Deliveroo and Just Eat and the like make UK cities creepy and miserable

[Pavementworrier]

Guys in balaclavas with no traceable identity (and often no right to work in the UK) racing around on electric bikes in the dark bringing shit cold food to fat lazy punters while cafes, bars and restaurants erode and hospitals fill up with diabetic foot merchants.

I wouldn't ban them but I'd make them treat every single takeaway bandit as a full employee with id checks, criminal responsibility, tax and employment rights.

And people who use them kind of make me sick.

I don’t live in the UK anymore so have no idea what you’re talking about really as it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as you describe when I did live there. Anyway I love my healthy grain bowl via Uber eats every Friday when I WFH and won’t be stopping that any time soon. It’s not laziness so much as Uber eats flood me with offers such that it’s actually cheaper to order it to my apartment than it is to walk 10 minutes to the salad bar and buy it in-person. Plus I get air miles for the purchase.

What does get on my tits is formerly nice sit-down restaurants being ruined by delivery drivers coming in and out non-stop and the staff practically prioritising these orders over people dining in. Just have a separate operation with designated staff and leave the servers to serve customers in the restaurant FFS.

See I have no problem with asylum seekers and undocumented workers doing these jobs and making a living. How do you propose they survive? They’re in the country now. What practically can they do. I’d rather they delivered food than turned to petty crime.

It was in the news recently that they’ve agreed to crack down and do proper right to work checks on the people they’ve hired. It won’t stop sub contracting unless they have some kind of facial recognition system, but it’s better than nothing.

I live in a massive city and have everything delivered because I fucking hate shopping. I don’t get takeaways delivered and have never had a foot amputated. Hope that’s alright with OP, maybe she can get over her nausea by thinking how superior she is.

Agree really. Everything about it is depressing.

I don't know where everyone else is living to suggest that there is absolutely no problem with all these delivery companies. It absolutely is a problem in the busy area/city I live in.

I couldn't care less what other people decide to eat, nor how people choose (or, rather, probably don't) to earn money. What I do care about is the sheer volume of delivery riders flying about everywhere, ignoring all the rules of the road/cycle lanes, presenting a danger to themselves and pedestrians. I care that motorbikes are masquerading as e-bikes, multiplying the danger this behaviour poses to the public. I also care that these guys are likely only doing this as it's likely the only way they can get enough deliveries in to make any money over their shift.

Edited for spelling.

The OP's racist whingeing makes it doubly hilarious that the great conservative George Osborne's wife is one of the people who has got very, very wealthy from her stake in Deliveroo.

As to the 'no wonder it didn't take off in Europe' off-gassing, there's Deliveroo in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Uber Eats is in France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, and expanding into Germany.

I live in London and often get groceries via Zapp, which is on Deliveroo. You know, OP, for my Natoora fruit and veg and organic Lidgates meat (see, I'm one of you, not a fat, junk food scoffing poor person!!!). Better than Ocado, because I can get the delivery in 30 minutes versus waiting two days. I give an extra big tip if the driver is wearing a balaclava.

Yes!! I'm a nurse and we use it often. People order a hot meal for their break on a 10-14hr shift, the canteen here closes after 2pm.

Same goes with ordering coffee, I've only done this at work when it's been a shit day but I haven't got time to leave the ward/take a proper break.

It's fair enough to want proper checks and balances but as a service its brilliant, and it will support smaller businesses who previously will have missed sales as they were too small to offer in-house delivery. There's an Italian couple in my town which sell fresh meals via deliveroo out if their kitchen for example.

I very sadly don't have a local chippy to walk to.

Order a takeaway away delivery. 🤷🤣. Take aways were a "thing" back in the day...and I'm talking back in the day.

Of course a little tongue in cheek (as I am assuming your post is) and we weren't digital but yeah....we just used to get deliveries?

Oh right so just another racist anti immigration thread then

Honestly I don’t disagree. The number of delivery people who turn up looking nothing like “their” photo (even a different race or the opposite sex) seems to happen more often than not. 👀

I do think that bikes need proper registering, especially with the rise in e-bikes which can go at quite a speed.

