[HN Gopher] Amazon bans its drivers from moving their own lips t...
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Amazon bans its drivers from moving their own lips too much at work
Author : jmsflknr
Score : 169 points
Date : 2024-09-04 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.freightwaves.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.freightwaves.com)
| sparrish wrote:
| I'm sure there are piss-poor drivers that don't sing along and
| really good drivers that do.
|
| They should drop all the restrictions on 'distracting' activity
| and just fire poor drivers rather than trying to make poor
| drivers into good ones.
| cr125rider wrote:
| If you want to pay bottom of the barrel wages you're gonna get
| employees that are at the bottom. An accident could cause many
| times a workers annual wage, so they're trying to go for
| preventative measures.
|
| I'm honestly surprised they can still find people who want to
| work for them.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > I'm honestly surprised they can still find people who want
| to work for them.
|
| The slow and steady eradication of middle class jobs + the
| lack of a humane and dignified safety net + the need for
| food, clothing and shelter. I think very few people _want_ to
| work as an Amazon warehouse worker or driver, as in make a
| career of it. It 's one of the USA's many Jobs Of Last
| Resort.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That's easy to say when it's someone with our level of
| opportunities but some people don't have a whole lot of other
| options. And it's not like Door Dash and Uber are any better.
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| If "singing along" is a leading indicator of being in an
| accident, then amazon should absolutely not employ drivers that
| sing along. People get injured or killed in accidents, we dont
| need to observe them if we have sufficently strong signals that
| show risk (IE: driving at 100mph, driving while drunk, etc).
| What I don't understand is if you tell drivers "dont sing
| along" does that negate the predictive value of "singining
| along" as a signal for propensity to be involved in an
| accident.
| teqsun wrote:
| I would assume they're really just trying to "catch" people
| talking on cell phones, and people singing are causing "too many"
| false positives of the detection system?
| aguaviva wrote:
| That's actually a reasonable explanation.
|
| And then it seems the manager failed to articulate that point
| (or perhaps they did, but people are the meeting were so upset
| that they weren't quite listening anymore).
| ffsm8 wrote:
| How can anyone consider that reasonable?
|
| that is an insane overreach by the employer. They _should_ be
| outraged!
| zamadatix wrote:
| I don't know how much Amazon itself really "cares" as much
| as not having clear safety guidelines and safety systems
| can result in liability when accidents do occur due to
| distracted driving on grounds the employer knowingly didn't
| try to prevent such accidents and was the reason for the
| employee to be driving at the time.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I think it's reasonable to require "no talking on phones"
| and I'd even go so far as to say "no listening to music"
| when you're driving a large commercial truck on the public
| roads.
|
| If you think this is strict, have a look at what UPS
| requires of its drivers. They have _very_ specific rules
| for how to do everything related to delivering packages and
| operating the vehicles. And not that I 've specifically
| focused on it, but I can't recall ever hearing music
| playing in a UPS truck.
| aguaviva wrote:
| It's called "distracted driving" and it's perfectly
| reasonable for employers to take measures to prevent people
| from engaging in it:
|
| https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/distracted-driving
|
| The concern here is most likely people diddling with their
| phones (which tends to accompany such conversations but may
| be harder for the cameras to detect), followed by the
| distraction of zoning over a long conversation over any
| kind of device. Not singing along with the radio, obviously
| (which is what people seem to be reacting to so emotionally
| here).
|
| You don't have to like it, and I would never work with
| Amazon in any capacity anyway (not for this, but for a
| whole bunch of vastly more important reasons).
|
| But it's definitely neither insane, nor overreach on their
| part.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I am going to go out on a limb and say delivery quotas
| are the largest contributor to unsafe driving by Amazon
| delivery drivers. How far has Amazon loosened up delivery
| quotas, back them down to the proven safest levels, has
| Amazon done?
| losvedir wrote:
| Yeah, with half a second's thought at the headline it should be
| obvious they're worried about people talking on the phone or
| bluetooth, which really is distracted driving. I was sort of
| flabbergasted at the focus in the article on "singing along to
| the radio" as if that's what this is about. I do get how that
| could be a bit of a false positive, but I doubt it's that
| common.
| millzlane wrote:
| And most drivers I see who deliver packages are always on the
| phone talking to themselves via bluetooth. So I get the
| sentiment.
|
| It's not like amazon is making it up. Studies have shown that
| music can have an adverse effect on driving.
| dantyti wrote:
| roadside advertising has an adverse effect on driving. We
| should ban ads before we even consider vilifying music
| ghshephard wrote:
| Lots of counties do precisely that, and for exactly that
| reason. And, as others have noted, it's likely to reduce
| the talking-on-cellphone, which studies have shown is
| just as distracting and likely to cause an accident
| hands-free as holding the phone.
| millzlane wrote:
| I don't think the villain is the music. I think the
| villain in this case is the distracted driving.
|
| I for one listen to music at full blast and tend to drive
| spiritedly which requires full 110% concentration. So I
| would agree that there are bigger fish to fry than
| listening to music while driving. But I'm going to be
| honest and say I've seen folks who don't listen to music
| and do bonehead things on the road because they're
| distracted. So yes, let's bad roadside billboards. I'm
| with you on that.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Tight performance requirements have a much worse effect on
| driving, so that would make this a case of lousy
| prioritization at best.
| millzlane wrote:
| That's true, it would. I wonder what type of requirements
| they have.
| cortesoft wrote:
| So should we outlaw stereo systems in cars, then?
| millzlane wrote:
| Nah, we just outlaw music. Full stop. If you are caught
| making music...Straight to jail.
| nostromo wrote:
| > Studies have shown
|
| What studies? The only quality meta-analysis I could find
| showed mixed results, "It was concluded that, in some
| indicators, listening to music has adverse effects on
| driving. However, in many indicators, music has a positive
| impact on improving driving safety." [1]
|
| Personally I find music can help me focus - both when
| driving and at work.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10790125/
| millzlane wrote:
| I read that one and a few of the one cited in that same
| link you posted. It goes both ways yes while listening to
| classical or lofi hip hop may help one relax and be calm,
| other music could distract you. I honestly have no skin
| in the game. But a decision like this coming from a data
| driven company begs the question. What data do they have?
|
| From the link you posted:
|
| On the other hand, listening to music while driving could
| raise the driver's mental workload index and, thus,
| impair their driving performance. In fact, both driving
| and listening to music compete for the driver's limited
| cognitive capacity.14 According to a study by the
| American National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
| in-vehicle driver distraction, such as listening to
| music, is responsible for 25% of traffic accidents.15
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| How much stress does having quotas to meet by the end of
| the day impact the driving safety of a delivery driver? If
| Amazon isn't making it up but just applying sound metrics,
| does that include not having tight delivery quotas placed
| on drivers?
| millzlane wrote:
| I get that having quotas to meet is stressful. I'm not
| arguing against that. I don't understand what type of
| quotas they would have. Unless you know, I would assume
| it's deliver the packages you have in your truck by the
| end of the day. It's all designed by a system that I
| assume is closely intertwined. For instance, I'm sure it
| wouldn't load a truck up with 1000 stops if it had no
| data that would indicate that it's possible.
|
| And if every healthy driver (old,young, strong or weak)
| before you could move and complete 200 stops in a day but
| you can only do half of that. Does that mean the
| expectation is unrealistic or is it something else?
