Report: Amazon thought using third-party delivery drivers was dangerous, but did it anyway

When it came to fast deliveries, Amazon reportedly prioritized speed over safety.

This not-so-shocking revelation is just one of many in the latest issue of the New Yorker, which in a piece titled "Is Amazon Unstoppable?" goes into extensive detail about the company's efforts to grow at any cost — and the destruction that ethos left in its wake.

Of particular note is Amazon's decision to contract out last-mile delivery efforts to a bevy of third-party contractors, despite internal warnings that things could get ugly. According to Brittain Ladd, a former Amazon senior manager interviewed for the story, around 2013 the company decided that it could no longer rely solely on the likes of FedEx and the UPS to deliver its packages. Instead, it would also work with smaller courier firms scattered across the country to supplement its ever-growing demand.

"Frankly, you have very little control over these individuals," Ladd told the New Yorker.

According to the magazine, Ladd went so far as to circulate a written warning among colleagues: "I believe it is highly probable that accidents will occur resulting in serious injuries and deaths."

Mashable reached out to Amazon to confirm the existence of this memo, as well as to determine the company's response at the time to it being circulated. We received no immediate response.

In a statement to the New Yorker, Amazon insisted that it takes action "when [delivery partners] aren’t meeting our high bar for safety and customer experience."

Ladd, of course, was correct. A BuzzFeed News report from August of this year detailed all the ways in which third-party contractors, constantly pressed for time and often facing lax oversight, have encountered workplace abuse, injuries, and even death.

"I attended meetings, and I told them that the last thing you want is a newspaper article reading 'Amazon driver high on drugs hits and kills family,'" Ladd explained to the New Yorker. "But we were growing so fast, and there was so much pressure, and if we tried to build this internally it would have taken at least a year. And so a decision was made that the risk was worth it."

The "risk," of course, being not to Amazon's bottom line but rather to the life and limb of both the couriers forced to work long hours with few breaks and everyone caught in their crosshairs.

One such unfortunate individual, BuzzFeed News reports, was the 84-year-old Telesfora Escamilla. She was struck and killed by a driver working for Inpax Shipping Solutions — a company with an Amazon package delivery contract in Chicago and elsewhere.

"Just months before Escamilla's death," reports BuzzFeed News, "a former employee told BuzzFeed News, Inpax had stopped paying for a critical safety monitoring service it had installed in every van in Chicago — equipment some felt could have helped prevent the accident."

Amazon, notes the New Yorker, had decided "that it wasn’t practical to compel firms to give drivers regular drug tests or to require extensive training." The company reportedly no longer works with Inpax.

But hey, Amazon gets you your packages fast. And despite being warned by its own senior manager that deaths might result, the company is charging ahead.

Try to make sure you're not standing in its path.

UPDATE: Oct. 14, 2019, 2:35 p.m. PDT: An Amazon spokesperson provided the following statement via email:

The source of this information has never been involved in the decision making for these programs, the assertions are wrong, and do not provide an accurate representation of Amazon’s commitment to safety and all the measures we take to ensure millions of packages are delivered to customers without incident. Whether it’s state-of-the art telemetrics and advanced safety technology in last-mile vans, driver safety training programs, or continuous improvements within our mapping and routing technology, we have invested tens of millions of dollars in safety mechanisms across our network, and regularly communicate safety best practices to drivers. We are committed to greater investments and management focus to continuously improve our safety performance.