investigation motive
Recently, #BeijingA takeaway rider illegally overtook a car and caused death #Rush on the hot search. Beijing traffic control authorities revealed that a takeaway driver was driving past a car on a section of Xicheng District when he hit a pedestrian crossing the road. After being sent to the hospital, the pedestrian died after being rescued. At the time of the incident, the takeaway driver was speeding and did not drive on the right, which was a number of faults.
In this regard, many netizens left messages saying that in life, traffic violations such as red lights, retrograde, and speeding by takeaway riders have become commonplace, seriously affecting traffic order and requiring urgent rectification. Public reports show that traffic accidents and even deaths caused by takeaway riders due to traffic violations are also common.
The reporter conducted an investigation and interview on why the delivery riders "risked their lives" on the road and how to solve this chaos.
□ Wen Lijuan, reporter of Rule of Law Daily
□ Zheng Ting, Intern of Rule of Law Daily
"Riders often perform life-and-death speed when delivering takeout, and we can’t stop it at all," said Wang Li, a traffic counselor at an intersection in Chaoyang District, Beijing. Every day during the midday and evening rush hours, Wang Li sees many takeout riders "flash by" in front of her eyes, whether it is a red light or a green light; she has also seen many takeout riders have traffic accidents as a result.
Guo Kun, a rider, is one of the "speeding experts". He confessed to the Legal Daily reporter that he had run red lights twice and retrograde three times during a delivery process, and the whole speed exceeded 50km/h many times. "Of course I know it’s not safe, but if you don’t do it, you won’t be able to deliver it on time. If the delivery is overtime, you will be deducted more money than you should earn," he said. "As a rider, who didn’t run a red light and who didn’t exceed the speed?"
With the development of the Internet ordering industry, takeaway food delivery has become more and more convenient for people’s lives, but at the same time, the pursuit of speed has led riders to ignore traffic laws and regulations, and the accident rate has been high. Reporters recently visited multiple intersections in Beijing and found that traffic violations such as red lights, reverse driving, and speeding were prominent, and some riders still had distracted driving behaviors such as looking at their mobile phones and answering phones during driving.
Rider intersection ignores red light
Retrograde speeding is extremely common
At 6 p.m. on July 17, the peak time for takeaway riders to deliver food. At a crossroads connecting shopping malls and many office and residential buildings in Chaoyang District, Beijing, reporters observed that more than 70 riders passed through the intersection within 30 minutes, including 35 who went retrograde, diagonally crossed the road, and ran red lights.
There are many restaurants around the intersection, and dozens of takeaway electric vehicles fill the sidewalk, so pedestrians can only walk along the side of the road. After the riders pick up the order, they ride the electric vehicles directly along the sidewalk and drive into the road.
A few riders looked to the left and saw that the car was still some distance away from them, so they drove onto the sidewalk and rushed to the opposite side of the road, completely ignoring the warning of the red light; when they reached the middle of the road, because there were many vehicles on the right and the speed was fast, the riders stopped, some took out their mobile phones and looked down to check the information, some waited on the head of the electric car, and some kept observing the road conditions. Once there was a "gap", they immediately increased their horsepower and "sprinted" over.
Guo Kun often delivers takeout in this area, with a delivery radius of up to 5 kilometers, and the delivery time of an order varies from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. He told reporters that during the peak delivery period, a rider may have six or seven orders on hand at the same time, and the delivery time is almost overlapping. To avoid timeout, the delivery time of each order can only be compressed as much as possible. The system will provide route navigation for each order, but the delivery time is calculated based on the shortest route, and some of the shortest routes even include retrograde sections. If it is not retrograde and speeding, it is impossible to deliver every order on time.
Once the delivery is timed out, the price is high: a certain percentage of the delivery fee is deducted, sometimes as much as 70%, depending on the timeout. "Everyone earns hard money and has to be fast," Guo Kun said.
Zhang Yi, who works as a security guard in Beijing, will work as a part-time rider during the holidays. "I definitely want to send a few more orders and make more money." He said that the maximum speed of the national standard electric car is only 25 yards. Normally, you can only take 2 to 3 orders at most. If you want to send a few more orders and speed up, you have to take risks to modify the electric car. In order not to time out, you must always keep an eye on the time during the delivery process. Running red lights and going retrograde are inevitable.
Especially on rainy days when it is easiest to "order surge", riders often have to appease anxious customers while rushing. Once, on a rainy day, it took the customer about an hour to place an order before Zhang Yi received the order. After receiving the order, the customer immediately called him and asked why the order had not been delivered for an hour. In fact, the delivery time of riders is calculated from the beginning of receiving the order.
"The road is not easy to walk on rainy days. If the speed of the car exceeds 20 yards, the brakes will easily slip and fall. In addition, the rain will affect the line of sight, so the delivery time will be longer than on sunny days." Zhang Yi said.
Luo Yu, a part-time rider from Guangzhou, Guangdong, faces the same dilemma. He only runs three or four hours a day, concentrating on lunch and dinner, and completes an average of more than a dozen orders a day. He has a system to send orders, and he also grabs orders himself. Although there is a risk of timeout in taking more orders, Luo Yu still hopes to be able to take more orders, because taking more orders means making money. And when he has more orders, running red lights and going retrograde have become commonplace for him.