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| It means that drivers are highly motivated to get their
| deliveries done in a day. Wait another minute for a safer
| chance to make a turn? Driver can't risk it, all those
| turns add up by the end of the day. So the driver tasks
| the riskier first traffic opportunity they get. And makes
| hundred of other safety choices daily based on meeting
| their quota.
|
| Sure, previous driver Bob made 200 stops in a day, what
| does that have to do with safety? Especially considering
| Bob was forced to pee into a bottle to make his numbers:
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/selling-bottles-of-
| amazon-dr...
| tsimionescu wrote:
| No, talking in a car has no measurable impact on safety. And
| talking on the phone is obviously even safer than talking to
| other people physically in the car, since you don't need to
| take your eyes off the road or tour hands off the wheel like
| you would be tempted to when talking to another person in the
| car.
|
| Plus, the vast majority of people have a significant need for
| social contact. Working an eight hour shift alone in a car
| without any contact with any social contact (except a quick
| sign off when dropping a package), 5 days a week, is inhuman.
| saulpw wrote:
| > And talking on the phone is obviously even safer than
| talking to other people physically in the car
|
| This is not true, because people physically in the car have
| the context of what's happening on the road, and can be
| aware enough to pause for a few seconds while you navigate
| a difficult situation that requires your full attention.
| akomtu wrote:
| Corporations don't need humans. They need mechanisms that
| efficiently do the work assigned to them. As that's
| currently not possible, corporations try to mechanize
| humans: give them a rigorous set of rules to follow and a
| machine to watch and punish them should they break the
| rules.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| > No, talking in a car has no measurable impact on safety.
|
| It measurably impacts my own ability to concentrate, I have
| noticed. We should dispense with such absolutist claims;
| there is no doubt that any action not directly related to
| driving a car has potential to impact safe operation of
| that vehicle.
|
| The function of the law is to discover and enforce
| tolerances, balancing freedom with safety. We don't have to
| ignore even minimal safety implications in order to secure
| freedom, an honest conversation is better for both sides.
|
| It is definitely inhumane to expect drivers to not move
| their lips or talk while working in solitude for 8-10 hours
| a day. Instead, we need to design our various systems such
| that they are capable of withstanding such a tolerance
| without severely impacting safety.
| thuuuomas wrote:
| How did you measure your ability to concentrate?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I have ADHD and simply engaging in a conversation while
| driving is enough for me to miss turns, exits, etc. Sure,
| in the event of an impending crash I might go into the
| zone and avoid danger, but my general awareness is
| noticeably impacted.
|
| It seems to be less so for people without ADHD in my
| experience, but we can't just say it has zero effect.
| It's better to discuss the threat to safety in terms of
| potential, since that accounts for individual variance.
| gensym wrote:
| > No, talking in a car has no measurable impact on safety.
| And talking on the phone is obviously even safer than
| talking to other people physically in the car, since you
| don't need to take your eyes off the road or tour hands off
| the wheel like you would be tempted to when talking to
| another person in the car.
|
| Curious why you state that so confidently when every study
| I'm aware of has found the opposite.
|
| (e.g., https://www.nsc.org/getmedia/2ea8fe8b-d7b7-4194-8ea5
| -306d30a...)
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Even if that's "really" their objective, management could be
| fine with the risk of punishing drivers who struggle to comply
| with this for unrelated reasons. There's no reason to think
| they will seek fairness if the result achieves what they want
| well enough.
|
| The point of the article is the bluntness of the tool, not that
| they are trying to reduce dangerously distracting phone calls,
| and understanding the true objective doesn't undo that.
| gopher_space wrote:
| Hard to tell with Amazon. None of their logistics devs have
| labor experience or are interested in life on the shop floor so
| there's a weird disconnect between their systems and the actual
| work people are engaged with.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I had a USPS mailman with a walking route that used a handsfree
| headset to work a 2nd job. Not sure what he was selling, but I
| overheard him close a deal while he had me sign for a package.
| It never seemed to affect his productivity, and I definitely
| respect the hustle.
| greiskul wrote:
| Yeah, if he is walking, who cares. But if he is driving
| distracted and runs over someone, it becomes a lot harder to
| respect the hustle.
| dgfitz wrote:
| What does manslaughter have to do with hustle? Or are you
| just trying to point out that you disapprove of talking in
| the car on a hands-free device?
| Terr_ wrote:
| Huh? I think their meaning was pretty clear, but here's
| an artisanally-decompressed paraphrasing:
|
| _________
|
| If the delivery-person is walking, the potential impact
| of being distracted by their phone conversation is
| negligible. In that case, I sympathize and respect their
| efforts to conduct two jobs at once.
|
| However the situation is very different when operating a
| delivery vehicle, where errors have a greater impact. In
| that context, their multi-tasking is no longer something
| to respect, but instead recklessness that should be
| condemned.
|
| This is especially true if it leads to the death of a
| pedestrian, which might be a serious crime known as
| manslaughter.
| ratg13 wrote:
| There's only a handful of places where headsets are
| considered a distraction.
|
| A few US states, Singapore, Japan, UAE, South Africa ..
| some AUS states.
|
| Pretty much everywhere else in the world, this is
| considered "normal behavior"
| Terr_ wrote:
| So? That's an _ad populum_ fallacy. Remember when plenty
| of places thought smoking cigarettes everywhere was
| normal?
|
| In addition, laws often contain compromises for
| feasibility. I expect many jurisdictions permit hands-
| free conversations partly because it's difficult to
| prohibit them.
|
| If you want to argue that phone-conversations while
| driving _are safe_ compared to quiet driving, you should
| be pointing to experiments rather than popular belief.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Surely everyone is aware that driving while speaking on
| the phone is distracting. My partner occasionally tries
| to have an inane conversation about nothing while driving
| and I always cut it short.
|
| I think that the main problem is if they were in the car
| with you then they'd be able to modulate the conversation
| in line with parts of the drive which are more or less
| demanding. It's much harder to do this successfully on
| the phone.
| gamepsys wrote:
| Nothing about operating a vehicle is safe. I think it's
| unfair to judge someone morally for doing an activity
| that is common practice.
| twojacobtwo wrote:
| Does what's considered normal matter for safety? Shouldnt
| it be based on what the science says?
| aguaviva wrote:
| Which obviously has nothing to do with the issue of people
| talking over headsets (and inevitably diddling their devices
| on occasion) while driving a large and less than nimble
| vehicle at high speeds.
| banannaise wrote:
| Do they think that having to carefully monitor the movement of
| your mouth might also distract someone who is trying to drive?
|
| Or did they not think about that at all because this is somewhere
| between lip service (heh) to driver safety and an abuse tactic?
| chankstein38 wrote:
| This is where my mind was too. On top of that, what is people's
| response when they're feeling tired on a road trip? Turn up the
| radio on something fun and sing along to get your energy levels
| back up. Chew gum to keep their mouths busy. Deep breathing?
