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 have multiple children, I do a supermarket delivery but sometimes we run out of stuff! I am not using deliveroo all the time for shopping deliveries but it is incredibly helpful for me if we run out when I am having a flare

Right so as a doctor you recommend people eating crappy fast food?
Perhaps you could have a word with the folks writing the nhs guidelines, they appear to have got the healthy eating advice wrong.

People use deliveroo for all sorts of reasons. The last time I used it my dh was in hospital and I needed a few bits like bread and milk for my child. Just said thanks to whoever delivered it and went to bed.

I wouldn't use Uber for anything, since they launched in the UK as an unlicensed market disruptor for taxi services in London, undercut all the licensed cabbies and got Boris Johnson in their back pocket. They've always been a dodgy company.

COVID was a gift to these companies, but takeaway delivery has always been a thing. No McDonalds or the chippy, but I used to get Indian food delivered 30 years ago. Local Chinese delivered as well, as did all the pizza places. In some ways, your health argument doesn't stand up, because at least now you can get a wider variety of food delivered. And to be fair, I walk to the local chippy. Not convinced 5 minutes down the road is enough to offset the calories, but before the delivery companies a lot of people still weren't walking to get their fast food. They drove. McDonald's has drive-ins for a reason.

So no, I don't like the business model, but it's got no bearing on the health of a nation with a majority of car owners that has been eating fast food for many decades.

😆😆😆

i m from mainland europe and it HAS so taken off.

Out of interest, for those who use Deliveroo regularly, how much do you tip the driver?

Do you really this is just a uk thing?

In Asia they have Grab which is just like Uber/Deliveroo. You can even order a plumber or electrician through Grab 😂
Grab is everywhere in the big cities.

Grab food delivery has been a lifesaver when I’ve been a solo female traveller on a works trip in an unfamiliar city/country!

You phoned your local take away and they delivered it. Just Eat / Deliveroo make it easier because you can see exactly what you are ordering and compare between take aways.

Some people also use it when they or their child is in hospital.

Always deliveroo/just eat drivers at the entrance of the hospital my son was at.

I used delivery services when I was a teenager and I’m now 50. Pizza Hut delivered my pizza to me.

I'm amazed how many people have convinced themselves they "need" a service that didn't exist here ten years ago and doesn't exist most places now.

Need to rationalise financing illegal workers and associated organised crime and people trafficking I guess.

I saw the title of this and thought I'd 100% agree. Whilst I find the OPs views extreme and surprised about the worker status stance, I must stay I don't like the explosion of delivery riders in my area.

We have a pedestrian only centre, but the electric bikes zooming through do feel dangerous, especially with young children. Fast bikes and unaware children is not a good combination. It does feel a bit menacing when they are all hanging around in the dark too, plus it feels a bit weird... I can't explain it but the restaurants etc are all quite empty, and then just riders going in and out. Gives me Wall-E vibes. I don't know, I can see the appeal for the people who aren't leaving their houses in the cold and dark but just makes me feel a bit sad.

Pizza hut uses staff with employment protection, id checks and legal right to work in the UK

And also Just Eat/Uber/Deliveroo etc.

I had a takeaway on Saturday. Nobody could be bothered to cook, so I ordered pizzas etc.

I didn’t realise that made me a “fat lazy punter/diabetic foot merchant” but to be honest, so be it!

Delivery also service definitely did exist 10 years ago, it was just direct with the takeaway. Some of ours still are, you order on an app/the website.

Hmm if only we could have a dedicated service that would clamp down on illegal bikes that are speeding on pavements. That would be amazing but sadly such an invention doesn't exist yet, so the onus is now naturally on the layperson to indirectly outlaw those illegal bikes by not using the service that they provide. Also what a shame that we also don't have a service that clamps down on illegal working, but until such thing is invented in the far sci-fi future, then again the onus is on the layperson I'm afraid. Especially if they layperson is fat.

...

This service has always existed in one way or another.
It's not new.

Frankly, when my child was in hospital, I didn't give any thought to the drivers delivering my food. My focus was on grabbing the food and getting back to my very unwell child who didn't want to be left.

Would I have survived if they didn't exist? Of course but it would've meant leaving my unwell child for longer, potentially going without food all together after certain times etc so I'm incredibly grateful that it was available at the time.

But it does exist in other places…
I travel all over the world for work and whatever country I’m in I use their version of Uber/Deliveroo/Grab

Do you understand the concept of responsible choices? If you buy Deliveroo you are at best supporting a business that mistreats workers and compels them to race at dangerous speeds across cities and towns. Taking their lives in their hands for pennies.

Bet you don't even tip.

Do you understand the concept of the police?

This is a very long way of saying “I only eat home cooked and nutritious food.”

@Bjorkdidit: "I also agree with you OP and find it weird that MN generally doesn't object to the likes of Deliveroo, Just Eat, Uber etc in a way that it does Shein, Temu and Amazon, yet it has equally shady business practices, exploiting everyone involved in the process for it's own gain."

Yes, this is an excellent point. Any mention of Shein on here and the majority of posters, quite rightly, call out it's practices.

I can't decided if all the posters suggesting there is no issue are being deliberately obtuse or just completely naive. Though the OP who commented that there have always been delivery drivers and gave the example of her grandfather doing deliveries on his bike did give me a laugh.

You don't think maybe hospitals should provide the food?

Your unwell kid will grow up in a worse place because of services like this.

Ok the OP's post comes across as a bit overly judgemental (and probably unrealistic with regard.to 'Europe') but I'm a bit surprised so many posters don't think it's a bad thing for junk food to be constantly zooming to people's front doors at the touch of a button on such a massive scale. It was already too easy to eat shit food, and this makes ir even more tempting. The fact that there are housebound people does not stop this from generally being bad.