An Uber passenger paralyzed in a crash last year is suing the company hoping, he says, his experience leads to more oversight of ride-hailing companies.
“It’s not in the moment you notice anything; it’s a progressive discovery of new battles to overcome,” Will Good, 31, told reporters.
He’s spent the last nine months adjusting to life as a quadriplegic.
Wood remembers that in the early morning of April 30, 2021, “We were moving. I was going to get home quick.”
Good was taking an Uber to his Somerville home after coming off a 14-hour shift as a chef at a Boston restaurant. Just blocks from his destination, the Uber driver slammed into a parked car on Highland Ave.
Good was thrown against a headrest and broke his neck.
“There was a swerve, an accident, and I couldn’t move, so I thought I was crushed,” Good says.
He’s now suing Uber for $63 million, asserting the company doesn’t appropriately screen or supervise drivers.
Good insists that driver Jonas Yohou, who has a lengthy record of moving violations, should never have been behind the wheel in the first place.
“I use the app, I got a ride through Uber. I didn’t get a ride through Jonas, I got a ride through Uber,” Good emphasized.
What Good wants is accountability, and to use his voice as he struggles each day barely able to move his arms and not his legs.
“Every little thing from getting an eyelash out of my eye, scratching my ear, little things you take for granted” are now very difficult, Good said.
He’s hoping for a jury trial to decide his case.
While Uber is yet to make an official comment, the company has maintained the drivers are independent contractors and it can’t be held responsible for their actions.