|
| Sure they could pull over on a road trip but when you're
| working for Amazon the company known for piss bottles... The
| option is to, I guess, fall asleep at the wheel?
| egypturnash wrote:
| Jesus this is some horrible panopticon shit. I hope everyone
| involved in building the system to _do_ this feels horrible about
| it being used this way.
|
| Really gotta remember to check back in this thread and see if
| there's any new accounts claiming to be someone involved in this
| and talking about how they got to the point where this feels like
| a sensible business decision.
| poikroequ wrote:
| The sad truth is, most people simply don't care about anything
| that doesn't affect them. Yes, there are people who do care,
| like many of us here on Hacker News, but we are very much in
| the minority. And even among those who do care, very few are
| really willing to do anything about it, far from enough to
| bring about any meaningful change.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Stop working for and stop buying from this company
|
| unionize, boycott, strike
| bogantech wrote:
| Unfortunately they won't, people want their cheap crap right
| now no matter how much suffering it causes for the
| underprivileged.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| Agreed. People used to be fine with slavery, they're not
| going to cancel a useful service over poor working
| conditions.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I tend to try and buy direct from electronics sellers but a
| large number of them sell through amazon.
|
| Which is funny because one step I've had to adopt to avoid
| fraud is going to the manufacturer's website to find where to
| buy the item. I can't trust the amazon listing that comes up
| on a search.
|
| It's less about wanting cheap crap now and more about amazon
| having a huge market presence that makes avoiding them
| difficult.
| mucle6 wrote:
| If they're working there, they believe its their best option.
|
| If you're successful at causing amazon to crumble and they
| lose their job, would you really feel good?
|
| Imagine telling them they don't have job anymore because you
| know better than them whats good for them
| another-dave wrote:
| > If you're successful at causing amazon to crumble and
| they lose their job, would you really feel good?
|
| This feels like a bit of a straw man -- if Amazon start
| losing potential sales because people don't like how
| they're treating their workers, they'll fix their workers
| rights before they let the company crumble out of spite.
|
| Customer pressure is a real lever in these scenarios.
| worik wrote:
| > If they're working there, they believe its their best
| option
|
| Choice. Not having it makes you a victim.
|
| We should not blame victims
|
| > amazon to crumble and they lose their job, would you
| really feel good?
|
| That is a false dichotomy
|
| Amazon crowds out alternatives
| Larrikin wrote:
| It's actually surprisingly easy to convince friends and
| family to cancel Prime or atleast comparison shop. Everyone
| has gotten some cheap crap from China they never would have
| bought if they could have seen it in real life and had to
| suffer with it or go through an increasingly annoying return
| process. Prime shipping is no longer two days, just a when
| they feel like getting it to you. Ask them why do you always
| give your money to a company that gives you crap?
|
| Prices on things you'd actually want to buy, well known
| quality brand, are often the same price else where. With
| unknown brands you're usually better off paying more else
| where to make sure you get something that someone somewhere
| in the company decided wasn't totally terrible and worth
| selling instead of AliExpress drop seller garbage.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It's because individual consumer choice is a really bad way
| to get companies to change their behavior.
|
| Thousands of people have stopped buying anything from Amazon,
| and the only change in the world is that those people don't
| get the convenience that Amazon provides; Amazon is still
| doing all the same things.
|
| As an individual, your only two choices are: shop at Amazon
| and get the benefits and Amazon still exists exactly as it
| does today, or don't shop at Amazon, don't get the benefits,
| and Amazon still exists exactly as it does today. The only
| person that suffers if I stop shopping at Amazon is me, it
| doesn't make one persons life better.
|
| This is a Collective Action Problem, and it can't be fixed by
| consumer choice.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I agree but I also think it's even worse than you explained
| because it's always the bottom tier that gets squeezed the
| most. So if Amazon was, by some miracle, to get financially
| hit by people shopping elsewhere, those delivery drivers
| would still see the blunt end of further cost savings.
| TZubiri wrote:
| It's ok and normal to be a hypocrite, why deny something so
| natural at the expense of jumbling your mind up in a
| spaggheti of excuses.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Why have boycotts worked in the past then?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| There haven't been many successful boycotts in the past.
| Despite decades of BDS campaigning Israel is still around
| (and so are Sodastream, Coca Cola and a host of other
| companies targeted by BDS). The only one I can recall of
| having worked was the Shell boycott [1], but that one was
| easy to pull off as there is _healthy_ competition in the
| gas sector whereas there is barely any in convenient
| online shipping.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Ironically the only reason there is healthy competition
| to Shell was because the government stepped in to break
| up Standard Oil, who had a monopoly up to that point.
|
| I know this is an unpopular opinion on HN but it always
| comes back to governments being the ones who need to
| regulate industry because literally nobody else has both
| the incentives and the power to enact that kind of
| change. You either have industry self regulate, but as
| we've seen, the incentives just isn't there for them to
| behave. Or the customers boycotting a business, and has
| been discussed already, customers can't agree on a
| collective action large enough to make any difference at
| all.
| cortesoft wrote:
| A boycott is different than just a general call to not
| patronize a business.
|
| If a boycott is organized and specific, with an
| obtainable demand, it can work. A general "we don't like
| Amazon's business practice so don't shop there" won't
| work, but a "everyone in our 2 million member group won't
| shop there until you grant workers X benefit, and we will
| also boycott any partner company until it happens" has an
| actual chance of success, since there is a specific thing
| for Amazon to base a choice on (is the cost of the lost
| business more than benefit x). If I just don't patronize
| them but don't have a specific demand, Amazon isn't going
| to be put into any sort of position to make a trade off
| decision.
|
| A boycott is never going to put a company out of
| business.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Its on the employees then namely the managers but also the
| ground-level folk to organize. There's a reason companies
| like Amazon go after unions so hard.
|
| But even before that, I feel like there is enough information
| on working at Amazon at this point that anyone with the
| ability to choose between Amazon and another job should pick
| the latter. Worker strikes are just as effective.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Amazon has hidden behind 'contractors' employing 'delivery
| drivers' in order to union bust up until now. However a recent
| court ruling might change things.
|
| https://teamster.org/2024/08/teamsters-win-groundbreaking-jo...
| dopylitty wrote:
| > No matter how badly Amazon treats its workers, we all keep
| shopping there
|
| This doesn't have to be true. I cancelled prime and haven't
| shopped at Amazon in years.
| tombert wrote:
| I suspect most of the people frequent here still use AWS in
| some capacity if nothing else...
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Only because of work.
| Zambyte wrote:
| What does AWS actually offer that is useful that isn't
| provided elsewhere?
