>, can you elaborate on this?
Not the person you were replying to but sexual harassment or just creepiness is a common one here in Indianapolis. This year alone:
- one friend had an Uber driver offer her perfume when she took an Uber home which creeped her out
- A co-worker driving Uber on the side had a couple invite her into their home offering her use of their hot tub and telling her that she could borrow clothes or just wear her underwear
- Another female friend had a driver offer her "complimentary earnings".
- Two female friends getting a ride to a bridal bar crawl were repeatedly asked for their phone numbers to 'meet up later tonight'
And I don't think this is abnormal either, a little searching on reddit/facebook/twitter and you can find report after report of such activity on the various ride platforms.
Pretty much everyone I know will not use ride share any more for being responsible while out drinking or when needing a ride to the airport and have gone back to using cabs or friends/family.
I've only used them myself a few times, all last summer when I was in San Francisco for less than 48 hours and none of them left me feeling "yay this is a great service"
- The guy that picked me up at SFO apparently didn't speak a word of English and just kept smile and nodding when I tried to ask him questions. It was Pride weekend and a road between us and my hotel (the Proper) was closed for the parade and he kept trying to find a way around and looking at me panicked, eventually I cancelled the ride and got out to try and find my own way.
- The guy that picked me up to take me to OpenAI had some sort of Alex Jones-esque talk radio on that was talking about 'government sanctioned false flag events' that left me wondering about the mental well being of the driver, he never said one word to me the entire time. No hi, no are you my guy, no we are here, no get the hell out of my car. Nothing. Worse, the dude had total Travis Bickle vibes WITHOUT the radio/podcast. He dropped me off on the wrong side of the street and at the end of the block.
- My first ride from there to YC's San Francisco office was hijacked by someone else. Got in my ride and the app reflected me in the car being charged, I cancelled the ride after a minute while trying to find any sort of way to notify the app or driver I wasn't in the vehicle. Had to request another and wait several minutes, this guy seemed alright, said hi to me, then proceeded to drive like he just stole the car while cutting off a couple of buses/trolleys on the way back to the Proper while letting off strings of 'mother f* this, hole that, can you believe this guy" and had three phones on his dash with some app open that was apparently telling him if he should take a Lyft or Uber fair right then (IIRC it was actually a company from a YC batch, I looked it up on my phone because I thought it was a neat concept). He also was on the wrong side of the street and and said "is his good" after he'd already put the car in park with traffic behind him.
- The guy that took me from the Proper to SFO again, apparently did not speak or understand English, I believe was muttering at traffic in Russian or Serbian, was extremely impatient in traffic getting out of the city with a lot of hard accelerations and abrupt stops trying to get one car advantages by weaving in and out of the lanes. Also had 2 phones on the dash and a dedicated GPS unit and accepted a Lyft ride with me still in the car on an Uber ride as he was maybe 1/4 of a mile from the terminal, jumped out of the car and had the trunk open before I was out and was shoving my suitcase at me and immediately walked up to his apparent next customer to get theirs.
- I think had another ride back to the YC SF offices to meet with another person a little later and the woman that picked me up kept turning around to talk to me face to face while driving, told me how she was raising her son 'free range' and asked if I was in town for Pride. I informed her no and told her about the entirely naked man I'd seen walking down the street with only sandals and a bag [1] at which point she went on to explain that her and her child's father took him to the parade the day before to expose him to as much of the 'exposed male form' as possible because she thinks 5 is old enough for a child to start learning about sexual freedom, again while looking back over her shoulder at me regularly.
- The guy that took me back to the Proper had been (or perhaps a passenger), at some recent point, vaping THC containing vape in his car as there was both a fruity and a immediately recognizable skunky aroma in the car
Prior to this I'd only ever been in one other Uber ride, all of a mile here in Indy that a co-worker and I took just to get out of the rain that we'd been in all day so we could try and figure out where to eat now that an outdoor concert was over and that guy too didn't say as much as boo to us.
Now, I'm a 6'1 330lb male strength athlete and I generally found the rides to be questionable at best. Combine that with my female friends consistently having creepy drivers ('complimentary earrings'!) and I'm honestly surprised at how many people seem to swear by such services.
[1] censored photo here about 1/4 of the way down the page https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after...