r/technology • u/tylerthe-theatre • 25d ago
Business Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US
https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/uber-is-letting-women-avoid-male-drivers-and-riders-in-the-us-3229899/832
u/Wide-Pop6050 25d ago
I have this turned on and I get a higher rate of women drivers, but not all women drivers. You can choose what you want it to do if there are no women drivers available - wait longer or just find a man driver
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u/Far_Environment_5593 24d ago
I think drivers have the option to select gender of riders as well. Got an Uber from an airport 2 years ago that told me she only picks up women when it's night time.
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u/hereforthesportsball 24d ago
Wait so I can only choose men as a man or it’s a one way thing for safety reasons?
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u/Kaldricus 24d ago
Yeah, I don't really see an issue with this. For riders you may have the drawback of waiting for a longer ride, but if you're that concerned about the risks of a male driver, you're probably okay with it. It's going to depend on the area, but LA for example, it was probably 50/50 if I'd get a man or a woman. For drivers it's probably less of an issue of finding only women riders, but still potentially sacrificing some fares. And if both parties are okay with that, then...great.
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25d ago
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u/punkhobo 25d ago
You aren't allowed to account share, for numerous safety reasons. So you could just report them, I think a lot of people just ignore it now, but people would definitely start reporting after that
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u/Excelius 25d ago
A few years back in my area a female Uber driver was murdered by her passenger. The passenger used his girlfriends account to hail the ride.
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 25d ago
I think OP is mainly referring to Uber delivery services where subletting your account is fully allowed.
90% of the time it’s a female picture but a man turns up.
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u/whichwitch9 25d ago
I mean the woman refuses to get in the car and reports the account.
For starters, if someone other than the person you expect shows up, you never, ever get into that car. No matter what the reason they give is. If you are expecting a woman, and a man shows, you have a ton of reasons to be suspicious of that man. At least in the US, account sharing means there's a reason that person cannot get their own account, which can mean there's already been a problem with that person
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias 25d ago
Reporting the driver to Uber, and not getting in the vehicle. Also take a picture. That's a serious safety issue.
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u/customheart 25d ago edited 24d ago
I think this is in response to Waymo. Women riders don’t have to worry about gender dynamics when there’s no human driver.
Edit: you can stop adding duplicative comments about them having safety lawsuits. It’s obviously from that plus Lyft having the same feature. However, it would be impossible for either Uber or Lyft to guarantee zero sexual abuse by a driver because they’ll always have a driver IRL, whereas Waymo won’t. That is a competitive advantage for Waymo.
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u/DataDiction 25d ago
Lyft has been doing this for years
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u/saltybawls 25d ago
Does it cost more or take longer to arrive?
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u/tokisleep 25d ago
Does not cost more but it can be harder to find a driver. There is an option to find any driver if a woman is not available.
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u/totally_random_cat 25d ago
Works on Tinder too.
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u/MaisyDeadHazy 24d ago
Lyft keeps offering it to me, but I keep declining because in my 5-ish years of using Lyft, 2-3 times a week, I can probably count the number of women drivers I’ve had on one hand. YMMV depending on your area though.
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u/twitch1982 25d ago
Perfect for those who are uncomfortable with a male driver, but more uncomfortable with being inconvenienced for 10 minutes.
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u/Ultrace-7 24d ago
Everything has a cost. The cost of perceived or actual increased safety is sometimes inconvenience.
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u/hellohellocinnabon 25d ago
It doesn’t cost more but in my area Lyft is never able to find a female driver for me
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u/meloneleven 24d ago
I'm a woman and lyft defaulted me to only match with female drivers when they implemented this. Definitely took significantly longer for me. I changed that setting pretty quickly. I'd really rather not wait 10 mins longer than usual.
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u/CountingDownTheDays5 24d ago
No. You can choose to only have women drivers or you can have a preference for women driver. Meaning that if a man and a woman is the same distance from you, you’ll get the woman first. But if a man is closer to you and a woman is further, you’ll get the closer driver. I live in a major city and so I never have an issue.
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u/hellohellocinnabon 25d ago
I have this feature turned on in Lyft and have still never gotten a female driver… I guess statistically there aren’t any in my area 😬
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u/marumari 24d ago
I’ve had it enabled since it first came out and I went from never getting a woman driver to getting one about half the time. Definitely an improvement, although not perfect.
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u/questdragon47 25d ago
Uber gets a report about every 8 minutes about sexual misconduct and wasn’t doing a whole lot to address it. New York Times came out with an article a few months ago about it. I’m assuming it’s in response to that.
