Study links ride-hailing, drop in crash injuries
Getting in the back of an Uber kept a lot people out of hospital beds, according to a Houston-focused study released Wednesday.
“The data shows that ridesharing companies can decrease these incidents because they give young people an alternative to driving drunk,” said Dr. Christopher Conner, a neurosurgery resident at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston and lead author of the report, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s surgery periodical.
The study, one of the most comprehensive looks to date at drunken driving and ride-hailing companies, claims a direct link between more Houstonians hopping in the back of an Uber and fewer of them landing in the region’s operating rooms.
Conner and the other researchers compared trip information from Uber — which supplied the data — in Houston between 2014 and 2018 with emergency room visits to its two Level I trauma centers during the same period and four years prior to Uber’s debut in the city.
Vehicle-crash visits to the ERs at Ben Taub and Memorial Her
mann-Texas Medical Center dropped 23.8 percent during the peak Friday and Saturday night periods after Uber arrived in February 2014, researchers found. All of the drop was attributed to a decline among people under age 30, where researchers reported a 38.9 percent decrease in wreckrelated hospital visits.
Conner said the strength of the case the paper makes that ride-hailing service use relates to fewer hospital visits is in the connection between when people paid for rides and a corresponding dip in patients in the emergency room.
“We know how exactly many rides happened every hour and we know exactly how many traumas happened per hour,” Conner said.
The findings were unsurprising to Kate Nelson, who said among young professionals hopping a ride is almost preferred to driving. Nelson, 31, said she and her husband often meet friends in groups of up to 12 in Montrose, close to their condo or other neighborhoods within Loop 610, in which none of the revelers drove to the destination.
“People will walk or ride their bikes or get a ride,” she said, noting parking and safety typically play a role in the decision.
Researchers also found a decrease in drinking and driving convictions in Harris County during the same period. In that analysis, Conner said researchers were able to see that in places where Uber and other ride-hailing services were gaining a foothold,
Montrose and Midtown in particular, convictions were far lower. The decrease did not carry to areas outside Loop 610, where ride-hailing was less available at the time.
Study may be expanded
The research adds to some of the back-and-forth about the value of ride-hailing companies in places such as Houston. When Uber and Lyft arrived in Houston — over the strong objections of cab companies and under city rules they said were too onerous — one of the pitches companies made was that they gave people an option to avoid drinking and driving.
Uber on Wednesday did
not respond to a request for comment.
Conner said the topic originated from a 2017 conversation with another neurosurgeon, who commented that it seemed surgeries for emergency room visits were dipping even as population and total visits to the ER climbed. That prompted him to see if the expansion of ride-hailing had any effect.
“As a surgeon, you’re looking at doing fewer surgeries,” Conner said. “If we could find a way to decrease trauma, I am all for that. We have plenty of business.”
The study looked solely at visits to trauma centers, notably incidents in which
someone later was convicted of an alcohol-related offense for the crash. The authors did not compare total roadway crashes or fatalities. The study also did not compare race or economics to see if wealthier people able to afford a ride were less likely to land in the hospital while poorer Houstonarea residents remained at risk of drinking and driving.
Conner said he is working on more research, including looks at social economics and expanding the research beyond Houston, which because of its car dependency could fare differently than other cities with more established public transit systems or different policing strategies.
As more research comes in, Texas remains in the throes of a roadway safety crisis, advocates and officials said. This year is on pace to be the deadliest year for fatal crashes in more than three decades. If Houston and Texas have seen a decline in drunken driving crashes that land people in the hospital because they have hailed a ride instead, the latest crash data shows others are making up for it.
State leads in crashes
Statewide, Texas has a drinking and driving problem, national comparisons show. The state’s 1,695 alcohol-related roadway deaths in 2018 tops the nation despite Californians driving more miles and having 10 million more residents. Only Puerto Rico, Montana and Alaska have higher rates of fatal drunken driving crashes, according to an assessment by the National Highway Traffic Safety.
Unlike nearby states, Texas’ percentage of fatal crashes involving an impaired driver stayed the same, 40 percent, in both 2009 and 2018, NHTSA data shows. Meanwhile, Oklahoma and Louisiana’s share of alcohol-related crashes dropped by more than 7 percentage points, to 22 and 28 percent, respectively.
Local wrecks are a major factor in keeping the Texas death count high. Last year, when bars and restaurants spent months shuttered by the COVID pandemic, 119 people died in Houston area crashes where at least one driver had a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or more, according to crash reports compiled by the Texas Department of Transportation.
Despite some bleak statistics, the recent study’s results were cheered by advocates, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who say paid ride use has saved lives.
“This study confirms what MADD has believed for years — that ride-share apps offer a convenient transportation option that helps reduce the risk of drunk driving crashes, especially among younger drivers,” said MADD National President Alex Otte. “The more options that are available, the easier it is to make sure that if you drink, don’t drive.”