to think that Deliveroo etc should be banned!

[Coastalwalks]

Hi all,

I live in London and was recently nearly knocked off my bike by a deliveroo driver on a moped (he was completely in the wrong, though will not be drawing a road diagram to illustrate lol). When I shouted at him he just made fun of my voice and it enraged me soooo much. These are my chief issues with deliveroo etc:

• There are now so many dangerous drivers either on mopeds or bikes with batteries illegally fitted to them - flagrantly going the wrong way up one-way streets, running reds etc. Very dangerous and a friend of mine recently had someone break into her secure underground parking area to steal her electric bike. There was so much damage to the property and she basically thinks that her bike was nicked to order.
• I looked into it and deliveroo actually acknowledge that deliveroo drivers 'rent out' their accounts to others, many of whom are undocumented migrants - but they put the responsibility on the original driver to check that the person renting the account has the right to work etc! Complete dereliction of duty, and basically facilitates the exploitation / trafficking of illegal immigrants who then have no legal protection, don't pay tax etc...
• On a slightly pious level I think it's terrible and lazy that so many people now think it's normal to be able to just order food in so rapidly - like it is genuinely quite aristocratic to expect to press a button and have a shawarma wrap at your door in <20 minutes. People should learn to cook or at least have to walk round the block to the chippy. It's lazy!
• Meeting the deliveroo orders in small restaurants means it takes twice as long to get your actual food, and it ruins the ambiance when there are loads of deliveroo drivers outside or at the door (though acknowledge this is not the case at Naice restaurants)
• Everyone I know who works in FS has to basically eat a deliveroo at their desk at 8pm every night - maybe without deliveroo everyone could go home a bit earlier ! ! ! !

YABU - let me have my massaman curry you calvinistic treat-hater
YANBU - deliveroo is a scourge

I agree that the jailbroken bikes are a real issue. There are loads of them in Glasgow, they are motorbikes which should be licensed, taxed and insured and they are not. The drivers wear black clothing and no helmets, very few of them have lights. SO dangerous. This is not a "deliveroo" problem though, it's a lack of police enforcement problem.

Deliveroo doesn't deliver this far out of the city though.

Breakfast mostly, I assume. We used to get hot rolls delivered to the office on Friday mornings back before it was so much of a thing.

@NonPlayerCharacter Where on earth do you get that I infer that I expect them to restrict their services to people with disabilities?

Have no experience of this at all. And before anyone jumps in to say because I have no experience, it’s not happening?!! No, just as I said, I have no experience.

Personally, I think it probably happens more in cities.

And that is before you get to the awful dystopia of dark kitchens!

My favourite Deliveroo story is courtesy of Mr Monkey. He did a shift running a friends specialist beer shop in inner London one Saturday night as a favour. It is a small micropub that sells specialist craft beer for takeaway and consumption on the premises. There was a Deliveroo option (presumably for people who get home and are too tired to go out for two pints of tasty IPA).

He as shown how to work it and what to do to pack up the orders. It rang precisely once - at 8pm with an order for two packets of crisps and two cans of coke. 🤷‍♀️

You say Burger King is exploiting vulnerable people because it's possible for them to spend £23 a week on it. What should they do? Either cut the home delivery service completely, in which case all home delivery services must do the same because they must be exploitative too, or continue but restrict services to the vulnerable.

If BK is exploiting vulnerable customers by offering home delivery, what should they do to rectify it?

They also run their own kitchens for the big name companies which exploit legal loopholes on where restaurants/takeaways can be.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/apr/25/deliveroo-tech-delivery-restaurant-service-dark-kitchens

Should you have to look left and right when crossing the pavement too? Only that's where they often are.

Even looking left and right isn't much use at night, I've seen so many in Liverpool with no lights on.

@NonPlayerCharacter that’s not exactly what I said though is it, and is that your only solution? Very poor one.

Hope you have a dashcam.

Would prove that you aren't at fault due to his lack of lights and riding on the wrong side of the road. Dressing in black is not illegal.