The number of traffic accidents is on the rise
The rights and interests of both parties are difficult to protect
Riders speeding, going the wrong way, and running red lights have led to an increasing number of traffic accidents.
According to the staff of the traffic accident handling center in Changsha, Hunan Province, a large part of the traffic accidents involve delivery riders. Most of the cases involve running red lights and driving in the opposite direction, especially the phenomenon of looking at mobile phones while riding. In recent years, the traffic accident rate of delivery riders has been on the rise.
Wang Li has seen many riders have accidents due to rampage while on duty, "especially the cross road *** has a high accident rate".
On the evening of August 1, it was raining in the sky. The reporter witnessed a traffic accident in a community in Chaoyang District, Beijing: a takeaway rider wearing a raincoat and a rain hat half-covered his eyes was riding while answering the phone, completely oblivious to the passers-by walking in front. After he reacted, he made a quick turn, and the electric car slipped directly, causing the takeaway in the incubator to fall to the ground.
For riders, compensation is often difficult to achieve in the event of an accident.
Liu Lin, a rider in Beijing, was hit by a car while delivering food and left a 5cm scar on the outside of his arm. "The driver had insurance, and the insurance company asked me to provide proof of income to calculate the missed work fee. My monthly income at that time was about 10,000 yuan, but when I asked the platform for proof of income, the platform said it had nothing to do with them. In the end, the insurance company paid according to the minimum wage standard."
The rights and interests cannot be guaranteed, and there are passers-by who were injured by takeaway riders.
Beijing photographer Wang Pingping was injured by a takeaway rider on the way to work. After the accident, the traffic police determined that the rider was fully responsible for the accident, but the rider could not afford it personally, so they went to the platform company, but the other party brushed off the responsibility. "In order to avoid injury, I can only try to stay away from the’speeding ‘takeaway rider in the future."
A variety of factors contribute to the chaos
The platform algorithm needs to be improved
The reason for "working hard" and seeking fast, many interviewed riders mentioned that on the one hand, they are in order to take more orders and make more money, and on the other hand, they are in order to evaluate the performance of the platform and avoid being punished for overtime.
The reporter learned that most takeaway platforms currently implement piece-rate wages. Riders’ income mainly comes from the commission of "running orders", and the more orders they receive, the more they earn. In addition, the status level of a rider depends on the rider’s "bee value", which is calculated through multiple dimensions such as attendance, order volume, response rate, and praise rate. The higher the "bee value", the more orders will be dispatched. Riders desperately run orders to protect data and compete for "bee value" because it is closely related to income.
Wu Jie is the webmaster of Shandong Tai’an site of a takeaway platform outsourcing distribution company. He told reporters that takeaway platforms are usually only responsible for merchant settlement and merchant order generation, and distribution services are outsourced to various distribution companies, and then local sites under each distribution company provide delivery services.
"The reward and punishment systems of different distribution companies are basically similar, but the calculation rules are different. For example, the average unit price in Shandong is 4 yuan, and the reward and punishment system is relatively loose on this basis. The average unit price in Beijing is 6 yuan to 8 yuan, and the reward and punishment system is more strict. The most important thing in the performance appraisal of riders is the punctuality rate, satisfaction rate, violation rate and attendance rate," Wu Jie said.
Regarding rider rewards, Wu Jie introduced that full-time riders mainly include full attendance award, single king award (the top three orders on this site in the month), total order salary, order ladder award, bad weather subsidy, distance subsidy, weight subsidy, night subsidy, etc.; part-time riders mainly have order fees, various platform activity rewards such as "hand-holding" and "rushing single award", etc. Other subsidies mainly depend on the willingness of merchants. If an order is not received by a rider for a long time, the merchant will increase the unit price.
The reporter learned from Wu Jie that for full-time riders, the delivery fee is fixed at 4 yuan per order. If it exceeds the delivery range by 1 kilometer, the subsidy is 1 yuan, and if it exceeds the delivery range by 2 kilometers, the subsidy is 1.5 yuan. If it is seriously overtime (referring to exceeding the delivery time of the order by more than 30 minutes), a fine of 5 yuan per order will be imposed. For part-time riders, 20% of the delivery fee will be deducted for 3 minutes overtime, and 50% will be deducted for more than 3 minutes overtime.
"Regarding complaints and bad reviews, if a full-time rider encounters such a situation, they can either negotiate with the customer or only accept a fine," Wu Jie said. "The part-time rider will deduct personal credit points according to the situation. When the credit points are insufficient, it is forbidden to take orders. Online training and answering questions are required to restore the authority to take orders. In more serious cases, the number will be permanently banned."
Some riders also pointed out that the platform’s journey algorithm has many unreasonable aspects. For example, the delivery time is calculated based on the distance, and it will not be judged based on the speed of the merchant’s meal, the small size of the meal, and whether there are special circumstances on the road.
