Report: Amazon Drivers Instructed to Drive Recklessly to Meet Quotas

A recent report from Vice’s Motherboard claims that Amazon delivery drivers are being asked to disable a driver safety system partway through their shifts, encouraging reckless driving in order to meet delivery quotas.

Vice’s Motherboard reports that Amazon delivery companies in the United States are encouraging reckless and dangerous driving by instructing drivers to shut off an app called Mentor that is used by Amazon to monitor drivers’ speed and give them a safety score in order to prevent accidents.

Drivers claim that they are being ordered to disable the app by their bosses so that they can speed through their delivery routes to hit Amazon’s delivery targets. One dispatcher at an Amazon delivery company reportedly texted a delivery driver at DDT2, an Amazon warehouse in the suburbs of Detroit: “Sign out of Mentor if you haven’t already,” according to a screenshot obtained by Motherboard.

A dispatcher at DAT2, an Amazon delivery station in the suburbs of Atlanta, reportedly told drivers in a group chat in May 2020: “Starting tomorrow everyone needs to be logged into Mentor for at least 2 hours no more no less, so make sure that’s one of the first things we’re doing in the mornings.”

Mentor is a smartphone app developed by a firm called eDriving that partners with Amazon to monitor the driving behaviors of delivery drivers at Amazon Delivery Service Partners, which operate as quasi-independent companies that are contracted by Amazon to deliver packages in Amazon-branded vans.

Sensors in a delivery driver’s smartphone collect information about a driver’s acceleration, braking, cornering, and speeding and feed it into the Mentor app. It also detects “phone distraction” based on how often a driver is using their phone outside of the Mentor app. Each driver is then given a “FICO Safe Driving Score” in order to “objectively measure how safe a driver is.” Amazon ties driver bonuses to a number of metrics, including a delivery worker’s driving score.

Motherboard spoke with Amazon delivery drivers in New York, Texas, Michigan, Tennessee, and Georgia who claim that their delivery companies have instructed them to log off the app, turn on airplane mode, or turn their phones off during shifts to prevent the Mentor app from collecting driving data.

The drivers say that their bosses are demanding that they turn off the app so that drivers can recklessly hit Amazon quotas without being detected by Mentor and Amazon. The drivers allege that they feel as if they are being threatened and pressured to break traffic laws.

A former driver at a delivery station in Romulus, Michigan who quit in late April, told Motherboard: “Speeding was the main thing. They were harsh on drivers that weren’t going as fast as they wanted. I complied when they asked me to turn off the app because I didn’t want to cause friction. But it was a lot of stress, high blood pressure, seething anger and frustration.”

An Amazon spokesperson stated: “This behavior is unacceptable and does not adhere to the safety standards that we expect of all Delivery Service Partners. It’s also misleading to suggest that this behavior is necessary – in fact, more than 90% of all drivers are able to complete their deliveries before the scheduled time while following all safety procedures.”