Experiences with extremely unsafe drivers?
 

Late last night, I had a Lyft driver habitually run red lights on my trip. I don't mean flooring it on yellow. The driver treated every light as a suggestion.

I was stunned when the driver crossed a 6+ lane thoroughfare on a solid red without even slowing down. Had anybody been traveling north or south on Van Ness in San Francisco at that time, I would not be alive to write this post.

Immediately on arrival I rated the driver 1 star upon which the app presented something like, "If you suspect the driver is under the influence, call our critical response team." I was connected to an offshore agent in a heavy accent who assured me everything would be taken care of. Within the next half hour I received 2 emails (exactly identical, canned text) about how safety is important, thanks for reporting this, it will be dealt with.

A part of me thought... that's it?

My wife had an Uber in the Dominican Republic crash into a pole. Thankfully she followed my advice about sitting in the back she left with out a scratch. This was 2 weeks ago.

While I was there in DR with her about 3 weeks ago, a driver ran a stop sign we almost got hit by a truck.

On my return from DR 2 weeks ago a lyft driver at JFK (i take lyft state side) was too busy yapping on the phone that he hit a pot hole so hard his tire went flat. lucky for me it was a block from destination.

Had two really unsafe rides so far this year and they both happened late at night (12AM-2AM).

First was a 50 mile ride from BOS. The driver kept drifting all over the road and could not stay in the lane. It happened dozens of times over the course of the ride. Then he ran a stop sign and almost hit another car a block from my destination. I yelled at him and told him to go take a nap (assuming he was tired). I reported it to Uber and they refunded the ride. Happy with the refund, but they really need to be better about enforcing rest breaks for their drivers.

Second was last week in Sri Lanka. Taking an Uber from Colombo city to CMB, leaving at 12AM. The driver was fine until we got on the expressway. He wasn't speeding, but kept drifting out of his lane. I could see his eyes in the rear view mirror and saw him blinking longer and slower, a sign of him falling asleep. I had to yell at him several times because he nearly crashed into the median divider several times over the course of the ride.

Really unsafe and it's making me rethink using Uber entirely for late night rides.

As someone who was in a serious taxi accident many years ago, in a major city in the USA, with a Caucasian driver who spoke with a native US regional accent, my confidence in most Uber/Lyft drivers is no less than taxi drivers. I did recently report a Lyft driver for very bad driving. He wasn't speeding, he wasn't falling asleep. He just couldn't stay in the lane, and at an offramp which split into two choices, panicked and stopped in the median between the ramp split. This, however, was less scary than seeing that a taxi driver was going to run a red light, turning my head to the left to see we were going to be broadsided, and trying to get my head all the way to the right and my hands up to stop my face from hitting the "security" divide between the front and back seats. I was only partially successful, and my face hit the handle of the slide to put the money through, missing my eye by about half an inch, and there's still a faint scar near the side of my eye to prove it, about 20 years later. The last I saw of the occupants of the innocent vehicle that broadsided my taxi (while sitting on the curb, waiting for my ambulance) was that they were on boards, probably due to broken legs.

Had an unsafe ride at 900 AM this past July.

Driver picks me up at a car dealership after I dropped off my car for a service. Enters an obviously well signed one way traffic circle and parks across the traffic facing the wrong way. Tries to drive out against the traffic in the wrong direction, and I had to turn him around. Leaving the circle we almost get hit at the intersection, because he did not check the oncoming traffic. 3 strikes and you are out !!

I reported him to UBER support.

They fire you on the spot for this and/or possible impairment.......FWIW.........so the OP's driver would have been terminated within 24 hours.

Not UBER related, but I would say that ~20% of all my GRAB rides in Indonesia have a driver on the verge of falling asleep, even at 11:00 A.M. I have started making small talk at the start of my rides and asking them when they started driving for the day.