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I'm sure there's lots of stuff but you can't really stop
| using AWS unless you stop browsing a pretty large chunk of
| the Internet.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Many of their managed services.
| barryrandall wrote:
| Relief from the IT procurement policy antipattern.
| worik wrote:
| True.
|
| A lot of Internet services are on AWS
|
| But I would not, personally, deal with the royalty of dark
| patterns
| janalsncm wrote:
| Prime is a good service. I don't see why people should have to
| choose between workers being treated well and not having to
| deal with the hell that is shopping at a physical store.
|
| Seriously. Drive to the store. Find parking. Walk to the
| general location where item should be. Item isn't there. Try to
| find a clerk (there are 2 in the whole store). Get item or
| settle for whatever is there. Wait in line. Self checkout (we
| were told this would reduce wait time). Pay more because store
| is more expensive. Drive home. The whole thing took an hour of
| your time and you didn't even get the exact thing you wanted.
| Also, good luck if you have kids or are busy or don't have a
| car or are disabled.
|
| The solution is labor laws. Voting with your wallet. Doesn't.
| Work. It has never worked. Voting with your wallet is the
| solution companies want you to try because they know actual
| regulation would actually work.
| devsda wrote:
| "the hell that is shopping at a physical store"
|
| Someone may say similar words about shopping at Amazon and
| they wouldn't be wrong.
|
| "the hell that is shopping at Amazon's counterfeit infested
| online store"
| rnd0 wrote:
| I'm actually making a point of shopping brick and mortar
| these days for that exact reason. It's gotten to the point
| where I'm not able to tell what's real and what's a scam on
| there so it's not worth the risk -at all.
| janalsncm wrote:
| That's fine, you don't have to prefer Amazon. Some people
| do, but that's beside point, which is that workers should
| have rights to protect them, and voting with your wallet
| isn't an effective way to get there.
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| Ironically I detest online shopping and opt for brick and
| mortar when possible.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Pull in to the store that I'm passing on my way home anyway,
| get an item that I can be pretty sure is not counterfeit or
| broken, have it immediately not in a day or two or next week,
| it's not all bad.
|
| Yes I sometimes shop online but these days I try to go direct
| to the manufacturer's own web store, or I'll buy it on a
| product-niche site such as bhphoto.com that isn't chock full
| of anonymous sellers hawking made-in-china garbage.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > anonymous sellers hawking made-in-china garbage
|
| I know this is a common complaint, but I haven't
| experienced it personally. A lot of the things I get on
| Amazon are name-brand items I would've bought in a store
| anyways (e.g. paper towels or mouthwash).
| justin_oaks wrote:
| It's time to advertise ventriloquism lessons to Amazon drivers.
|
| Or the drivers could protest by wearing masks over their mouths.
| tantalor wrote:
| Well, if you want to sing out, sing out And if you want to
| be free, be free 'Cause there's a million things to be
| You know that there are
| zingababba wrote:
| Good I don't want my driver to move their lips.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I don't really care what the person delivering my package does.
| As long as it comes in one piece and have not been violently
| shaken, crushed or kicked around.
| zingababba wrote:
| I specifically don't want them to move their lips so I
| support this.
| zooq_ai wrote:
| This has nothing to do with singing, but everything to do with
| actual distracted driving detection (just like we have in Tesla
| or Comma ai)
|
| But, then it won't make a clickbait article targeted for gullible
| redditors/tiktokers and apparently now HNers
| 42lux wrote:
| If your system requires people to adhere to specific movement
| patterns for it to function effectively, it suggests that your
| system is flawed. This requirement only adds to the mental
| burden placed on your drivers, which contradicts your stated
| goal of simplifying their experience. But let's be honest: it
| seems the real objective is to shift blame onto employees in
| the event of an accident.
| zooq_ai wrote:
| People have no clue about the actual system and all your
| information is based on a reddit post. So, yeah the click-
| bait propaganda site did it's job
| 42lux wrote:
| Mate you said it's probably the same as tesla and comma so
| I was going with your suggestion for my comment. So what is
| it?
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _People have no clue about the actual system and all your
| information is based on a reddit post_
|
| Could you enlighten us with your knowledge of the actual
| system, and clarify what your information is based on?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| What part of moving your mouth leads to distracted driving?
| Talking with other people, especially on the phone, is not in
| any way a significant cause of distraction.
| slashdave wrote:
| But... you're here. I guess you are just as gullible as the
| rest of us poor slobs.
| delichon wrote:
| > No matter how badly Amazon treats its workers, we all keep
| shopping there.
|
| Because they keep working there. So the workers think the
| conditions are worth it in exchange for their paycheck. If I
| disagree and shop elsewhere I'm effectively disagreeing with the
| workers and telling them I think they are making a bad deal and I
| don't want to contribute to their livelihood. But I don't
| actually know that they can make a better deal elsewhere.
|
| Before I move my purchase to Newegg or whatever should I first
| make sure that their working conditions are better? Or just judge
| by how often I see each company mentioned in the media?
|
| I think that the voluntary nature of employment is a sufficient
| circuit breaker. If it gets bad enough we can and do leave for
| better opportunities elsewhere. It wouldn't be the first, second
| or third time for me, and that includes minimum wage jobs. So I
| don't feel the duty to investigate the working conditions of each
| business I deal with.
| thelastparadise wrote:
| We can all do better.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Slave work was also voluntary in a sense, it's just that the
| alternative was your masters torturing and killing you.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Still is that way. You can refuse, but you will find yourself
| in nice tiny room with no distractions...
| mucle6 wrote:
| Everyone else in this thread frustrates me, but I understand
| it. Compassion is ingrained in us, while free market economics
| is not.
|
| Nobody here is really thinking through what happens if they are
| successful at boycotting and destroying Amazon. What would they
| say to these people they're supposedly helping?
|
| "I got you laid off! You don't have to work here anymore!
| You're free! Maybe you can't feed your family now but at least
| you can move your lips while you drive!"
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| This is silly, because you are imagining that Amazon could
| disappear with no other change in society.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Success in a boycott is not necessarily destroying Amazon.
| _Success_ is making this decision cause enough financial pain
| to Amazon that they reverse it, and the next time some
| Frederick Taylor wannabe proposes something terrible along
| the same lines, everyone else reminds him of how much it hurt
| when they tried to stop the delivery drivers from singing
| along to music. _Success_ is this weakening Amazon enough for
| their low-wage workers to unionize and demand representation
| on the board of directors and a bigger share of the profits.
| mucle6 wrote:
| If the workers want better conditions they can leave. If
| all options are below what we would consider moral then we
| should change laws. The solution to a problem in a free
| market is not inside of one company.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| We can do that too. This is not a sophie's choice.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Why does change have to come through workers leaving
| Amazon? Why can't it change via the workers _negotiating_
| with Amazon leadership?
|
| It sounds like you assume that corporations are immutable
| things, whose contracts and policies may never be
| changed. But we are having this conversation _because_
| Amazon's policies changed, and the workers it affects are
| complaining. Why isn't "Amazon rescinds this policy
| change" a solution to this problem?
| mucle6 wrote:
| Why does there need to be change if both parties consent
| tway_GdBRwW wrote:
| I agree that boycotting Amazon is not the answer, but
| government action might be. And government action only
| happens if the politicians think enough of their constituency
| thinks something is a problem.
| jen20 wrote:
| > If I disagree and shop elsewhere I'm effectively disagreeing
| with the workers and telling them I think they are making a bad
| deal and I don't want to contribute to their livelihood.
|
| The fact that you can't order a product with any certainty that
| what you get won't be co-mingled fake trash from a third party
| is the best reason to stop ordering from them tbh.
| zamadatix wrote:
| This is just a rehash of what their source
| https://www.freightwaves.com/news/should-truckers-be-allowed...
