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As carjackings rise, food delivery drivers navigate harrowing risks
As carjackings rise, food delivery drivers navigate harrowing risks
By Paul Schwartzman
January 22, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Alemsegd Wolderufael, who delivers food for DoorDash, in his car on Jan. 12 in Silver Spring, Md. (Sarah Voisin/The Washington Post)
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https://wapo.st/3vKEbgs
The DoorDash driver had just delivered a bottle of liquor to a Northeast Washington apartment and was back in his car, engine running, when he noticed a man in the darkness by his window, aiming a gun at his face. ... Alemsegd Wolderufael stepped on the gas, lurched forward and heard the sound of gunfire and shattering glass. A bullet had pierced the passenger window and — as he would learn later when his wife saw blood — lodged in his back.
An emergency room doctor told Wolderufael that he was lucky to survive that night last September, a pronouncement that made him contemplate what he avoided by speeding away. “If I don’t move, the bullet is here,” Wolderufael, 58, recalled in an interview, pointing to his left temple.
The alarming rise in carjackings in Washington over the past year, a toll that nearly doubled from 2022, exposed the risks embedded in the most prosaic of everyday routines — driving home from the office or to the store; stopping at a gas station or for a red light. ... For food delivery drivers, those dangers are compounded by the number of hours they spend in their cars, traveling to neighborhoods they consider safe or to others they would avoid if given the choice. The risks are an added burden for a class of gig workers, many of them immigrants, who are often working second jobs as they strain to meet expenses.
Online delivery platforms such as DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub maintain that drivers complete a vast preponderance of millions of drop-offs without incident. Yet D.C. police reports and interviews with drivers offer a glimpse of the peril they sometimes encounter on their routes, as well as the trauma and anxiety they experience after attacks.
{snip}
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https://wapo.st/3vKEbgs
By Paul Schwartzman
Paul Schwartzman specializes in political profiles and narratives about life, death and everything in between. Before joining The Washington Post, he worked at the New York Daily News, where he covered Rudolph W. Giuliani’s rise as mayor. Twitter https://twitter.com/paulschwartzman
By Paul Schwartzman
January 22, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Alemsegd Wolderufael, who delivers food for DoorDash, in his car on Jan. 12 in Silver Spring, Md. (Sarah Voisin/The Washington Post)
Share
https://wapo.st/3vKEbgs
The DoorDash driver had just delivered a bottle of liquor to a Northeast Washington apartment and was back in his car, engine running, when he noticed a man in the darkness by his window, aiming a gun at his face. ... Alemsegd Wolderufael stepped on the gas, lurched forward and heard the sound of gunfire and shattering glass. A bullet had pierced the passenger window and — as he would learn later when his wife saw blood — lodged in his back.
An emergency room doctor told Wolderufael that he was lucky to survive that night last September, a pronouncement that made him contemplate what he avoided by speeding away. “If I don’t move, the bullet is here,” Wolderufael, 58, recalled in an interview, pointing to his left temple.
The alarming rise in carjackings in Washington over the past year, a toll that nearly doubled from 2022, exposed the risks embedded in the most prosaic of everyday routines — driving home from the office or to the store; stopping at a gas station or for a red light. ... For food delivery drivers, those dangers are compounded by the number of hours they spend in their cars, traveling to neighborhoods they consider safe or to others they would avoid if given the choice. The risks are an added burden for a class of gig workers, many of them immigrants, who are often working second jobs as they strain to meet expenses.
Online delivery platforms such as DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub maintain that drivers complete a vast preponderance of millions of drop-offs without incident. Yet D.C. police reports and interviews with drivers offer a glimpse of the peril they sometimes encounter on their routes, as well as the trauma and anxiety they experience after attacks.
{snip}
Share
https://wapo.st/3vKEbgs
By Paul Schwartzman
Paul Schwartzman specializes in political profiles and narratives about life, death and everything in between. Before joining The Washington Post, he worked at the New York Daily News, where he covered Rudolph W. Giuliani’s rise as mayor. Twitter https://twitter.com/paulschwartzman
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