I have found Deliveroo useful though for ordering food for my mum when she was going through radiotherapy, pretty exhausted and mostly staying at home. Supermarket delivery wasn't an option as the appointments were subject to last minute change. So I could order her some groceries from the local co-op, or send money for a takeaway from a loval restaurant. It made a real difference to her and meant she didn't have to worry too much outside of her treatment.

I went hungry a lot and had to rely on family and friends not being too busy to help out. I have a strong painkiller for my chronic pain that has to be taken with food or it paradoxically causes even worse pain. I had many days spent curled up in a ball for hours waiting for someone to finish work and drop off some food so I could finally take it and be pain free for a while.

I'm much happier now that I'm able to live more independently since I can get food as needed 24/7. I woke up in intense pain at 2am and ordered a subway sandwich so I could take my meds - just finished eating it so I'm heading back to sleep when it kicks in.

YANBU. These bikes are a bloody menace. However, they are here because people uae them I refuse to give them business. If everyone else did the same they wouldn’t exist.

That’s good you could pre plan and organise when you were going to be recovering from a medical issue.
Some can find themself in hospital unexpectedly. Imagine that. Pets at home needing being fed. Stranded in hospital where you so much as ask if they have a bananana when the food trolley woman going round trying to push toast as the only option looks at you as if you’ve asked her to go to (whatever country bananas grow in at that time of year) and pick it herself. Supposedly the same hospitals the OP suggests sick people end up in from using these food delivery services as a generalisation?
I think I was pretty relieved at that time to be able to order some pretty standard basics of resemblance of healthy food delivered from local supermarket chain in a bag on the Deliveroo app at that time.
I could also get dog food delivered to my door at home whilst stuck unexpectedly at hospital for days with no pre warning, delivered to my door within an hour or two. So my neighbour could feed them. Yes you pay a slight premium above what it would usually cost to go out and get these things in person.
But there are very urgent and needed times these services are a lifeline to people.

Oh and when I went abroad to go private for an op to fix what the NHS messed up I had to recover in a hotel in a European city. They had the equivalent of these food delivery website apps. And could order very good quality freshly made healthy food options to aid recovery where there wasn’t any better options, no kitchen to prepare or store or make anything myself.

i think OP needs to get out of the rock they’re under and realise it’s not all burgers and chips and can be a lifeline or very helpful in this modern world for many in many different ways

Love your humour 😅

Have to say I felt like this too after almost three weeks away recently. I’d got used to seeing them everywhere I suppose but being in countries where there are none made them really stand out on returning.

And a few pints before the kebab to get her in a better mood!

@Pavementworrier try not being so grumpy and miserable. And maybe just don't look out the window so you don't need to observe the plebs enjoying themselves.

I don’t know what the rate is now but 20 years ago my neighbour delivered for the local Chinese.
He would turn up at the start of the shift and was given £20 then kept all the tips from each delivery. Some nights he would make a killing other nights he would not even scrape even after using his own car/petrol.

Are you kidding? Mainland Europe is swarming with delivery dudes!

Indeed. My grandfather was born in 1915 and his first job as a 14 year old was delivering groceries on a bike.

Yes, quite. See how many ready meals there are in Le Clerc as well.

the economics of some of the services are iffy, this is true. and we could do with some regulations when it comes to safety.

But the OP just seems to want to rant about foreigners and fat people, which is tiresome and silly. I get my own takeaways because I"m a skinflint, but I don't delude myself that I'm somehow doing some kind of social good with it.

I can guarantee the delivery model has definitely taken off in Europe. I live in a small coastal Spanish town of 30k population and we have several delivery services but only use them if it's raining but Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and Malaga are swarming with them just like any UK city

I agree with you. I haven't read the whole thread but I assume all the fat lazy sofa-dwellers who live on Uber Eats by choice have come back at you with their 'whataboutism' - what about the housebound, what about people who can't cook, what about people who depend on the gig economy for their livelihood etc..., etc.... When in fact all this home delivered food is just another step backwards in our general retreat away from society, community, fraternity, and into our selfish, isolated homes.