I met a friend for dinner on Saturday night at the Red Robin next to Lougheed Town Centre.
As I pulled up looking for a parking spot, I noticed a guy carrying one of those large food-delivery bags loaded with Styrofoam containers.
He was parked with his front end in a loading zone and his back end partially blocking a blue spot set aside for people with disabilities.
It was a double-whammy of stupid.
Sadly, he had driven away before I could get a photo of his licence plate, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen such reckless behaviour.
During the past few months, I’ve witnessed all sorts of terrible behaviour by drivers working for food delivery apps. (Before I go any further, I realize this behaviour isn’t exclusive to people picking up and delivering food. There are many egregious examples by other delivery drivers, but for this column, I’m focusing on the specific area of food.)
I eat a lot in the Burnaby Heights area and there’s a bus stop at Gilmore and Hastings that is a favourite for food-app drivers. There is rarely available parking on Hastings so these drivers pull into the bus stop, race into one of the nearby restaurants and then come running out to make a quick getaway.
I’ve seen drivers park in bike lanes in front of restaurants, followed by them sprinting in and out of the eateries to pick up orders before speeding away.
And when I say speeding, I meant driving well above posted speed limits.
You see, these drivers make money based on how many orders they fill in a day so time is of the essence. Unfortunately, time is also dangerous when it pushes a driver to do reckless things in a desperate attempt to make more money.
Just do a search for this kind of behaviour and you can see all sorts of dangerous actions by food-app drivers
I get that they are trying to make a living, but not at the expense of human lives because that’s what is going to eventually happen.
At least with a courier company, the drivers are proper employees so reporting this behaviour might see some action.
But with food apps, these are just gig contractors and the people who run the apps don’t seem to care much about negative publicity.
Holding anyone accountable - outside of reporting the behaviour on social media – seems difficult, unless a city employee tickets a driver.
But that just might be the cost of doing business.
Follow Chris Campbell on Twitter @shinebox44.