| reports which is, itself, almost entirely a rehash of social
| media commentary on the sourced Reddit post
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonDSPDrivers/comments/1f2y2cp/t...
|
| Just reading the original quoted mid article without the extra
| commentary it's clear the story is unrelated to listening to the
| radio in itself and to do with the camera mechanism monitoring
| for other forms of distracted driving not being able to tell the
| difference:
|
| > we were told that "a lot of mouth movement will set off the
| camera" and that we "needed to keep mouth movement to a minimum".
|
| Still a shitty system by all counts... but a lot easier to talk
| about it directly than via rehashes.
| thih9 wrote:
| Laws agains this kind of workplace environments seem best long
| term.
|
| Still, with the source being one "we were told" I guess we're
| not sure if this is this official; this could be a manager's
| threat or someone's inaccurate understanding of what the camera
| is actually monitoring.
|
| Ventriloquism, face masks or humming in the meantime then. Or
| quitting, like the author of the linked post - perhaps best for
| now.
| refulgentis wrote:
| > Still, with the source being one "we were told"
|
| This is not true.
|
| It makes me very itchy to see 2 comments in a row using
| innuendo and deconstructing sourcing in an erroneous way.
| rexer wrote:
| How do you find those comments erroneous?
| refulgentis wrote:
| Here, there is not one source saying "we were told"
|
| The other handwaves about "rehashing" to wave away
| Freight Waves, while linking to comments on Reddit. You
| imply there's only one comment that says "we were told"
|
| The other also implies the claim is they cannot listen to
| the radio.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I commented it elsewhere but it can be tough to balance
| general laws like that. E.g. right now, if an employer is
| aware people wear face masks so they can chat on the phone
| while they drive then the current set of laws allows a lot of
| liability to be placed on the employer when such accidents
| occur due to not taking safety seriously enough. Putting a
| general rule that an employer can't do this sort of thing
| then runs the risk of employers saying all sorts of things
| were for the workplace environment compliance, not safety
| negligence on their part. Putting specific rule exceptions
| instead becomes daunting to define, keep updated, and
| understand (for employees as much as employers).
|
| I'm not saying some of this kind of thing can't be better
| served by some different laws, just it's probably not as easy
| to solve with a "quick" law or these other approaches as it
| might seem.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Rehashing, in this case, seems to mean communicating.
|
| This isn't a random aggregator, Freight Waves is a well-known
| industry specific site.
|
| A world where this wasn't rehashed by Freight Waves is a world
| where you have to read every Reddit board to gain knowledge.
|
| > unrelated to listening to the radio in itself
|
| None of the links you mention, nor any comment or headline,
| includes the word listening.
|
| I don't see how any of the headlines, on HN, Freight Waves, or
| Reddit, or content, on HN, Freight Waves, or Reddit, could be
| read as related to listening.
|
| > but a lot easier to talk about it directly than via rehashes.
|
| What does this mean, exactly?
|
| EDIT: Can't reply due to HN timeout, maybe the HN link was
| originally to Jalopnik saying they can't listen to the radio,
| and it's cached in your browser? On my end, it's always been a
| link to Freight Waves with the headline "Amazon bans its
| drivers from moving their own lips...(something something,
| can't see, I'm on mobile)"
| zamadatix wrote:
| All of this completely ignores that the current source is
| Jalopnik so I'm not sure if I should take that as you
| agreeing there but just not in the second case. I will say
| Freight Waves is at least a better source than Jalopnik for
| this, they attempt some actual direct reporting instead of
| talking about things like "That's an opinion shared by many
| Freight Waves readers".
|
| To be clear, I'm not saying the sites themselves are useless
| or not - just the wrong thing to post as a source for
| discussion here. From the HN guidelines: "Please submit the
| original source. If a post reports on something found on
| another site, submit the latter". Freight Waves would
| probably be acceptable enough for that, Jalopnik is pretty
| poor in this particular case.
|
| > None of the links you mention, nor any comment or headline
| I see, mentions listening.
|
| Apologies, that is a slip on my part - meant singing along to
| the radio. A great example of why you should look at the
| original instead of commentary :p.
|
| > What does this mean, exactly?
|
| When you talk about what an article which talks about what
| another article talks about what people talk about what
| someone said it becomes a lot less clear than staging a
| conversation around what was originally said instead.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we changed the URL to that from
| https://jalopnik.com/amazon-bans-its-drivers-from-moving-
| the.... Thanks!
|
| Submitters: " _Please submit the original source. If a post
| reports on something found on another site, submit the latter._
| " - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Just wear a mask and talk
| jorblumesea wrote:
| How dystopian.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| > According to Reddit users that Freight Waves cited, Amazon has
| begun monitoring mouth movements on its drivers through a camera
| in the cab of its delivery fans.
|
| This kind of allegation really calls for a better source than
| "Reddit users are saying". I'm not saying it _can 't_ be true,
| but there's any number of ways that an anonymous commenter's
| report of what an unspecified person said in their morning
| briefing could give a false or misleading impression of Amazon
| policies.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I notice when I get a taxi often the drivers seem to be
| constantly talking to someone on the phone, like they have long
| running low intensity conversations going for long periods of
| time.
| matwood wrote:
| Yes! I wondered if I was the only one thinking that. I'm often
| confused if they are on the phone or not.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| >> I'm often confused if they are on the phone or not.
|
| Yeah cause there's long pauses I guess.
|
| I get the impression they're talking to their wives.
|
| Maybe just talking to family/buddies.
|
| Perhaps these long running low intensity conversations are
| what Amazon wants to stamp out.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Probably talking to friends/family that drive taxi as well.
| Just passing time while driving around town.
| worik wrote:
| "No matter how badly Amazon treats its workers, we all keep
| shopping there"
|
| Who is "we"?
|
| Not me.
| icepat wrote:
| Nor I, I actually live in a country where Amazon mostly does
| not work. It's how most, if not all major publications talk
| about Amazon. I see it as part of a narrative of "oh no,
| anyway", and an attempt to ensure apathy to the whole
| situation. It's absolutely not an attempt to get us to think
| critically about how, and from where we consume. If the
| narrative that Amazon is abusive to their staff, _but we're not
| going to do anything about it_ like we are told, then we won't
| think further into other major problems in our western supply
| chain.
| Terretta wrote:
| We all love data-driven decision making... until we don't.