If BK is exploiting vulnerable people by offering a home delivery service, what should it do to rectify it? I'm not the one who thinks there's a problem so it's not on me to find a "solution".

There is definitely a bigger question to be asked about whether anyone, disabled or otherwise, should be able to have whatever they want whenever they want without any sort of restrictions. It's really bad from a health, financial, societal, and environmental point of view.

But that's probably too big a question for any one thread.

@NonPlayerCharacter Let’s get a focus group and come up with one involving the people this affects? I’ll let you lead seeing as though you’re so aghast at a fairly accurate statement I made.

@GettingStuffed Mr Monkey worked on an small industrial estate in London that had a dark kitchen. He said it was a nightmare. Noise, mess, hundreds of mopeds coming and going at all hours. Most of the other tenants were fairly quiet and only had limited day time traffic (his employer was a small brewery).

@Flickersy Agreed, please join the conversation, I mean focus group, we need balanced opinion. 🤓

There are a lot of badly driven food delivery mopeds on the roads so I'm in agreement.

@NonPlayerCharacter Just so you are clear, you made the statement, that by offering the service they’re exploiting, that was entirely your twist of the narrative. Again very poor.

It is really easy to pass laws and ban stuff. A lot of the things you don’t like are already illegal. The problem is actually stopping people from doing them.

No, you're letting me lead because you haven't got an answer, so you're trying to pretend that I'm the one who made the problematic statement.

I don't think BK is exploiting vulnerable people by offering home delivery. You do. So what is your solution? Don't start demanding I answer for your problematic statement. You think BK is exploiting people who spend £23 a week on it. So I ask you a very simple question: what should BK do instead?

Absolutely Deliveroo and other delivery companies need to take responsibility for their drivers poor and dangerous behaviour on the roads. This is completely normal for any company- their staff represents them while working. Weird that posters think it’s purely a police matter when these companies are driving this dangerous behaviour. The business model is built around delivery speed.

Interesting that we’re not talking about Amazon drivers. They’re generally pretty decent in my experience. Amazon must be doing something right?

It may be true but as a single parent to a disabled child I rely on delivero a fair amount on bad days I'm unable to cook or get out. Baby with a fever and no calpol deliveroo has it.

I don't drive much but it's the taxis near me that are the bad drivers. That and teenagers/YA just walking out not looking

I don’t think many of us are putting the blame at the door of customers - there are very valid reasons to use them. It’s the companies and people who work for them that are being irresponsible. It’s the volume of deliveries that is such a massive change in 5 years which is causing havoc in our towns and cities.

Flaming Nora, if you're going to lie about something, at least lie about a statement you didn't make just two pages ago that I can easily screenshot.

So there you go. You think BK home delivery exploits the vulnerable. So for about the fifth time: what do you think it should do?

Do people rent space on industrial estates expecting peace and quiet?
I thought the whole point of them was to keep businesses out of residential areas?
We have a Deliveroo dark kitchen site round the corner, on a small industrial estate. Some of the tenants change quite frequently and it’s clearly being used by people with small pop-up style food businesses who make really interesting and delicious food. Always arrives piping hot too, as it’s so close.

In London at least there is no need to equate takeaway with unhealthy or low quality, I think Deliveroo gives us access to some excellent food that we otherwise would not be eating as the restaurants don’t have their own drivers and we can’t eat in because we’d need childcare.

Like many others I do agree that the unsafe driving and cycling is a scourge though. I feel that could be addressed without losing the entire concept.

@NonPlayerCharacter Do you genuinely think there’s not a problem with fast food then?
There are laws around smoking, alcohol and other foods to limit harms without encroaching on freedoms.
Smoking was very sociably acceptable until it wasn’t. The benefits to health of society turning its back on fags have been considerable. Fast food is the same. Obesity is a killer that is affecting the poor and vulnerable more than other groups..

I don’t think it’s unreasonable that food with certain percentages of fat/ sugars or calories aren’t available by app.