I assume we all adore Uber. It’s not only quick and simple, but it’s also safe and typically less expensive than taking a cab.
If you’ve ever utilized the UberPool service, you’ve probably experienced your fair share of unique situations in the backseat. After all, most folks who have had too many drinks to drive themselves call an Uber.
Or maybe you’ve had a strange encounter with the driver. Perhaps they bothered you or expected you to have a deep conversation with them at three in the morning when all you wanted was a quiet journey home.
Just picture the insanity the drivers have witnessed! Some Uber drivers have seen everything, including business jerks, irrational nut cases, and drunk passengers puking in the backseat.
Uber drivers recently congregated on Reddit to vent in unison about their worst-ever customers. Read 16 of the finest tales by scrolling down.
#1 “She pi**ed all over my leg down into my sock and shoe.”
Here’s my worst rider so far…
I drive in Dallas usually on Friday and Saturday nights. About 1:00am I get pinged for a pickup on McKinney Ave downtown. I was going to just shut down and go home, but surge was 3x so I figure maybe I’d get lucky with a long trip to Plano or someplace.
I fight through the traffic (which is always terrible) and pull up to the bar. Put my flashers on but no one comes over. Text the rider and look to see someone pulling out their phone. I see an early 20 something blonde girl pull out her phone-she’s is absolutely wasted.
I get out and call her name. She looks at me and promptly falls down. A guy helps her up and he’s feeling her up while he’s at it. I walk over, tell him to take a hike, and help her to my car. Put her in the back seat and it’s clear that she’s is beyond wasted. She’s also wearing a little jumper and falling out of it. I put the seat belt on her and ask her for the address. She’s practically incoherent, but gives me her address. At this point, I am wondering if she’s been slipped something.
I drive her to the address which is uptown (about 5 minutes away) and stop. She is passed out in the back seat and wreaks so badly of alcohol it is nauseating. I help her out and she falls into the street. I pick her up and walk her to the door of her apartment building. She is struggling to get her keys out of her bag and she kind of leans back into me with her butt on my thigh to keep her balance. She can’t make her key work so she buzzes her roommate.
We are waiting for her roommate to come down and open the door, and it was then that the leg of my jeans began to feel wet. Yep, she pissed all over my leg down into my sock and shoe. I help her roommate get her to the elevator, say goodbye, and head back out to my car.
When I get to the car, I say “fuck it” and take off my shoes, socks, and pants. I ball them up into plastic bag I had in the car and put them in the back. I drove home in my boxers.
#2 That’s crappy passenger.
Had a guy shit himself in my backseat.
#3 A vomit covered car by the worst passenger.
I once picked up this group of five girls from the University about 10 minutes away from ours. They were acting like the typical drunk sorority girls as far as I could tell, and I was actually enjoying talking to them for the most part. Well, whenever we’re literally one minute away from the party house, the girl in my passenger seat opens my door while I’m going 30+ mph and vomits all over my window, door, and dashboard.
I obviously pull over to make sure she’s alright, to assess the damage, and to get my damn door closed. While I’m stopped, this girl’s friend makes the brilliant decision to get out of the car, drop trou, and just piss on the sidewalk. I’m obviously stunned at how trashy these girls are being (it was 10:30 pm), but ultimately they all get back in and we drive the final minute to the party. When we get there, they all just pile out and say “thanks” with absolutely no effort to help clean my vomit covered car.
#4 “They were making ‘gun hand’ gestures at me during the trip.”
Boring horror story, two weeks ago I drove two young girls home around 3am on a Friday night. Quiet and polite passengers but when they get out I find they’ve literally stabbed up my back seat and dashcam review shows they were making ‘gun hand’ gestures at me during the trip. They paid for a new seat, full retail price. Attacking someone driving a car you’re in seems suicidal but drunk bitches be crazy. I watch the rear view closer now.
#5 “He spat on me.”
I drive occasionally for Uber, had one guy who went ape shit on me when I wouldn’t speed thru a downpour to get him to the airport. His bad luck I’m 250 lb and an ex-Marine. when he spat on me I pulled over on the freeway and promptly threw him out of the car and told him he could get his luggage up the road about a half mile. I then drove a half mile, put his luggage on the side of the freeway, drove to the nearest convenience store and wrote an incident report. I never heard back from Uber except a canned reply I should “remain professional in stressful situations”.
#6 “They all start asking me if they can throw up in my car.”
I just started driving for Uber this past week. Saturday night at about 2 am right before I’m about to call it a night, I get a ride request from one of the college bars less than a mile away so I decide to take it. I get there and pick up three VERY intoxicated girls, while the fourth standing outside tells me she is the one who ordered the Uber and she needs me to take her friends back to her place. The less trashed of the three gets into the front seat with me while the other two drag themselves in the back. They all start asking me if they can throw up in my car and, naturally, I tell them no. I also explain that if they do throw up in my car, that it’s their friend who is paying for this ride that would be charged the $200 clean-up fee. This made them mad, because HOW DARE I tell them where they can and can’t puke.
