“It's scary on rainy days. I try to deliver the food on time, but the roads are slippery," says Abhishek Damodar Dalvi who has been delivering food in Sydney for a year now.
"The bike more often than not slips on roads. One has to be careful.”
Over the past year, five rider lives have been lost in accidents. The NSW government has now come up with draft guidelines to ensure their safety.
The pressure of “unrealistic estimated delivery times” is one of the issues highlighted in the draft guidelines.
Gig Economy Source: AAP
'All my flatmates were doing it at that time'
Abhishek Dalvi came to Sydney from Mumbai as a student last year in February. Within a month of his arrival, the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were imposed. For the lack of any other source of income, he began delivering food through various agencies.
All my flatmates were doing it at that time, he says.
“It was a good experience at first. I was new to Sydney and delivering food meant going around the city. It's the easiest way to discover Sydney while earning money,” he recalls.
But the early enthusiasm soon faded.
Abhishek rode a bicycle initially to make his deliveries. He says by the end of the day, he was so exhausted that he could hardly study. He then applied for a licence and started delivering on bikes.
“I rode (the bicycle) for eight hours continuously. My legs would ache badly. I couldn’t concentrate on my studies at all,” he tells SBS Hindi.
Food deliverers use different modes of transport. How safe are they? Source: Photo by Adam Kuban/Creative Commons.
“It is exhausting, but the money is good. However, that is all there is to it. It cannot be a permanent career.”
No support
The NSW guidelines cover issues such as rider fatigue, unsafe riding and poorly maintained and unsafe bicycles being used to deliver food.
Although Abhishek has not had any personal experiences of his own, he shares an incident where his friend was injured during a delivery and needed support. A car had crashed into them on a roundabout.
“Thankfully, he wasn’t injured much. But there wasn’t any support from the app. In fact, up until then, we didn’t even know we could claim insurance from the food delivery app,” he says.
It was much later after the incident, that a group of friends came across news articles informing them of the riders' insurance available to them.
Nobody expressly informs of your rights as a rider when you start. One has to be proactive in these things.
He shares his personal experience too.
He had a double delivery once, and the restaurant had not packaged the food properly. He was late in delivery and food slipped out of his bag. When the food was presented to the customer, they would not accept it.
Abhishek tried reporting it but says he received no proper support.
Hundreds protest against poor pay and conditions of food delivery riders in Melbourne. Source: AAP
“It is more common than you think. They need to work on their rider support. In the event of an emergency, there is no immediate help,” he says.
The guidelines also recommend platforms should have stronger reporting systems and require delivery riders to report all incidents as soon as possible.
Ten-hour lockout between shifts
Another recommendation is to consult platforms where “excessive working hours” are suspected and agree on a strategy to reduce the working times of delivery riders.
Throughout the conversation, Abhishek maintains that fatigue and rainy days are one of the major struggles for food riders. He lauds the NSW guidelines for riders to be locked out for 10 hours after a 12-hour shift.
“It is a much-needed rule. The current system locks you out for eight hours. Now, most of the delivery riders are students. An eight-hour lockout is not enough to rest, recuperate and be ready for full study load and the delivery work.”
Abhishek has high hopes from the current guidelines. He says he feels they address some of the major issues he faced while being a rider himself.
The guidelines will go through further consultation with industry stakeholders before the NSW government plans to introduce the measures in April.
