Hit By an Amazon Van
Chances are, you have seen the blue armada of “Prime” vans circulating throughout Orlando and the surrounding area. These Amazon vans have seemingly replaced FedEx, UPS, and the USPS in a matter of months. These Amazon vans also park in the middle of the street, clog bike lanes, speed in residential neighborhoods, roll through stop signs, and cut off other road users at rates much higher than the professional drivers of FedEx, USPS, UPS, and the like. Why? The answer is profit. If you have been injured by an Amazon van or other vehicle transporting an Amazon package, you need to speak with an attorney.
Amazon Has Prioritized Speed, Not Safety
One of the first fatalities caused by an Amazon delivery van was the company’s own Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Joy Covey, who was run over by an Amazon van while riding her bike in 2013, according to ProPublica. The story did not make the news until 2019. For a company that has said “nothing is more important to us than safety,” it has done little to mitigate the dangers of its delivery vans. There have been 13 deaths and dozens of critical injuries that its delivery drivers have caused since 2015, according to Business Insider. The problem started back in 2013 when the company decided to prioritize speed, profits, and growth over everything else, according to internal documents. For example, Amazon backed out of a five-day on-road training course for new delivery drivers during the Christmas rush in 2018, choosing instead to hire drivers on the spot without any training at all. Internal memos said that on-road practical training was a “bottleneck” that would keep new drivers off the road. Amazon prioritizes speed so heavily that 999 out of 1,000 packages must be delivered on time, which causes an incentive for Amazon drivers to:
- Speed;
- Run red lights and stop signs;
- Cut other road users off;
- Drive aggressively around cyclists and pedestrians; and
- Otherwise disobey traffic laws and safety for the sake of timeliness.
There is no telling how many people have been injured and killed by Amazon delivery vehicles, all of whom are now subcontractors. Amazon refuses to hand over their own data, and many police crash reports do not include that level of detail, particularly when the van or delivery vehicle is unmarked.
Amazon Vans are Run by Contractors, Not Amazon
Amazon claims that it has no legal liability for collisions caused by drivers delivering Amazon packages. The monopoly of a company has absolute control about how packages are delivered; Amazon uses an app to ensure drivers navigate with Amazon’s specific directions, and a dispatcher back at an Amazon warehouse will call up the delivery driver if they fall behind schedule. Yet, Amazon requires all subcontractors to sign an agreement assuming all liability and responsibility for legal costs for collisions. This agreement includes “all loss or damage to personal property or bodily harm including death,” according to the New York Times. When insurers of these subcontractors have failed to pay civil lawsuits, Amazon has sued these insurers.
Call an Orlando Lawyer Today
While you may not be able to sue Amazon directly, the subcontractor must be held accountable for the injuries you have sustained. Call the Orlando personal injury attorneys of the Payer Law today at 866-930-1238 to schedule a free consultation.
Resource:
nytimes.com/2019/09/05/us/amazon-delivery-drivers-accidents.html
propublica.org/article/inside-documents-show-how-amazon-chose-speed-over-safety-in-building-its-delivery-network
