For years, folks in vehicles caught behind blue supply vans in site visitors have echoed media studies criticizing Amazon for clogging American roadways. It’s well-known that the Amazon drivers steering these fleets of vans and vans don’t truly work for Amazon however are employed by firms contracted by Amazon, and Amazon has repeatedly denied legal responsibility for any harmful driving reported, although.

Because Amazon has contracts with greater than 50,000 corporations, simply how harmful Amazon’s contracted drivers actually are stays a query that’s laborious to trace. However, The Information reported final 12 months that horrific automobile crashes are half and parcel of Amazon’s tradition of comfort. And then extra not too long ago, The Wall Street Journal supplied one other window into how lethal America’s favourite speedy supply service might be. Since 2015, WSJ reported this week, “Trucking companies hauling freight for Amazon have been involved in crashes that killed more than 75 people.”

To arrive at this quantity, WSJ partnered with Jason Miller—a Michigan State University professor who researches transportation security—to research varied sources of presidency knowledge from “3,512 trucking companies that were inspected by authorities three or more times while hauling trailers for Amazon since February 2020.”

The ensuing report, WSJ mentioned, “for the first time showed how the safety performance of Amazon’s trucking contractors compared with their peers.” And their outcomes didn’t seem good for Amazon. For instance, a evaluation of Department of Transportation knowledge on unsafe driving scores of greater than 1,300 Amazon trucking contractors from February 2020 to early August 2022 discovered that contractors who labored essentially the most with Amazon have been “more than twice as likely as all other similar companies to receive bad unsafe driving scores.”

WSJ additionally discovered proof of dozens of firms that Amazon contracted that had “conditional” rankings, which is like DOT placing them on probation—a black mark that sometimes alienates most corporations from contracting them. One Illinois-based firm contracted by Amazon “scored worse than the level DOT officials consider problematic” each month of WSJ’s evaluation interval.

DOT didn’t instantly reply to Ars’ request for remark.

Amazon’s response

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel informed Ars that WSJ’s report “contains misleading and inaccurate assertions.”

“First and foremost, the insinuation that Amazon puts more value on meeting deadlines than on human lives is categorically false,” Nantel informed Ars. “Any accident involving one of our partners or community members is a tragedy, and we always work with our contractors to prevent accidents or learn from them, so they don’t happen again.”

However, WSJ reported that, though Amazon suspends contractors who violate its security requirements, that doesn’t all the time finish issues of harmful driving. The Journal’s evaluation of presidency knowledge confirmed one Amazon contractor that continued hauling 55 hundreds after Amazon suspended its contract.

The security director of Amazon’s freight unit, Steve DasGupta, informed WSJ that Amazon’s objective for its “very safe network of tens of thousands of carriers” is “zero accidents, zero fatalities.” An organization spokesperson informed WSJ that Amazon “offers condolences to families of people killed in crashes that involve its contractors” and famous that Amazon contractors had “a rate of fatalities per vehicle mile about 7 percent lower than the industry average in 2020.”

Since WSJ first contacted Amazon about their report greater than two months in the past, Amazon has suspended all contractors concerned in automobile crashes described in WSJ’s report, suspended or terminated 80 % of contracts the place WSJ discovered unsafe driving scores, and made adjustments to its screening course of.

Amazon additionally informed WSJ that “so far this year it has warned or suspended about 1,200 companies in connection with violations” the place WSJ discovered contractors have been sub-contracting deliveries—one more state of affairs the place the keys to the large blue vans may find yourself within the arms of drivers who won’t meet Amazon security requirements.

Nantel informed Ars that one other problem with WSJ’s report was that the hundreds of corporations in WSJ’s pattern weren’t consultant of Amazon’s community, which incorporates greater than 50,000 contractors. Amazon’s DasGupta informed WSJ that the corporate additionally prefers to research an organization’s security rating over a month-to-month interval, not the practically two-year interval that WSJ relied on for its evaluation. However, Miller—who helped WSJ with its methodology for his or her knowledge evaluation—informed Ars that the two-year window is extra applicable as a result of inspections might be so rare.

“Amazon’s critique that only one month of scores should be examined has minimal merit,” Miller informed Ars, noting that the longer window ensures “enough inspections are present for meaningful decisions to be made.”

Could Amazon ever be held responsible for drivers?

WSJ reported that Amazon has argued in court docket “that it has little role in overseeing its contractors’ safety on the road.”

Last 12 months, after an Amazon supply driver barreling down a freeway practically 14 miles per hour over the velocity restrict slammed right into a Tesla, the Tesla driver, Ans Rana, wound up with life-threatening accidents, together with spinal wire injury and traumatic mind damage.

Rana sued Amazon, and his case appeared to be the primary check of whether or not Amazon might be held responsible for the drivers it contracts. Rana accused the corporate of the whole lot from informing the driving force of the incorrect velocity restrict on its app to negligent practices like sending textual content message reminders to seemingly immediate drivers to go quicker once they fall behind promised supply instances—or danger being terminated.

Among claims Rana made about Amazon’s negligence within the swimsuit was a declare of “mandating a delivery schedule that was unrealistic such that it forced the drivers to rush to the point it was unsafe and as a practical matter made it impossible to drive safely.”

Rana’s case was on account of drag on for a lot of extra months, with discovery prolonged till 2023, however Rana’s trial legal professional Scott Harrison of Monge & Associates informed Ars that mediation has begun. In the subsequent few weeks, the mediation outcomes may reveal extra in regards to the bigger position that the courts may see Amazon enjoying when it contracts providers from allegedly unsafe supply drivers. Amazon declined to touch upon the lawsuit.