Zhang Yi was most afraid of delivering takeout to a community under renovation or a high-end community. Such orders were most likely to be timed out, and vehicles could not enter and could only be delivered on foot. After entering the community, he found that there was no building number or unit number, so he could only keep asking and calling customers. Once, because he couldn’t find the address and couldn’t contact the customer for a while, it took him an extra 20 minutes to deliver the order. At this time, there was not much time left for the next order.
Dong Lai, a traffic law practice expert and director of Beijing Kaiya Law Firm, has long been concerned about the rights and interests of takeaway riders. He summarizes the reasons for the frequent occurrence of riders’ traffic violations. In addition to the riders’ own poor awareness of traffic rules and lack of safety education, platform dispatch models and algorithms are important reasons.
"Some platforms have unreasonable order delivery models and high deduction fees. The monthly income of takeaway riders basically depends on the delivery fee. If you get a delivery fee of about 5 yuan for an order, then if you send 30 orders a day, the rider can earn 150 yuan; but if it expires, the rider will usually be deducted a certain proportion of the delivery fee; if the customer refunds the order, the rider needs to bear the full loss." Dong Lachao said that in addition, some platforms have a single algorithm, and the estimated arrival time is too short, so the rider can only run hard.
"In order to appease users, some platforms even display different arrival times for riders on the user’s mobile phone and those displayed on the rider’s mobile phone. The time on the user’s mobile phone is often 1 minute to 2 minutes earlier, which leads to riders having to run on the road in order not to get bad reviews." In addition, some merchants that provide takeaway food are slow to eat, and they have already clicked "food preparation is complete" before they have eaten, resulting in longer waiting times for riders and squeezed time on the road.
Linkage supervision and governance chaos
Certification is urgent
In April this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the Cyberspace Administration of China, and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Responsibilities of Online Catering Platforms and Effectively Safeguarding the Rights and Interests of Takeaway Deliverymen", proposing that platforms should not use the "strictest algorithm" as an assessment requirement. They can reasonably determine the number of orders, punctuality rate, online rate and other assessment factors through "algorithm selection" and other methods, and appropriately relax the delivery time limit. Online catering platforms and third-party cooperative units shall participate in social insurance for takeaway deliverymen who have established labor relations in accordance with the law, and encourage other takeaway deliverymen
The reporter observed a takeaway platform and found that its pilot changed the "estimated delivery time point" to "estimated delivery time period", and set "Junction Treasure" to guarantee the delivery time of the order. If the rider does not deliver within this time period, the platform will pay the corresponding amount according to the excess time. However, on the order receiving page of the rider, it still shows the number of minutes required to be delivered, which has a strict time limit. However, the rider can extend the delivery time by reporting the slow delivery of the merchant. The delivery time starts to be calculated after receiving the order.
It is urgent to balance the contradiction between the "slowdown" and "income" of takeaway riders.
A number of interviewed experts and industry insiders pointed out that the management of traffic violations and chaos among takeaway riders cannot be separated from linkage supervision, one is the supervision of the platform, and the other is the supervision of riders.
Dong Lachao suggested that the platform adjust the assessment rules and optimize the algorithm. At present, many takeaway platforms have not established a complete set of mechanisms to incentivize takeaway riders to reduce traffic violations, such as rewarding takeaway riders who have not committed traffic violations; they can make full use of big data intelligent analysis to formulate standards to remove the time spent on traffic congestion from the rider’s assessment, and at the same time disregard unreasonable bad reviews.
"In addition, the legal relationship between the platform and the rider also needs to be clarified urgently. At present, the management body between the rider and the platform company is not clear, and there are complex social management models, such as special delivery model, labor dispatch model, crowdsourcing model, individual model, agency model, etc., resulting in lax management. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the legislation to clarify the management body. When the rights and interests of riders or platform companies are damaged, they can get social relief with reasonable evidence and law." Dong Lachao said.
In his opinion, it is urgent to set up a strict entry system for the takeaway rider industry, and it is recommended that riders be licensed to work. For example, determine a social management body to train riders, and after the training, they will be certified to work, and the riders will be assessed and evaluated every year. If traffic violations reach a certain number of times, they will not be able to pass the annual review the following year, and effective supervision will be formed through source management.
Liu Wei, a partner at Beijing Shengchi Law Firm, also proposed that the platform should optimize algorithm design and other measures to achieve a balance between corporate economic efficiency, rider income, and safety.
"How does the platform deal with customer dissatisfaction and complaints? Whether to simply punish the riders or solve them through other channels, we need to think more, try to meet customer requirements while avoiding excessive pressure on the riders, and prevent the situation that the riders are desperate to speed up the delivery of orders regardless of safety." Liu Wei said. He also suggested that the relevant departments can urge the platform to establish and improve the channels and procedures for reflecting the demands of takeaway riders through irregular inspections, such as simplifying the procedures and shortening the process. The relevant demands of takeaway riders should be handed over to the first responsible person, and timely feedback should be given. The feedback time should be controlled within 24 hours as much as possible to resolve conflicts in a timely manner.
(The parties in the text are all pseudonyms)
