How to Support the People Who Deliver Your Food
Photo by Scott Heins
As restaurants and bars shuttered in cities across the U.S., and millions of Americans quarantined in their homes, food delivery cyclists joined nurses and grocery workers as essential frontline workers aiding America in the coronavirus crisis.
Right now, food delivery is providing a financial lifeline to restaurants, and helping quarantined people to remain safely in their homes. But door-to-door delivery is not without its problems. Food delivery cyclists are low-income workers with little to no job security, making as little as $3 on a 30 minute delivery, often working without protective equipment, who face an increased contagion risk just by doing their jobs. Like any of us, delivery cyclists may have at-risk family members at home, making their need to avoid contagion even greater.
If you order food delivery, there are steps that you can take to advocate for and protect food delivery workers, and yourself. The short version of how to support food delivery cyclists during COVID-19 is this: tip as much as you can but a minimum of $5, be careful about how you accept food delivery, and stay off the roads. Here’s the long version.
Tip well. $5 is the bare minimum, but you can do better
Plain and simple, delivery cyclists survive on tips, and in a crisis where visiting homes is a health risk, tipping is all the more important to creating a financial safety net should a delivery cyclist become sick or injured. As more delivery apps institute contactless delivery, finding a way to tip delivery cyclists well and safely is more important than ever.
Under normal circumstances, the minimum tip for food delivery is the same as in any restaurant: 20 percent. In any crisis where a delivery cyclist faces increased risk — whether it is a blizzard or COVID-19 — tips should increase proportionately. Consider 25 percent, or $5, whichever is higher, to be a fair minimum tip for a delivery cyclist who is risking their health by delivering your food. In general, $5 is the minimum acceptable tip for food delivery.
Photo by Scott Heins
Handing over a tip should be done with care. Tipping in cash is recommended, which ensures that every cent you tip goes to the delivery cyclist, however, since cash can be contaminated with COVID-19, consider putting cash tips in an envelope with the date on it, so whoever delivers your food can wait a few days to open it.
Dr. Linda Prine, a family physician and the chief medical representative for Transportation Alternatives’ advisory board, recommends this, and other measures.
“For delivery people who accept tips, wear gloves while working, take them off carefully, and then immediately wash your hands. Leave cash tips untouched for three days, if possible, or else wear gloves while touching the money,” Dr. Prine offers. People should avoid contact when delivering their tip, too. She suggests putting tips in an envelope and taping the envelope to the door.
When you tip, offer the option of social distancing to your delivery worker. Leave their tip outside a closed door with a note to leave the food on the doormat, or simply communicate through a closed door about stepping back after dropping the food, so you can take in the food, leave a tip, and close the door. Be polite about it, but do not worry too much about the awkwardness of this. These are strange times! Your delivery cyclist does not want to be within six feet of you, either.
Accept Deliveries With Care
Social distancing rules should be also followed when you take food inside, to protect yourself and the person delivering it.
“The food should ideally be left on doorsteps rather than handed to people. People accepting deliveries should probably also accept them and immediately discard the wrappings and then wash their hands. Disinfect surfaces that can be disinfected, like plastic containers,” Dr. Prine explains. Once surfaces are disinfected, chow down. “There is no evidence that COVID is spread on food, so eating the food that has been delivered should be safe.”
Photo by Scott Heins
Prine put a disclaimer on her guidance — in short, what we know is changing rapidly. “This advice is from what we know right now, but every day involves updating what are considered best practices,” says Prine. “Please stay tuned for updates.”
As for delivery workers, protection is equally important. “It is probably a good idea for delivery workers to wear masks, as many of the elevators they have to ride in do not allow for the six foot distance, but there is such a shortage of masks, that might not be possible,” explains Prine.
Ideally, delivery companies should be responsible for providing this protection to cyclists in their employ. Reports are mixed as to whether these companies are doing their part. According to Do Lee, of the Biking Public Project, most companies are not living up to their obligations.
“Workers are generally very upset with their employers because employers, whether restaurants or apps like UberEats, Seamless, Doordash, etc., are not providing workers with PPE, including masks, gloves, and sanitizer,” explains Lee. “For app workers, one additional problem is that since they don’t work for a single restaurant, they are having trouble finding places to wash their hands. Restaurants at which app delivery workers pick up orders are not letting them wash their hands.”
You can advocate for protective equipment for the cyclists delivering your food by calling or emailing delivery companies like Seamless (800–256–1020), DoorDash (855–973–1040), Postmates, and Uber Eats and ask them to provide no-cost protective equipment, including gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer, to their delivery workers.
Photo by Scott Heins
Avoid Non-Essential Driving
Even before COVID-19, delivery cyclists faced undue danger by the simple job requirement of riding a bike on city streets. In New York City, where 2019 was a particularly deadly year for cyclists, out of 29 people killed riding bikes, at least seven were delivery workers. These fatalities are a byproduct of reckless driving and inadequate infrastructure for cycling in most cities.
While COVID-19 has revealed the inadequacies of bike infrastructure in many cities, and cities are scrambling to implement temporary measures to keep up with the surge in cycling since infection fears made many public transit systems untenable, you can also do your part to protect delivery cyclists by simply avoiding non-essential driving.
Non-essential driving, namely doing anything in your car that isn’t strictly necessary, affects ambulance response times, and endangers delivery cyclists, and other residents of your city as they attempt social distancing on narrow sidewalks. You may have been told to “stay home” a lot in the last few weeks. If you care about delivery cyclists, that counts for your car, too.