One Sunday night last month, Rodney Wollam was picking up an order for DoorDash at PJ’s Sandwiches in Columbus, Ohio. He left his car running outside, like usual, to save it some wear and tear and buy himself a few seconds on the delivery time.
While he waited, a white vehicle circled the block, according to surveillance footage. On its second time around, a man got out of the rear passenger side of the car and into Wollam’s unlocked Scion xB.
A customer in line behind him said, “Wow.” Then, Wollam heard sounds he described as “comically clunky.” He turned around to see his car lying on its side.
In the thief’s attempt to drive off, he had apparently crashed into the other vehicle, causing the top-heavy xB to flip, Wollam said. The stranger inside his car had the nerve to ask Wollam for help getting out. He eventually freed himself on his own, breaking off the rearview and driver’s side mirrors in the process, and ran away.
Wollam called the getaway “something out of Keystone Cops.” He was not injured, and his car was OK—until a tow truck did further damage while trying to right it. His insurance declared the 10-year-old vehicle a total loss.
Wollam is one of the many Americans who have fallen victim to a spike in carjackings and vehicle theft during the pandemic. That increase has coincided with a massive rise in demand for food delivery, making drivers like Wollam, who started working for DoorDash in January, frequent targets.
“The drivers are going to look like safe targets for this type of crime.” —Chris Ferguson, Stetson University
There are several factors contributing to the rise in carjackings, which is part of a broader increase in violent crime over the past year, said Chris Ferguson, a professor of forensic psychology at Stetson University in Florida.
For one, the pandemic put a lot of people out of school and work who “may be inclined to engage in illegal activity,” particularly young people, he said. Widespread mask-wearing allows thieves to blend in while hiding their identities. And changes in policing following the racial unrest of last summer have led to reduced patrols in some inner city neighborhoods.
Ferguson estimated that carjackings have increased by 2 or 3 times in the past year as a result, “a lot of that being directed specifically at drivers who are delivering food or other items,” he said.
Like Wollam, many drivers leave their cars running or their keys inside while completing an order, Ferguson said, which is just the kind of thing opportunistic carjackers are watching for.
“The drivers are going to look like safe targets for this type of crime,” he said.
In some cases, the trend has had tragic consequences. Last month, a 66-year-old Uber Eats driver named Mohammad Anwar was killed in Washington, D.C., when two teenage girls tried to steal his car. They attacked him with a stun gun, causing a crash that threw Anwar from the vehicle.
Less than a week later, Francisco Villalva Vitinio, who worked for Uber Eats and DoorDash, was shot and killed in New York City as he tried to prevent an attacker from stealing the electric bike he used for deliveries.
Maria Figueroa, director of labor and policy research for the Worker Institute at Cornell University, said crimes against New York delivery workers have increased significantly during the pandemic, especially after the City Council voted to legalize e-bikes in June.
As more workers started using the bikes, which can cost from $1,500 to $2,200, they have increasingly become targets for thieves.
“We talk to a lot of workers, and it’s a lot of crime, a lot of robberies, and people contact us, ‘How can you help me, how can you support me?’” said Ligia Guallpa, director of the Workers Justice Project, which helped organize an advocacy group for delivery workers called Los Deliveristas Unidos.
They turn to groups like hers, she said, because support from delivery companies and law enforcement is lacking.
“The apps, they don’t care,” Guallpa said. “They don’t care that workers report that my bike got stolen.”
“There is a need to prioritize crime, protections against crime, for these workers.” —Maria Figueroa, Worker Institute at Cornell University
DoorDash and other delivery companies said driver safety is their top priority.
“The safety and security of our Dasher community and all those we serve is paramount,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We regularly send communications on safety tips and best practices, including sharing tips from law enforcement in our weekly Dasher Digest, which goes to all Dashers across our platform.”
The company is planning to add an emergency assistance button to its driver app that will help workers quickly connect to emergency services. Uber Eats has a similar feature, and is introducing a new tool for drivers that will allow them to validate customers who use anonymous forms of payment like gift cards, which are often linked to crime.
Grubhub said it consistently shares best safety practices for drivers and looks forward to “working with state and local governments across the country as they take steps to address the unacceptable spike in vehicle thefts.”
Figueroa and Guallpa think the providers could be doing more.
“They could become more vocal in terms of trying to provide more protections for the workers,” Figueroa said.
Guallpa said the companies should require customers to meet couriers outside to pick up their food so they don’t have to leave their bike or vehicle.
“If the customers come down to pick it up, and the delivery worker doesn’t have to go to the door, this is going to be a lot of help for them,” she said.
But the delivery companies’ actual legal responsibility is limited, because drivers are contractors rather than full-time employees. Wollam didn’t even report his incident to DoorDash after learning that it wouldn’t cover the damage to his vehicle.
“I would prefer direct employment, a guaranteed wage and benefits,” he said. “I know I would have been covered then.”
But not all delivery workers favor full employment, said Figueroa of Cornell.
“There is not unanimous support or even majority support for an employee status.”
And the national conversation about gig workers’ employment status has actually eclipsed other pressing problems, like crime and restroom access, she said.
“There are so many issues that sometimes crime is not at the top. So there is a need to prioritize crime, protections against crime, for these workers,” she said.
Another obstacle is a lack of unified representation for delivery workers that could help address those things, Figueroa said.
That is one problem Los Deliveristas Unidos is aiming to solve by organizing workers around issues like wages and e-bike robberies.
“There is an urgent need for a voice for these workers and also for communications with the apps and policymakers that could help solve these problems,” she said.
“No pizza is worth the life of a driver.” —Reza Kamalian, Pizza Guys
Some encouraging news is that as the pandemic ebbs, carjackings could too, said Ferguson, the forensic psychology professor.
“Once people are vaccinated, once young people are returning to school—and most perpetrators are young people—and once the economy improves ... I think we’ll begin to see some of this start to ease off.”
There are signs that is already happening in some places. In Chicago, carjackings had fallen 86% since January after more than doubling last year, according to police data. The department credited a carjacking task force as well as more public awareness for the decline.
“The wild card here is the policing narrative,” Ferguson said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in that situation.”
He urged delivery drivers not to leave their cars running or unlocked and to make sure someone else knows where they are while they’re working. And don't try to fight off an attacker who is trying to steal your vehicle.
Pizza Guys, an 80-unit pizza chain with locations on the West Coast, trains its drivers not to complete a delivery if they feel unsafe, said Director of Operations Reza Kamalian. “If you don’t feel safe, come back, no questions asked, and maybe we send two people,” he said. “No pizza is worth the life of a driver.”
Pizza Guys has actually seen a decrease in driver robberies recently, which Kamalian attributed to the fact that very few customers pay with cash these days.
Wollam has been renting a car with money from his insurance settlement to do deliveries on the weekends. He said he plans to use two sets of keys when he gets his own car—one to leave the car running and the other to lock the door when he picks up an order.
“No more unlocked doors for me,” he said. “I learned my lesson the hard way.”