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| I don't recall ever doing so.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I worked with a hospital at risk of de-acreditization. They had
| worse outcomes than the other hospitals around them (people
| were way too likely to get infections at the hospital, die,
| etc). Turns out they had more gut knife wounds than any other
| hospital. All data driven decision making shutting them down
| would have done was make the next nearest hospital the one with
| worse outcomes, and so on, and so on.
|
| Plus I'm guessing the best data driven safety change would be a
| reduction of package delivery load if Amazon is really doing
| data driven safety changes.
| jmward01 wrote:
| I had a discussion with someone recently about how tech is
| enabling enforcement of laws/policies/etc at a scale never before
| possible and how that is a bad thing. The problem is that people
| can't conform perfectly and the tighter we force people to
| conform the more likely they are to 'break' and disconnect from
| society. Basically, if 'acceptable' is so narrowly defined that
| you can't achieve it 100% of the time, why try even a little to
| conform? In companies there is somewhat of an off-ramp, quit
| (which isn't always a realistic option obviously), but these
| enforcement abilities are invading areas that we can't avoid and
| that is a real problem.
| izacus wrote:
| Happines in society lives in the slack - that is, having rules,
| but not having them too tightly enforced and with a lot of
| leeway and context.
|
| The modern mindset prevents that - it's beaurocratic, rigid and
| extremely oppressive. Technology just helps with that, but if
| you look at even posts online you'll see that it's the mindset
| that DEMANDS punishment for any rule breaking no matter how
| small and how stupid it is.
| morkalork wrote:
| It's like rolling stops at stop signs, a majority of people
| do it, it's socially accepted! Could we use technology to
| prevent it? Yes. Should we? I'd hope not.
| jjk7 wrote:
| Automated speed enforcement cameras make me want to don a
| mask and sneak out at night with a drill and a can of spray
| foam.
| gretch wrote:
| Why wouldn't you direct this same sense of vigilante
| justice toward people who speed excessively and hurt
| other people?
|
| Speeding does happen and it does kill people - https://cr
| ashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/...
|
| Just to be clear, I don't like red light cameras either,
| but if you are gonna put on a mask and fuck some shit up,
| why don't you wait outside of a bar and wait for drunk
| drivers?
| grayhatter wrote:
| > but if you are gonna put on a mask and fuck some shit
| up, why don't you wait outside of a bar and wait for
| drunk drivers?
|
| because one is damaging equipment that shouldn't exist,
| and the other involves ambushing a person on baseless
| suspicion. Presumably by force, given we're trying to
| fuck some shit up...
|
| I'm going to pretend to ignore the whataboutism
| distraction
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Try this on as a thought experiment: stopping drunk
| driving (including via physical force) is community self
| defense. Someone choosing to drive while intoxicated is
| an assault against everyone else in the area, and it is
| morally acceptable to use various means, including
| violence, to prevent that behavior.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I take a different attitude about speeding.
|
| I don't think it's speeding itself that causes crashes,
| but aggressive driving, and speed merely exacerbates
| aggressive driving. It is possible to speed without being
| aggressive, and in those scenarios, I don't consider
| speed to be a significant risk.
|
| The German Autobahn have HALF the driver fatality rate as
| USA highways despite have wide sections with no speed
| limits.
|
| Speed is fine. Keep right except when passing and you
| won't force faster drivers to constantly change lanes to
| get around you.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| Not giving ideas but a paintball gun works wonders.
| falcolas wrote:
| A portable bandsaw, and discovered by the Brits (they're
| covertly fighting back against some pretty invasive
| automated monitoring), also makes short work of metal
| poles.
| yowzadave wrote:
| Alternatively, you could just drive slower
| blactuary wrote:
| Driving is the most dangerous thing we all do on a
| regular basis. You do not own the roads, you are not the
| center of the universe. Drive safely and try giving a
| crap about other people.
| gretch wrote:
| Well yeah, it'd be extremely myopic to invent technology to
| solve this intermediary problem of rolling stops, rather
| than addressing the outcome via technology which we do all
| the time.
|
| In addition to standard car safety features, there are cars
| that will engage breaks automatically if they detect
| imminent and unavoidable collision.
|
| Also we have technology like traffic lights and red light
| cameras if stop signs are not good enough for the scale.
|
| In the case of this Amazon thing, what I hope is that the
| inefficiency of it strangles itself to death. For example,
| if I tried to start a restaurant and I decided that the
| people working in the kitchen had to keep their mouth
| closed or get fired, then my restaurant would quickly go
| out of business.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I'd argue we should convert almost all stop signs with
| YIELD signs. Locations that actually require a STOP should
| probably be enforced.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I find whole concept of 4-way stop extremely weird.
| Either you have yield sign or you have equal crossing.
| STOP signs are only used in cases where there is a
| reason, like poor visibility or greatly different speeds.
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| Do you know how many times I've almost been hit by a car
| doing a rolling stop while running? We should absolutely
| use technology to prevent this.
|
| I'm honestly not convinced by this line of reasoning at
| all. Most laws exist for a reason and should be followed.
| Or if they're bad laws, they should be changed.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| The pressure on the law to break it -- compared to stop
| lights, where almost no one does -- does reveal that
| there is something bad about the law. The positive
| effects are:
|
| - encourage turn taking
|
| - help pedestrians in the 1% of urban areas where there
| actually are any
|
| - bright line rule that's easy for police to enforce
|
| - keep people from getting complacent about cross traffic
|
| The negative effects are
|
| - a complete stop takes more time than is needed to
| ensure the intersection is clear, which is a constant
| daily time drain and a reminder that you are following
| the rule because others will punish you and not because
| it's a good idea.
|
| Being lax on the rolling stops and just doing enforcement
| around those busy areas and high-speed stop sign ignorers
| seems like a nice equilibrium to keep the good effects
| and minimize the bad ones. Maybe nicer than we could
| achieve by letting the kind of people who participate in
| politics revisit the issue.
|
| Do you live in an urban area so dense that you can't wait
| for cars to clear the intersection before you run out in
| front?
| limit499karma wrote:
| > .. a reminder that you are following the rule because
| others will punish you and not because it's a good idea.
|
| It's a bad idea according to you. Do you have actual data
| that proves rolling stop provides sufficient utility that
| a stop sign is supposed to provide?
|
| There does not exist a single society today or in history
| where every single member of the said society agrees with
| every single rule governing them. If you are only
| prevented from following your society's various rules
| because of 'fear of punishment' then you sir are a
| frustrated anti-social. It's not supposed to be because
| of "fear".
|
| > time drain
|
| Ridiculous. Traffic safety is more important that your
| illusory 'loss' of whatever handful of minutes per day.
| blactuary wrote:
| What? Your time is not more important than my life.
| Pedestrian deaths are rapidly thanks to this kind of
| mentality.
| undersuit wrote:
| Should we use technology to prevent it? YES
|
| Why do people roll through stop signs? Complaints about
| acceleration and uselessness.
|
| I easily see two fixes for acceleration. Make stopping and
| starting less jarring on occupants and reduce the need for
| the driver to switch from gas to brake pedals.
|
| Uselessness can be resolved by a number of ways, make the
| area around the stop more open for better visibility, but
| we can definitely use technology to prevent people from
| rolling through stop signs. Set up sensors so that only one
| roadway has an active stop sign, when the sensors detect a
| single vehicle the stop sign on their way can be disabled.
| When the sensors detect intersecting vehicles both stop
| signs are activated.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Traffic circles work wonders for these behaviors.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| It's hard to drive in the US without rolling at stop sign
| because they are everywhere. EU and the rest of the world
| use two different signs: yield and stop. Yield tells that
| you need to give way but can go without stopping if it is
| safe and stop tells you must stop (used rarely, mostly in
| places with poor view).
|
| IMHO yield sign is a better solution then lax enforcement
| of stop signs. And all-way stop can be replaced by
| roundabouts and mini roundabouts (I'm not a fan of high
| traffic multi-lane roundabouts but in places with low
| traffic, where all-way stops usually are used they work
| great).
