Bitcoin News Australia

In 2017, a man was waiting for a ride outside a 7-Eleven in Bensenville, Illinois, when a driver attempting to park hit the gas instead of the brakes, pinning him against the storefront. The man’s injuries were so severe, he lost both legs.

Now, 7-Eleven will pay him a $91m settlement.

That may sound strange, considering it was the driver who injured him. But the case revealed just how often such crashes occur, per NBC Chicago.

Basically, every day

Power Rogers LLC, the law firm that represented the man, found that over a ~15-year period, 6,253 drivers crashed into 7-Eleven storefronts in the US. That’s ~1 per day.

This isn’t strictly a 7-Eleven problem. The Storefront Safety Council, a group of volunteers who raise awareness about vehicle-in-building crashes, maintains a database of them. It found:

• Each day, 100+ drivers crash into storefronts nationwide
• Every year, 16k people are injured and 2.6k are killed
• 9% were “ram raids” — when someone crashes into a store on purpose to rob it

Some stores, including the Bensenville 7-Eleven, have been hit multiple times. A Portland, Oregon, 7-Eleven has been hit 13 times.

Businesses can’t control drivers…

… but they can install bollards — heavy-duty vertical posts — to stop cars from crashing into their storefronts.

A 7-Eleven spokesperson said that the store followed local building codes and ordinances, but the judge decided it should have also installed bollards, per CBS.

Storefront Safety Council co-founder Rob Reiter told The Hustle that the average cost of installation is $700-$900 per bollard.

But as Storefront Safety points out, they have to be quality bollards or they won’t stop the car — which is what happened when a truck crashed into a Dollar Tree in Maine.

It wasn’t that long ago when we were baffled by the idea of hailing a ride in a stranger’s car. Back then, for many, the Uber-Lyft rivalry revolved around matters of personal preference: pink or black.

But Uber has since expanded into verticals that now individually dwarf Lyft’s entire business — and in what some view as a winner-take-all market, Lyft’s future looks increasingly like an uphill battle.

Last week…

… Lyft reported earnings that fell below analyst expectations, including a quarterly loss and a lower-than-expected ~$975m revenue outlook for Q1.

• On Friday, Lyft’s stock had its worst day since going public four years ago, with shares falling 36%+.

By comparison, Uber called Q4 its “strongest quarter ever.” It made $4.1B in ride-hailing revenue (+82% YoY), $2.9B from Uber Eats and Postmates (+21% YoY), and $1.5B from Uber Freight (+43% YoY).

Some think Lyft may need to merge with the likes of DoorDash to keep up.

Alternatively, they could establish “an insidious sleeper cell… to sabotage Uber from the inside,” as comedian Nathan Fielder once attempted.

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