[NAGDU] Uber Service Animal Self ID Program

Sat Apr 12 21:38:52 UTC 2025

Good Evening All!

I hope you all are doing well.

I’m wondering where I would go in the Uber APP to set up the self ID. Is this something that can be permanently set, or do we need to set it up on every scheduled ride.

I do apologize, as I’m sure the information has been shared here before, but I apparently didn’t take notes.

R. Diane Graves

 <mailto:rdgraves2007 at gmail.com> rdgraves2007 at gmail.com

317-238-9262

“TGIF: TODAY GOD IS FIRST.’—OS Hillman

From: NAGDU <nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Julie A. Orozco via NAGDU
Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2025 1:52 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users' <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Julie A. Orozco <kaybaycar at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Uber Service Animal Self ID Program

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your responses! I meant to respond earlier, but the work week got away from me. 

Al, yes, feel free to share anything from my previous email you think might help Uber staff implement this program. 

First, yes, I reported, and I was able to report in the app. I asked the driver to cancel, hoping that would force the reporting mechanism to activate, and it did. Fun fact though; I spoke to an investigator, relayed my story, and was only given a $15 Uber credit for the discrimination. I never found out what happened to the driver, if anything. 

It is good to know that the service animal training is in at least the top ten languages. That is a start, I suppose.

I think the frustrating part about all of this is that Al is correct. Ignorance of the law should be no excuse. We have no trouble enforcing other laws in our country, so why are our nondiscrimination laws the outlier? 

As for the cultural part, it would be most helpful to get people from these cultures to help us advocate. I’m not sure how we do this exactly, but it certainly would improve outcomes if someone from a culture where many people fear dogs spoke with someone from the same place, who could explain what service animals do and that they aren’t to be feared, particularly when they are working. I wish we had more Uber and Lyft drivers as allies, speaking to their groups and communities, because we know those groups exist, about how they need to follow the law and take service animals. Sometimes this entire problem makes me feel as though we disabled people are in a vacuum trying to be heard by people who aren’t listening. 

I think an educational campaign would help, but a really good one. We could make videos about what service animals do, how they behave, how they should look in the car, etc. I don’t know what form the service animal training takes when drivers sign up for Uber and Lyft. But given the increased denials people experience in general, and given the amount of people trying to pass Fluffy the toy yippy dog off as a service animal, the public service media might just generally do some good in society. If guide dog schools can share their cute puppy media, so can we. We just have to come up with the funds and the creativity to make it look top noch professional. Media and social media are great tools to leverage for education, and we could do more to get our voices heard in those spaces. Would it stop the discrimination? I don’t know, but spreading the word might help people understand more about service dogs so at the very least, we could have more allies. People break these laws, in part, because they don’t understand them, and they know they can get away with it. The more people in our society are aware of our rights as service animal handlers, the less people might believe they can get away with violating them. 

Of course, the enforcement piece of all of this is the hardest. Getting Uber and Lyft to enforce the law is proving to be the most difficult. If these companies enforced the law, we wouldn’t be here, would we? At this point, we’ve had a consent decree; we’ve negotiated; we’ve even protested. This is where I’m stuck on what to do, but I am of course always interested in continuing the discussion. It makes me so sad that there are people who don’t want to return for successor dogs because this problem persists. 

Sorry for the long email again. Thank you for all of the thoughts though. 

Julie

From: NAGDU <nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org> > On Behalf Of Leslie Hamric via NAGDU
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2025 11:57 AM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> 
Cc: Leslie Hamric <lhamric930 at comcast.net <mailto:lhamric930 at comcast.net> >; Al Elia <al.elia at aol.com <mailto:al.elia at aol.com> >; nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> 
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Uber Service Animal Self ID Program

Sadly, I think this problem with rideshare denial is going to be solve by thinking way outside the box. I don't have any suggestions at the moment but I think it might be a good idea to start exploring some new ones. Are ones to build on what already has been done.

Leslie Hamric
Cello and Braille Music Teacher

On Apr 10, 2025, at 8:49 AM, Al Elia via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> > wrote:

JAnine – do you have any suggestions as to how a private company is supposed to lawfully produce media that addresses cultural biases that other cultures ahve against people with disabilities? Keep in mind that our laws also protect against discrimination based on national origin, so companies would have to produce largely the same media in all languages, and not target drivers based on their background or language. Imagine how the community would react to companies messaging drivers that while they may have been brought up to believe that people with disabilities must be protected from themselves and always accompanied by a family member, the laws protect their right to live independently, and that sometimes they do that by using a helper animal called a service animal. Everyone would pile on the company for that messaging: Disability advocates and progressives would cry foul at the notion that the company was paying even lip-service to regressive ideas , while disability advocates and conservatives would berate the companies for coddling beliefes that go against the law.

For better or worse, we delegate lawmaking to lawmakers. We then require people to comply with the law. One of the first things we learned in law school was that ignorance of the law is no excuse. That rule is one of the reasons why laws and regulations must be publicly available, so that no one can claim that they had no notice of a law they are accused of breaking. The rideshare companies are providing additional notice to drivers that they must not only comply with the law generally, but that they must specifically comply with the specific laws protecting our right to travel with a service animal. They are doing that in the languages that the drivers are most commonly using to ensure that the drivers cannot claim a lack of notice. There is no cultural issue I am aware of regarding obligations of contracts or violations of tcontractual terms. If a driver agreees to those terms, and then doesn’t so comply, they should swiftly be removed from the platforms, not be educated based on cultural differences before or after the fact.