| blactuary wrote:
| It's actually incredibly easy. There's a pedal called the
| brake, you apply pressure to it until your car comes to a
| complete stop.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I'm not convinced that coming to a complete stop is any
| safer than just slowing to 2-3 mph before continuing.
|
| The real danger is from proceeding without looking
| around, but there's no way to enforce looking around.
| Coming to a complete stop doesn't change it. Someone
| who's going to proceed without giving proper attention is
| going to do so whether or not they come to a complete
| stop.
| itake wrote:
| "slack" is the breeding ground for discrimination. Some
| races, genders, etc. will give more or less slack to each
| other.
|
| immutable rules that apply to everyone reduces that
| discrimination (but obviously, the rules themselves can also
| be discriminatory)
| rythmshifter wrote:
| Immutable rules can't be perfect and are always at risk of
| being weaponized by whoever is in power at the time.
| efitz wrote:
| Yep, we've had great luck with zero-tolerance laws. Why do
| we even need judges or juries; the law is the law and if
| you step one millimeter over the line, straight to jail.
|
| https://www.vox.com/2015/2/24/8101289/school-discipline-
| race
| itake wrote:
| > Black students are three times more likely to be
| suspended or expelled than white students
|
| Are Black 3x more likely to break to rules or do white
| students get 3x more slack?
| banannaise wrote:
| You are correct, but we would have to dramatically decrease
| the number of rules, which would be great but appears to be
| a non-starter with just about everyone who has a say.
|
| You would have to dispense with a lot of rules that seem
| like obviously good things because of the unintended
| consequences.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Slack and ironically strict enforcement are both abused
| like crazy by managers to manipulate/hit on female
| employees in low wage jobs.
| danaris wrote:
| Unfortunately, I think that uncompromising, inflexible
| rules are ultimately not a sustainable solution to that
| problem, either. Even when you're _actively trying_ not to
| be discriminatory when writing such rules, you 're nearly
| guaranteed to either make them so broad that they catch
| people who are genuinely doing nothing wrong or so narrow
| as to fail to catch a _lot_ of obviously bad cases.
|
| No; the long-term solution, hard as it is, is to gradually
| push society toward a point where that sort of systemic
| discrimination is viewed near-universally as anathema to
| justice and to the health of the society as a whole, and
| make more rules of the type where a clear principle is
| outlined, a rule is stated with the principle as its
| foundation, and the people identifying and enforcing rule
| violations are assumed to be able to use reasonable human
| judgement.
| swayvil wrote:
| The slack to do bad stuff is also the slack to do good
| stuff. They are one and the same.
|
| We could replace the term slack with freedom. We all like
| freedom. We write songs about how much we like it.
| drekipus wrote:
| Freedom gives freedom for people to fail
|
| We must all be whipped into Utopia.
| izacus wrote:
| Rules won't help you with discrimination. You can't write
| rules that won't be weaponized against you no matter how
| authoritarian you get.
|
| The trick to fixing discrimination is to have people not
| wish to discriminate and exert social pressure on others
| who might try. Trying to box in people who do evil with
| more bureaucracy and tighter and tighter rules is not sane.
|
| Rules can only ever be effective if they reflect the
| culture of a community.
| ben_w wrote:
| My current best guess, for the last decade, is that we will
| have to radically decriminalise things and reduce punishments
| for the remaining crimes.
|
| If you catch every road traffic offence, the only people who
| will still have a licence will be people like me who don't have
| a car.
|
| If the UK tried to fully enforce its drug laws, it would
| bankrupt itself with all the extra prisons it would have to
| build.
|
| Even if the governments of the world don't care to use
| surveillance tech to catch all criminality, blackmailers will
| use it because it's already cheap and getting cheaper, which
| forces the governments to change anyway. (Though perhaps GenAI
| will get good enough fast enough that any image will be assumed
| fake by default).
|
| But I really do mean _radical_ decriminalisation (civil law
| offences are not criminal offences) not merely the
| illustrations of decriminalising hard drugs and reducing the
| penalties for speeding.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Or maybe not - and you just punish the people that don't
| agree with your political stance. It's a bit surprising imho
| to see how people get locked up in UK for 15 months over
| Facebook posts whereas offenses/violations/crimes that may
| justify actual jail time go unpunished. If everyone could get
| punished at any time - governments may be very picky about
| WHOM to punish.
| ben_w wrote:
| Indeed, any government can go down a very dark path very
| easily and very quickly if they let themselves.
|
| If they go down the route of "everyone is guilty, let's
| find out what for when they cause problems for the elite",
| it's often (but not always) followed by rebellion and
| uprising -- I think not usually the people themselves
| (though that can happen) but rather because the elite don't
| necessarily agree with each other and build factions of
| supporters. Even the Stasi fell, despite all their efforts.
|
| When failure can be graceful instead of painful, I think
| that's better. I hope I'm right and that's not just wishful
| thinking.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| They invented the thing from the sci-fi story 'don't invent the
| thing'. In this case the 'don't invent the thing' story is
| Manna.
|
| https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
| jameskilton wrote:
| Justice without mercy is cruelty.
|
| Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution.
|
| - St. Thomas Acquinas
| langcss wrote:
| Reminds me of the "Nosedive" episode of Black Mirror.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Scale and cost are definitely neglected aspects of these
| decisions.
|
| I think this is a huge issue with respect to both enforcement
| of the law as well as surveillance and privacy. Sure, in the
| 1960s, a cop could sit on the side of the road with binoculars
| outside of town and watch for a half dozen blacklisted plate
| numbers associated with known criminal suspects. But today,
| automated license plate readers can do that 24/7/365 on every
| major road into and out of an entire city, tracking millions of
| people with an opex of just a couple kilowatts of compute.
|
| When laws and norms written before computers say that certain
| activities are searches of private information and require
| warrants, while other activities are just observation of public
| information like your face and license plate, that implicitly
| granted a high probability of anonymity and privacy because of
| the cost of that observation and low value of the information
| relative to its cost. In the past couple of decades, those
| observations have become so much cheaper that the information
| can now be worth more than the cost of gathering it.
|
| Amazon employee monitoring has a similar cost: Sure, human
| managers could discipline employees who were less productive;
| if someone has a problem with taking excessively frequent or
| long smoke breaks, lunch breaks, or bathroom breaks eventually
| an attentive manager will notice and talk to them about it, but
| it's not normal to track KPIs to the second. I suppose these
| aren't "key" performance indicators, they're barely relevant
| performance indicators, but when they're cheap to scale Amazon
| can monitor them.
|
| Economics, not regulations, guaranteed your privacy and
| freedom: it was somewhere between irrational and impossible to
| employ an army of human observers to do what computers now do
| cheaply and easily. When that economic landscape changed, we
| should have made those regulations concrete.
| looping__lui wrote:
| Imho more worrisome is that governments can find easy
| justification to lock up or punish everyone "at will"; because
| HAVING data to jail someone doesn't mean the government will
| uniformly ACT on it :-) they can be picky - and will be as we
| are seeing across Europe these days/months/years. Certain laws
| and offenders are rigorously enforced; others not so much...
