Home delivery after online shopping is very popular in Illinois and Indiana, and there is a growing danger of injuries in accidents involving delivery drivers for Amazon, FedEx, Target, Wal-Mart, UPS, and more. Who’s liable? It’s complicated.
Shopping online for all sorts of things and having them delivered to your home is extremely popular, not just here in Illinois and Indiana but all across the country. Recent marketing studies report that 70% of the U.S. population shops online, with 2023 having more online purchases than ever before. Read, “Online Shopping Statistics: Ecommerce Trends for 2024,” written by Maryia Fokina and published by Tidio on August 5, 2024.
Ecommerce Competition: Faster and Faster Package Delivery
This is called “ecommerce,” and one of the key components to its success is the speedy delivery of the product to the buyer by the company’s delivery drivers. The faster the better! So much so that Amazon actively promotes its “same day delivery service” for many of its offerings.
Not to be outdone, Target has its Target Circle 356 for same-day delivery sales. And this past March, Wal-Mart debuted its “early morning service” with orders placed at six o’clock in the morning guaranteed to reach the buyer within an hour’s time. Read, “Target takes on Amazon and Walmart with same-day delivery push,” written by Kelly Tyko and Nathan Bomey and published by Axios on March 5, 2024; and “Exclusive: Walmart opens new front in same-day delivery war,” written by Kelly Tyko and published by Axios on March 7, 2024.
And established delivery companies like FedEx and UPS also compete here. FedEx has its “Express Delivery” option where you can ship things for delivery “today, to anywhere in the country.” UPS also offers its customers same day delivery of “any item, anywhere” through its Roadie “shipping network of crowdsourced delivery drivers.”
And this is where things get more and more complicated and dangerous. Not only are parcel deliveries being made at all hours, day or night, through Illinois and Indiana, but these ecommerce sales are involving “gig workers” and “independent contractors” and “subsidiary companies” more and more in order to meet demand for almost instantaneous consumer gratification after an online purchasing decision.
What is the Job of a Delivery Driver?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (“BLS”), a delivery driver works within the transportation and material moving industry to “…pick up, transport, and drop off packages and small shipments within a local region or urban area.” The BLS explains this is a “…physically demanding job. Driving a truck for long periods can be tiring. When loading and unloading cargo, drivers do a lot of lifting, carrying, and walking.” The job outlook for delivery drivers is great, and is expected to grow “… much faster than the average for all occupations.”
That makes sense, since shopping from home is getting more and more popular. It also makes sense that as (1) these drivers are tasked with more and more work at faster and faster speeds; combined with (2) the physical demands of the job; together with (3) traffic issues (think speeding); and (4) the wear and tear on their vehicles; and more, the likelihood of serious or fatal motor vehicle accidents involving delivery drivers is a growing danger.
This is not a secret to anyone within the transportation industry, or to the companies offering more and more products online to their customers. Of course, their answer has not been to focus upon increasing safety measures.
Instead, more and more of the delivery driver jobs are being offered through separate companies from the seller company in an attempt to limit liability in these delivery driver accidents or to avoid legal responsibility at all to those hurt or killed in the crash.
The Delivery Driver’s Employer vs. The Company Selling the Delivered Product
Anyone buying something from Wal-Mart or Amazon or Target, or from some other online store that offers shipment through UPS or FedEx, may assume that the seller is taking care of getting their product to them. More and more often, that is not true.
While each of these mega-companies does deliver through its own company-labelled delivery trucks, more and more gig workers using their own motor vehicles are making the deliveries to help meet ecommerce delivery demand.
Consider the following:
Amazon
Amazon Flex hires drivers who can using their own vehicles to deliver Amazon packages in their local area. How much the gig pays depends on several things, such as how many deliveries are made and how fast they are done with success coming with more and more “reward points.” Read, “Amazon Flex: What It Is and How It Works,” written by Max Ramirez and published by NerdWallet on March 4, 2024.
Target
Gig delivery drivers for Target deliveries work through a company owned by Target called Shipt. Purchased as an existing delivery service company in 2017, Shipt is a “wholly owned Target subsidiary” that “will continue to run its business independently.” See, “Target to Acquire Same-Day Delivery Platform Shipt, Inc. to Bolster Fulfillment Capabilities,” published December 13, 2017, by Shipt, Inc.
The Shipt app is offered at Google Play alongside Uber, Instacart, Door Dash, Roadie, and Spark.
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart deliveries are being handled more and more through the company’s Spark Driver Platform. Offered to “independent contractors” through this app, Spark describes itself as “…an excellent way to run your own business compared to traditional delivery driver jobs, seasonal employment, or part-time jobs.” Spark offers its gig delivery drivers “referral incentives” to bring friends into the program.
FedEx
In some parts of the country, FedEx contractors hire “personal vehicle delivery drivers” who have their own vehicle and can delivery small packages within their local area. For several job openings, read those listed this week at Indeed.Com.
UPS
As mentioned above, same day delivery services for UPS are handled by a company owned by UPS called “Roadie.”
Roadie describes itself as “…a logistics management and crowdsourced delivery platform. Roadie offers businesses fast, flexible and asset-light logistics solutions for last-mile delivery. Through Roadie, retailers can offer local delivery in more than 97% of the U.S. by tapping into a fleet of more than 200,000 independent drivers nationwide. Roadie allows businesses to offer their customers delivery optionality for almost any industry, from airlines to artisans.”
Legal Complications in Delivery Driver Accidents
From the perspective of advocates for accident victims and their loved ones, the creation of separate companies or the labelling of delivery drivers as “independent contractors” serves only to build a legal defense for the big companies like Amazon, FedEx, Target, Wal-Mart, and UPS whenever someone is seriously injured or killed during the completion of their sales transaction through delivery of the product. See, Why a Lawyer who is a Trial Attorney Is Important for Accident Victims in Personal Injury Cases.
Delivery Driver accidents in Illinois and Indiana may involve the deaths or catastrophic injuries not only of that driver but others involved in the event. For all these victims, having experienced legal advocates to help them in the pursuit of justice is imperative.
In our next article, we will discuss more about the legal hurdles that can be involved in proving liability and fault after delivery driver accident injuries in either Illinois or Indiana – whether it involves a company-labelled vehicle or a gig driver.
For more, read:
- Dirty Dozen List: Uber, Lift, and Ridesharing Worker Injuries
- Chicago Amazon Work Accidents: Warehouse and Delivery Dangers
- Industrial Lone Workers: Accident Dangers When Working Alone
- Lyft or Uber Driver Car Crash: Liability in Rideshare Driver Accidents
- Why Are There So Many Serious or Fatal Semi-Truck Accidents in Chicagoland?
- Distracted Driving, Cognitive Brain Function, and Motor Vehicle Accidents
- Sleepy, Tired, Fatigued, Exhausted Drivers: Brain Function and Motor Vehicle Accidents.
As more and more online sales result in products being delivered by gig workers using their own motor vehicles, with more and more pressure to meet deadlines within short time windows, the risk of injury rises. While state law does provide remedies, delivery driver accident claims can be complex. Please be careful out there!
