Oakland, and Silicon Valley compared to just 24 months ago.
We are seeing a decrease of more than 2400 arrests for DUIs occurring in this two-year block of time, and these types of arrests have dropped even more significantly in areas of California – like Silicon Valley – that were able to take advantage of upstart ridesharing services (Uber and Lyft) in 2009, compared to those that started to get the services in 2015.
Of course, drunk and impaired driving in the state of California is a major concern.
The amount of DUI fatalities in the state of California have increased by 16.3% from just 911 in the year 2015 to over 1050 in the year 2016. At the same time, drunk driving deaths fell by over 3.6% just as soon as Uber was able to begin operating in urban centers throughout the state of California. All of the major metropolitan areas, save San Francisco, have seen almost double-digit drops in the rate of DUIs since these ridesharing services were brought online, according to Stockton DUI Attorney.
UC Davis says that in Silicon Valley, the second most popular reason for opening up a ridesharing application is to call a car after they have been drinking. 33% of all bar patrons report taking advantage of ridesharing applications instead of sliding behind the wheel while impaired.
Silicon Valley is obviously the ancestral home of the two most popular ridesharing application and services in the world. Both Uber and Lyft got their start in Silicon Valley and continued to be improved and refined in the center for startups and technology.
It’s nice to see that they are working to improve their local community as best they can, making sure that their services aren’t just dependable in Silicon Valley and beyond but also making major inroads with marketing and advertising campaigns to get more people to choose the services when they have been out drinking.