Get to the address (the girl who ordered the ride also asked me to make sure they got inside her house safely) and they get out and start stumbling around this neighborhood going from house to house trying to find the girl’s house. I walk over to the house with the address plastered on the front door telling them that this was the address their friend gave me, but they start yelling at me that they know their friends house and that isn’t it, and to “take my money and leave”. The backseat girls ask me again if they can throw up in my car and I gave a final “no”. So instead they hurl ON my car before taking off down the street. One fell over into the street and just laid there laughing. I said fuck it and left them there.
#7 Strike three.
Female driver here. One Friday night I picked up a law student after last call in West Hollywood, he was pretty drunk and wanted to go to UCLA. No biggie. He gets a call from his wasted friend and has me stop the car so he can try to figure out if we have to turn around to grab his friend. Again, no biggie, I’ve got the clock running. Friend doesn’t need a ride, we head off.
He starts talking about how he has a good night and he really needed this after his bad week. He broke up with his “bae” on Wednesday and pissed on her apartment stoop when she wouldn’t call him a cab, and then Thursday night he talked himself out of a DUI so he was riding with Lyft Friday to avoid getting pulled over again. This guy was classic UCLA Law Bro.
I try to lightheartedly tell him that that’s 2 of 3 karmic strikes and he should keep his head down for awhile, he laughs and agrees. We finally get to his places and he starts going with, “Man, you’re so pretty, you look nothing like my ex, maybe that’s why you’re so pretty…” And I see him pucker his lips while grabbing my shoulder to move up towards the front. “Get the fuck out of my car, I’ve got mace up here!” I shout. Dude freezes and drunkenly rolls out of my car… I’d call that strike 3.
#8 “Never doing that again.”
Former Uber driver here: Decided to try my luck with Hollywood one night after the clubs closed. When I pull up to the pick up location a stream of people start poking their heads into my car to ask if this car was theirs. I finally find the girl and she opens my passenger door, tells me to wait because she needs to find the rest of her friends.
I’m blocking traffic while she is calling for her friends loudly. She drags one girl into my back seat and returns to the still open front door and tells me more are coming. At this time the police pull up behind me and use their speaker to tell me to keep moving. I tell the girl to get in so i can go around the corner, she refuses and keeps yelling for her friends. The cops get out of their car and demand i move the car or face arrest/ticketing. I tell them the girl won’t let go of the door or get in.
They start yelling at her and me now to get in or let go of the door. She tells them No and that she needs her friends. Cop moves her and closes the door. I pull away with her drunk friend and no idea where to take her. I circle the block a few times and can’t find her again. I spent a good while trying to wake this girl and get an address. She finally gives me a ruff idea of where she lives. I drive her there and find the rest of her crew standing outside of her place. I don’t bother asking what happen, I just dump her off to her friends and go home. Never doing that again.
#9 “Don’t ever get married.”
Picked up a guy in the middle of the day from a bar, took him to a casino near by. As soon I got on the freeway some lady started tailing me and constantly beeping at me. I freaked out a little and he said “that might be my wife, don’t worry she’ll stop following soon”. She followed us for the whole 20 minute ride, non-stop beeping. Once we got there, he practically jumped out of my car and ran for the door. She followed him in her car, almost hitting him. Last thing he said to me, “don’t ever get married!”
#10 “Have a nice life.”
Picked up a couple at a beach bar, quite intoxicated. During the ride they were trying to decide if they should go out, and it became clear they were a new couple and that she worked as a stripper. They were going back and forth trying to decide if they should go to the club she works at or not. They decided not.
Fast forward 4 weeks later, and I get a call to a really dumpy trailer park. Same dude is throwing out his now ex-girlfriend, he comes out, says you’re taking her home, tosses all her stuff in the car and says “Have a nice life.”
All her worldly possessions fit in two backpacks and a purse. She spent the entire car ride home crying, called him on his cell phone trying to get back with him.
Her home was even dumpier than the trailer park – appliances rusting outside, etc… I asked her if she was going to be okay, and she sobbed “Yes.” Took her stuff and got out.
#11 “She was just frightened the whole time.”
I had an elderly woman who obviously was ubering because her family didn’t want to drive her to the airport, she was very uncomfortable and kept asking me if I was married. She then sat in silence for 45 minutes and tried giving me cash for the fare ($60 is the flat rate all other taxis charge in my area) even though whoever ordered the uber already paid for it. She then got a little upset that I wouldn’t take her money and thought I was going to report her. I felt bad but she was just frightened the whole time… made me feel kind of predatory :/
#12 Frisky business.
Uber driver in SD here. I had a pretty long trip probably 30 minutes at least and I picked up these two middle aged (40-50) people and they were pretty drunk. Anyway the guy was saying how much he was in to her in high school, so far not so bad. I could tell he was getting frisky and he was kissing her while she was talking. Soon she gave in and started kissing him back, this is where it gets memorable. They start making out hard, to the point where I can hear that wet smacking of the lips (I still pray it was her lips on her mouth).
