Our Lyft driver for our second ride of the evening hit a pedestrian and did not stop. I quipped, “Good call, cause we would have had to get another Uber ride, and would have been late for our next stop.” Out third Lyft driver barreled at 55mph towards a car stopped at a red light when my friend quietly said, “red light”. In case you don’t know, one sign of anti lock brake failure is all wheels shuddering violently which you can still feel while airborne in the back seat hurtling toward the front seat with significant G Force. These two incidents caused me to realize, (besides the fact that terror causes instant sobriety); that there should be some instruction for experienced riders since most of what is on the Internet is about the “basics” of using ride share services. TRIGGER WARNING: This may test your boundaries of political correctness. (“Uber” is used herein generically to represent all rid share services)
Question 1. Your Uber driver pulls up and you notice there is already a passenger in the front seat, even though you did. It select “share a ride”. This passenger has their feet bound at the ankles with duct tape, their hands bound behind their back at the wrists and a gag tied in their mouth. Do they have to split the fare with you, or should you just let them ride for free wherever you’re going and pay the trip fare yourself? If you answer is no, they have to split the fare, should you cover the tip for your portion of the ride? Is it ok to ask the Uber driver to temporarily remove the gag to ask for their e mail for the fare split?
Question 2. Your Uber driver pulls up and has a handicapped tag on their rear view mirror. Do you inquire as to the nature of their handicap? (This happened with rear end crash driver no 3 last night). What if they are wearing sunglasses at night and have a white and read seeing impaired cane? Would a seeing eye dog on the passenger seat change your answer? What if the seeing eye dog had its own steering wheel and paw brake controls? In our case, we did not say a word until we realized his phone GPS had Braille. This was unacceptable because he had to take a hand off the wheel and this is distracted driving.
Question 3. You’re in your Uber when you and your friend notice thumping and knocking coming from the trunk and listening closely, a muffled voice crying out “Help me”, repetitively and loudly enough that it is interfering with your conversation. Is it ok to ask the Uber driver to get the trunk passenger to be quiet, as you would ask them to turn down the radio? Is the ride share question the same as no.1., or should you just pay the whole fare since they’re in the trunk, and not a “seat”, per se?
Question 4. Back to the Lyft driver who hit the pedestrian. (Honestly, it happened so fast I’m not sure they’re was contact). So, our driver is making a left turn onto a four lane highway and he pulls out into the median, continuously looking right when my friend says, “Pedestrian”, The Uber driver looks left jus tin time to see his Ltd front headlight is about a foot from the pedestrians left hip. (Before you feel sorry for the pedestrian, he was jaywalking, at night in dark clothes, so he probably deserved this). Pedestrian leaps in the air, making a perfect quarter turn to get his left hip out of the way. It is in this moment while he’s still in mid air that I realize he must have some Olympic skating experience as this move is so familiar. He then sticks the landing, on his feet, and turns toward us when I notice he is not smiling. I know from watching olympics of all types he’s supposed to be smiling. Frankly, he looks pretty angry to me. As the driver is pulling off, should I have rolled down the window to suggest he have a happier face on landing in the future. Our driver took some time to explain how this was all the pedestrians fault. Were we obligated d to point out that not hitting at fault pedestrians is a good raving skill. Yes, we didn’t think so either.
In the few years I’ve been doing ride share, I admit to not wearing a seat belt much. That all change last night. If you also don’t wear a seat belt in Uber’s, this is a public service announcement that’s you go ahead and find out which trauma surgeons, orthopedic surgeons and plastic surgeons are in network for your health plan,
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