Are more people calling Uber instead of ambulances?

New Years Eve is fast approaching and while Uber is a must when planning your night out, a new study finds it’s being used for something else.

A growing number of people appear to be choosing Uber over an ambulance when they go to the emergency room. That’s according to the University of Kansas Economist. The research finds that people who are too sick to drive, but aren’t in dire need of immediate medical attention tend to choose the popular car service over calling for an ambulance. The data mentions that the amount of ambulances in use have dropped by at least seven percent in cities where Uber first started in 2013 to 2015.

Locally, we spoke with an Uber driver to hear his experience in the matter.

“Usually Ubers are within a couple minutes from anybody’s house and the customer also knows how much it’s going to cost when he or she goes from one point to another. I have taken people that were so called, severely sick or something like that with the flu, where they saw it was quicker to just grab an Uber,” said Mcconnell.

The study makes sense as ambulance rides are very expensive usually costing hundreds to even thousands of dollars. The fact that a person gets that instant gratification by looking on the Uber app to see exactly where the driver is in real time is convenient, as opposed to waiting for an ambulance to arrive.