Earlier today, while riding to a brewery that I left my car at last night, my driver told this gem:

"Brewery, huh? I guess you did a little drinking last night. Always good to call an Uber, ain't it? Hell, one time I was on my way to a bar outside of town to pick somebody up, and I get a text from him asking me if I wanted to come in for a drink! I thought, well hell, I could use a drink. Just one won't hurt me, you know? Well...I like to drink long island iced teas, and those things are so damn good you can't drink just one. Who was I kidding? Anyway, there I was, sitting at the bar with the guy who I'm supposed to be picking up, and he's buying so I decide to get another. Just can't help myself! Of course he wanted to buy me a shot of Patron too, and I ain't gonna turn a shot down... Next thing you know, I'm on my phone looking for an Uber myself and I'm halfway thinking about buying that driver a shot just to pay it forward!"

I've been thinking about that story all morning and I really can't faulty anyone in it. Sometimes you just have to let loose.

goddammit i hate uber drivers in this city

Because they tell bad stories, or because they're unreliable, or what?

WM really reminds me of tree_.

no, i prefer a non-talking uber driver. it's hit or miss, but whatever. yeah, unreliable, and they have no fucking idea how to get around. i'd say probably 75% of the time I'm giving them directions the entire ride. then, as a commuter, uber drivers are the worst. crossing three lanes to suddenly turn left out of a right lane... stopping a blocking a lane on an extremely busy road during rush hour... going 4mph down the road... doing complete dickhead bullshit maneuvers and almost killed 10 pedestrians in one big swoop.

there should be some sort of extra driving test for transportation providers like uber, taxi, etc. and that license needs to be kept valid on a regular basis. i feel lucky every day i make it through the city unscathed.

Funny, I think the same about you. Though tree_'s posts were always much warmer, more sincere and more optimistic than yours tend to be.

...

Yikes. I do hate it when my drivers don't go the best route, but most drivers in this city are pretty amenable to alternate recommendations. Most of the time, I don't like talking to the drivers or when they talk to me, since I prefer to use that time to catch up on an email or article I've bookmarked, but every once in a while a little interaction is nice. OP is very much case in point.

that being said... we had a Lyft driver a month or two ago who told us all this crazy shit about being a taxi driver. and how he had regular customers who had fears about other people, large groups of people, or compact areas, so they wouldn't fly or take trains. he regularly drove people from Seattle to Portland in a cab, and several regular customers who would ride from Seattle to Phoenix, or Houston, or Denver. It'd be about a $3000 ride, and he gladly did it. And several of these people were afraid of human interaction, so the entire ride would be silent, except for radio.

he also had a lady who lived in our area who would pay $500 once a week to drive her around the neighborhood, do all of her errands, her groceries, everything. then take her to the bar by the beach, she'd have 3 drinks while he waited in the car, then he'd take her home. every week on the exact same day.

Interesting. You hear about ride-sharing disrupting the car culture all the time, but I'd never think to use Uber in lieu of something that essentially amounts to limo or town car service. I wonder why those passengers didn't just hire a car from a company that specializes in that sort of thing? It can't be cheaper to Uber, can it?

I've got horror stories from using services like Fasten and Fare in Austin, where Uber and Lyft were railroaded out of town.

yeah that's a good point, i really have no idea

i strictly use Lyft now, especially since Uber changed the location services in their app to require them to let you know your location for up to 5 minutes after drop off. at least they claim 5 minutes. no thanks.

Wait, what?

Uber is the only game in town (besides Yellow Cab and gypsy cabs) in Houston, btw. I've never had a chance to try Lyft.

yeah that makes sense. we're lucky with Lyft, and a plethora of small ride share startup companies trying to make a buck out of the game by just mimicking the same ideas

we only use lyft too...about 2 years ago we noticed our uber account was hacked and someone took 3 separate rides in St Petersburg Russia.