I suggest that the best way to address a cultures bias against people with disabilities is to take a hard stance against that bias. We don’t attempt to address other cultural biases with gentle education. We would not attempt to educate a white contractor who refused to hire or do business with non-white people by telling them that, notwithstanding the beliefs they may have regarding the work ethics or trustworthiness of non-white people, they can’t rfuse to hire or do business with them. In fact, if we did, we would ourselves be guilty of perpetuating those discriminatory beliefs. The same goes for cultural biases against us as people with disabilities.

That said, if you have ideas for how to address cultural biases in a manner that does not discriminate based on national origin and does not perpetuate discrimination against us, I welcome discussion of those ideas.

Yours,

/Æ

On 9 Apr 2025, at 16:39, Jenine Stanley wrote:

That’s great that the notification is in different languages but that doesn’t address people’s culture. If people with disabilities are never seen and have no agency in their culture, how can we expect them to recognize the phrase “service animal”?  

I’ll say it again, not making excuses for denials. Just trying to give some advocacy ideas because the current scheme isn’t working as well as we thought or it should. 

On Apr 9, 2025, at 4:18 PM, Melissa Allman via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> > wrote:

Leslie thanks this is interesting.

From: NAGDU <nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org> > On Behalf Of Leslie Hamric via NAGDU
Sent: Wednesday, April 9, 2025 4:05 PM
To: nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> 
Cc: Leslie Hamric <lhamric930 at comcast.net <mailto:lhamric930 at comcast.net> >; nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> 
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Uber Service Animal Self ID Program

According to Brianna, the service animal notification has been translated into the 10 most spoken languages.

Leslie Hamric
Cello and Braille Music Teacher

On Apr 9, 2025, at 12:33 PM, Jenine Stanley via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> > wrote:

 The only thing I can add to this discussion is a question about potential training for drivers. Are we as “service animal” groups enlisting allies within the driver community of various ethnic groups, who speak various languages? Sometimes the message comes over better from someone in your peer group. 

Not to make excuses at all for denials but I had one recently like yours, Julie, in which the person had no idea what service animal meant, what guide dog meant, what Seeing eye Dog meant. I had to tell him I was blind and this was my helper dog before he understood. Then he was fine and we had a lovely trip but prior to that we were at a standstill. 

I’m wondering if we’re assuming too much and not factoring in our own cultural sensitivity when it comes to the training ride share companies provide. 

Otherwise, I’m incredibly frustrated on your behalf, Julie as I keep reading accounts of  denials like yours.  

On Apr 9, 2025, at 9:35 AM, Melissa Allman via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> > wrote:

Hi Julie. I’m so frustrated on your behalf. The driver should get a notification that says “rider has a service animal.” If they hit cancel at that point, the app reminds them that it’s against the law and Uber’s policy to deny access. If they still hit cancel, then it’s supposed to trigger a streamlined complaint process available to you in the app or through a link in your email. If the drivers ignore the pop-up and just arrive and see you and then decide they don’t want to take you and cancel, I would think that the pop-up in your app about filing a complaint should still pop up. What was your experience? Were you easily able to file complaints either with the link in your email or the prompt in the app, or did you have to dig around  in the menus like we normally had to do and file a complaint that way? This of course assumes that people just have time to monitor what they’re getting in the app and file complaints somewhat contemporaneously, but I still wanted to ask what your experience was on that front. 

From: NAGDU <nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org> > On Behalf Of Julie A. Orozco via NAGDU
Sent: Tuesday, April 8, 2025 9:34 PM
To: 'NAGDU Mailing List, the National Association of Guide Dog Users' <nagdu at nfbnet.org <mailto:nagdu at nfbnet.org> >
Cc: Julie A. Orozco <kaybaycar at gmail.com <mailto:kaybaycar at gmail.com> >
Subject: [NAGDU] Uber Service Animal Self ID Program

Good evening fellow guide dog users,

I hope all of you are doing well. I am *finally* working my third guide dog, a male chocolate lab from The Seeing Eye, called Xavier. He’s a wonderful dog and a joy to work.

Of course, working a dog brings about the inevitable Uber denials. I’ve gotten three so far, and we’ve only been home a couple of weeks. (Uber and Lyft are really terrible in the DC area.)

For some reason, Sunday was just a bad day for me and Uber. I have self ID turned on, so drivers should be notified when they arrive that they are picking up someone with a service animal and that they are required by law to allow us in their car. At least, that was my understanding. But these drivers seem unable to understand the self ID notification. Either that, or they are not being notified properly.

I had three drivers on Sunday going to and from a friend’s house. The first driver took me, only when I pointed to my eyes and told him I was blind and that my dog was working. (Sometimes, looking blind has its advantages.) He did not understand when I asked him if the app told him I was traveling with a service animal.

The second driver, the one who was set to take me home, refused us access. He did not speak English, but even when my friend and I pulled out Google translate, he would not budge. He said no dogs in his car and even canceled the ride. I am not sure if he received the notification, but he seemed totally clueless about the whole service animal thing. I don’t think he was faking it either because if so, he wouldn’t have wanted to cancel the ride himself.

The third driver didn’t want to take me at first either. I had to explain to him what my dog was for, and once I did, he got it. I asked him if he received the notification, and he said yes but that he didn’t get a chance to read it. He said he could just get passed it without reading it.

So, my questions follow. Are drivers being notified and trained about their requirements under law to take service animal teams in their language of choice? Second, what does the notification system look like? I imagined something that would pop up and force them to read before proceeding with the trip. How are so many of my drivers seeming confused about me and my guide dog? Is this still happening to anyone else? Or do I live in the land of Uber access denials?

I was hesitant about self ID, but I am happy with it because it doesn’t alert the drivers until they arrive. It’s like Uber telling them for me when I’m right there that the driver has to follow the law and take me with my service animal. But it’s not effective if drivers can just ignore the notifications.

Apologies for the long email, and thank you for any perspective you can provide.

Julie 

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