The guy is now moving on top of her and he is putting his hand on my seat to get more leverage to get on top of her. He continues this and tries to get even more leverage by moving his hand around and putting it on my shoulder. At this point he is literally grabbing my shoulder, holding onto it while, hopefully making out, with this woman. At one point he puts his hand on my face but realizes this isn’t a good leverage point so he moves back to my shoulder. So I drove about 90 mph the entire way to their house praying they wouldn’t start having sex in the back of my brand new car. But hey they gave me a $20 tip sooo I’d say it was worth it.
#13 “That kid is going to puke.”
My first and last night driving for Uber.
My first night driving was this last new years in LA. I dropped off a passenger at a corner by a ton of bars in downtown. As I drive off I randomly look to my left and see this kid sitting down on the curb zoning in and out of coherent consciousness trying to request a ride, surrounded by multiple bouncers outside of this club. I think to myself, “that kid is going to puke.” Never the less, my naive nature allowed me to quickly shrug off the thought of the likelihood of a reality I would soon face (foreshadowing). I continued to drive for a few blocks when I received my next request. Noticing the abnormally close proximity between my last fair and my next, I became a bit anxious. Low and behold, that wasted kid was my next fair. I almost canceled the trip, but greed beat logic and common sense, and fairs were surging.
As we begin the trip only a few blocks up and around the street, he begins to dry heave and I pull over. Thankfully that was only the case. We arrive at the destination where he proceeds to tell me “this isn’t Bel Air.” I tell him I only dropped him off at the address he imputed. He then offers me $200 cash if I took him home. Only a few minutes into our trip traveling 75mph on the 10 from DT to BA, the kid rolls the window down and sticks his head out of the window and pukes all over the entire passenger side of the car and a little on the inside of the door (not that bad).
The kid lived all the way in the ass end of Bel Air, closer to the Valley than Sunset Blvd. He opens his wallet to pay me. If you guessed that this kid didn’t have the money, then you are correct. He slurs to me that his mom will pay me and to hold on. I grab his phone to make sure he comes back. Before he makes it out of the car, his mom comes out and starts shouting his name, which just so happened to be my name too. Instinctively I answer “yes!?” Still not sure why. She tells him to get inside and then asked me to tell her everything that happened, as if this isn’t her first rodeo. I tell her what our deal was and that he got sick everywhere. She sighs, rolls her eyes, and nods her head as if this is nothing new. She goes inside and comes back out handing me $300 and apologizing profusely to me for her son’s actions.
#14 “Happy ending.”
I’m a driver in Dallas and have seen all kinds of stuff but there is one client who sticks out in particular.
I got a call at about 3:00am on a Sunday morning for a location right next to a highway just north of a major bar district. Immediately I knew it was going to get a bit weird since this guy was just standing by the side of a frontage road when I picked him up. So the middle age guy tells me to go northeast of the city because there is some place he wants to visit. This doesn’t make sense because there isn’t anything going on northeast of the city at that time of night but I start taking him anyway. We get there and he mentions he was trying to find some massage place and then I realize what is going on. So being a good Uber driver I tell him he has the address wrong (it was on a ring road) and he needs to go to the northwest side of the city (Koreatown) to find his “happy ending”.
So I as I am taking him over there, he talks about his wife and his church and how I should come to his church with him sometime. Keep in mind that his request is to take him to hookers to presumably cheat on his wife with. So I smile and nod and eventually I get him to where he needs to be and being a good Uber driver, I tell him I will drive an extra mile or so it appears I dropped him off at a restaurant (in case wife checks the receipt). He loves the idea and I figure I’m done with this guy.
Nope. Some 30 minutes later, I get a call from the guy and he wants me to come pick him up. I go over, he requests me and I pick him up. His mood is noticeably better and he’s telling me how great it was when his wife calls. He panics and asks me to make up a story to tell his wife so I grab the phone and tell her that he lost his car near downtown (which was true) and he went to get something to eat and now I’m taking him home. She bought it and thanked me for taking care of her husband and I promptly took him home, but I felt horrible at that point. At the end he tipped me 40 bucks and it was over 60 dollars in fares for a couple of hours so pretty good.
#15 What a doll.
One time someone put a blow up doll with two 40s duct taped to the doll’s hands in my passenger seat and said that the Uber was for her. He closed the door and I just drove me and the doll to the destination.
#16 A drunken invitation.
I got hit on by a 74 year old woman once. She and her boyfriend had been to a play downtown and he got too tipsy to drive home and in her words “He was too drunk to service me, even!”. This was around 10pm on a Saturday night, I took her home and she asked if I wanted to come in and have a glass of wine. I politely declined and said it was too early to stop driving on a Saturday night. Had she offered to give me the money I would have missed out on, I would have hit that like a freight train.