| izacus wrote:
| Oh yes, we did learn this lesson in eastern Europe, didn't
| we? I guess our friends across the Atlantic will need to
| torture a generation to learn as well.
| mig39 wrote:
| Wear a facemask. For safety. Problem solved.
| datadeft wrote:
| Amazon needs slaves or robots whichever is cheaper.
| millerm wrote:
| Seriously, this is why people need unions. People need to be
| represented so that they don't get fired when trying to fight
| stupid things. If the camera's backend detection system is so bad
| wit distracted driving alerts, then they will just have to
| manually view all videos that are alerted.
|
| If everyone banded together tomorrow and didn't show up for work
| for 1 day, these problems would be solved. But, again, you can't
| even attempt such things as you'd be fired on the spot.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I'm reminded that:
|
| > The life of the American worker is inherently undignified [0]
|
| Also, if you Google "Hacker News Undignified" you will find a
| bunch of posts related to work, even though there is nothing in
| the query that is inherently related to work.
|
| I don't know the first thing about making documentaries, but a
| documentary simply titled "Undignified" that covers the bullshit
| workers have to go through would hit hard I think. Just give
| voice and documentation to the extra burdens so many workers have
| to endure; can you go to the bathroom when you need to? If you
| have a stationary job, can you sit? Or do you have to stand for 8
| hours straight? Can you sing to the radio, or will a computer
| algorithm punish you for it? Etc. All of these burdens are
| optional, our society could accomplish its work without these
| hardships, but we choose not to. The delivery driver can both
| deliver packages and use a restroom, and a grocery store checker
| can scan items while sitting on a stool.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36264363 and
| https://dirt.fyi/article/2023/06/bad-waitress
| crmd wrote:
| A workers union would never allow this. For example the ALPA in
| the United States where I live has strict rules about when the
| cockpit voice recorder can even be accessed and by whom. Even
| after an accident it's virtually never released - only the radio
| traffic.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Amazon has used layers of 'delivery contractors' who 'employ'
| the delivery drivers to bust any unionizing. Recently it was
| ruled that Amazon is a co-employer so they won't be able to
| continue that tactic going forward. Amazon is a horrible
| company.
|
| https://teamster.org/2024/08/teamsters-win-groundbreaking-jo...
| spankalee wrote:
| I really dislike Amazon and already don't shop there, but am I
| the only one who can at least consider the idea that this isn't
| necessarily unreasonable?
|
| Driving is dangerous, period. I don't think we'd object as much
| to Amazon trying to make sure that drivers don't text and drive.
| Talking and driving isn't _as_ distracting, but it is at least
| somewhat distracting. I 've definitely seen cab drivers chatting
| away, driving aggressive, and missing little cues that could have
| easily led to an accident.
|
| Amazon is pretty understandably trying to limit liability and
| disruption here. The drivers are not on personal time in personal
| vehicles. They're on company time in company vehicles, and
| employers almost universally regulate employee behavior to some
| degree or another.
|
| Now, maybe this isn't effective, or a step too far, and they
| should certainly improve their talking detection, but I wouldn't
| personally dismiss the intent and approach out-of-hand. It could
| realistically actually save a life.
|
| edit, to clarify the question I have here: What behavior is
| reasonable for Amazon to monitor and regulate for drivers? Any?
| Something just less than this?
| JohnMakin wrote:
| I kind of agree with the spirit of what you're saying but not
| really - at amazon's scale, even a 1% increase risk of traffic
| accident amongst their massive fleet means a significant number
| at the end of a fiscal year in terms of cost. Then, it seems
| like a good decision and not unreasonable. IMO the
| unreasonableness is that a company like Amazon is allowed to
| scale to a size where this kind of monitoring is deemed
| necessary to the bottom line - a smaller company doesn't really
| care as much about that small increased risk because the effect
| on their bottom line isn't as large compared to the cost of
| implementing controlling measures like this.
| millzlane wrote:
| Aside from their bottom line there is the human element. How
| many other people does the 1% of the increased risk of
| traffic accidents affect? We can say this is for the benefit
| of the company sure, but any company with a large fleet
| trying to reduce traffic accidents regardless of their
| reasoning is a net win for society.
| yojo wrote:
| Talking on your phone while driving (hands free or otherwise)
| is associated with a 4x increase in likelihood of accident.[1]
| Correlation != causation etc, but it seems reasonable to forbid
| talking on the phone while driving a giant delivery van until
| we have concrete evidence that it is safe.
|
| Now, the particular way Amazon is going about enforcing this is
| creepy as hell, and well into the "I'm not comfortable with the
| privacy trade-off" zone for me.
|
| 1:
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199702133360701#t=...
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| And this is why you need GDPR or similar privacy laws.
|
| GDPR is a bit more than just cookie notices. I'm pretty sure that
| this would be a textbook case and if a company tried to continue
| such a program after being told to stop it, they'd have a good
| chance of paying the 4% of global revenue max fine for it.
|
| Labor laws in many countries would also have an opinion on such a
| system.
| fsckboy wrote:
| I would rate myself as an extremely good parallel park-er, switch
| vehicles? no problem. However, I must shut the music off. not
| sure what that says about my brain.
| netule wrote:
| Same, but I can't do a long drive without wailing along to some
| tunes.
| paxys wrote:
| Amazon can somehow successfully (1) control a driver's working
| conditions to the extent that they dictate how much they are
| allowed to move their lips and (2) argue that they aren't
| employees but independent contractors. What a world.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| I can only imagine how this started at Amazon.
|
| Self aggrandizing midwit (middle or upper middle management): "I
| need a project to demonstrate "leaders are right a lot and invent
| & simplify" principle come feedback time."
|
| Self aggrandizing midwit to their team: "Remember we have cameras
| in delivery vans go figure out what else we can do with them"
|
| Shaking in the boots middle manager or IC: "Hey remember the
| drivers occasionally hit the curbs because they don't have time
| to pee, we should look at their faces use our awesome Rekognition
| stack to bang this out"
|
| Midwit: Great I will write a PRFAQ !
|
| IC: Here it it boss, i banged out the PoC without going to the
| bathroom all day!
|
| Midwit: I am glad WE ALL WORKED TO GET THIS OUT.
| OptionOfT wrote:
| Is this about singing or being on the phone (even while on
| headset?)?
|
| And the singing merely gives false positives?
|
| I've been in Ubers where the driver was constantly on the phone.
| While they do it handsfree, actually calling on the phone,
| whether handheld or handsfree, massively increases the risk of an
| accident.
|
| (I've always wondered why handsfree calling is considered safer
| than handheld calling when you drive an automatic).
| seoulmetro wrote:
| This isn't about singing. This is about foreigners talking on the
| phone while driving. It's uncanny but nearly every foreigner I've
| seen doing gig work has their phone to their ear talking in their
| home tongue.
|
| Nothing wrong with that unless they're driving.
|
| 1. It's distracting, truly distracting. 2. It's a possible means
| of working while at work.
|
| It's actually good that Amazon didn't just record the convos and
| reprimand people based on an AI oversight of whether it breaks
| the above rules.
| moltar wrote:
| It's probably not for singing but for talking on the phone. Even
| blue tooth talking definitely distracts.
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