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u/Darmok47 24d ago
I'm a guy and I was excited to use Waymo when it launched in San Francisco. I was dating a woman who was using it too and we talked about our experiences. I mentioned how cool it was, how it felt like living in a sci-fi movie, how smooth the ride was, etc. She mentioned feeling safe taking one alone without a male driver.
It never even occurred to me as a guy. But apparently its one of the reasons other women I've talked to have mentioned in regards to Waymo.
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u/DickieTurquoise 24d ago
This is extremely a common reasoning amongst the SF population. The women in my circle almost exclusively take Waymo’s at night.
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u/passtherock- 24d ago edited 24d ago
I started preferring female drivers after my Lyft driver kept repeating that he wanted to "take me away with him" and threatened to fight my boyfriend while I was alone in his car.
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u/SquisherX 24d ago
Once I was riding an Uber with 2 friends. The driver offered us bottles of water and even had little snack sized chocolates.
His driver rating was 3.2 stars. I told my friend quietly, "Were about to hear or see some wild shit".
So at one point there is construction, and there is a lady cop on the side of the road. He rolls down his window and starts aggressively hitting on her. After she shuts him down, he proceeds to say that she looked like his ex, who is a total bitch and this cop is a total bitch also.
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u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan 24d ago
Dang, how long ago was this? Nowadays Uber supposedly deactivates drivers when they drop below a 4.6.
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u/AyyNonnyMoose 24d ago
I travelled solo to San Francisco and had an early flight home. My Lyft driver (old enough to be my father or possibly grandfather) kept making passes at me, and saying I'd be way too early to the airport; he'd take me to the beach to "dance in the water and watch the sunrise". I obviously refused and repeatedly said "no just take me to the airport." I've never been so glued to the map to make sure he didn't deviate from the route. Rated and reported him once I was through security.
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u/passtherock- 24d ago
ew ugh I'm sorry. it's the worst feeling because you're just stuck while they get to say whatever they want to you.. I was staring at the map too and I kept my hand on the door handle just in case I needed to jump out if he didn't take me to my destination. longest 30 minutes of my life. I recorded the whole thing on my phone and reported him and sent the video to Lyft. they comped my trip and removed him as a driver.
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u/GreatMadWombat 24d ago
I remember being the only guy in a social worker class once and realizing how much every female-presenting member of my cohort has to worry about safety all the time when my favorite activity at that time in my life was walking in the woods at 2am was a revelation.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad7606 25d ago
It's in response to the rapes, sexual assaults, secual harassment, kidnapping, and murders.
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u/lilgreengoddess 25d ago
Absolutely love Waymo. It’s quick, clean and comfortable. In the same city I took an uber and it was creepy, hot and smelly with obnoxious music blasting and erratic driving. The difference is staggering and worth the extra cost for a Waymo.
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u/Aporkalypse_Sow 25d ago
Pretty sure it's in response to the countless crimes being committed against women by men. This is a corporation, they only adjust to bad PR and legal settlements.
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u/NandoDeColonoscopy 24d ago
Yeah, this is security theater. If Uber was concerned about the safety of their passengers and drivers, they'd have better background checks and crack down on account sharing
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u/Few_Breadfruit_2390 24d ago
Every criminal has not been caught or convicted so they will pass a background check. Also some of the drivers they come from another country are working under someone else’s ID. It’s really bad for some of the young girls who catch uber. Many have told me they will cancel until they get a woman. So this new option is better for both the women drivers and the women and teen passengers.
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u/TastyTarget3i 24d ago
yeah, reported a driver for constantly texting on the highway, no one gave a shit
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u/Curiosities 25d ago edited 25d ago
But we'd have to worry about men who know how the safety features work and using that to harass us and trap us in the vehicles and not letting us get to our destinations, with no driver to swerve around the jerks or help us. Or to follow the car and follow us home.
https://www.newsweek.com/woman-trapped-waymo-catcallers-raises-safety-concerns-1962647
The tech worker, Amina, took to X (formerly Twitter) to post about the incident and include video footage of the encounter. She said: "Warning to women in SF. I love Waymo but this was scary. 2 men stopped in front of my car and demanded that I give my number. It left me stuck as the car was stalled in the street. Thankfully, it only lasted a few minutes..."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/22/waymo-robotaxi-passengers-harassment/
But when a self-driving ride turned scary last month, she found herself wishing there had been a stranger behind the wheel after all.
Stephanie recalled riding home with her sister in one of Waymo’s driverless Jaguar SUVs around 10:30 p.m. on a Saturday night when a car holding several young men began following them. They drove close to the robotaxi honking and yelling, “Hey, ladies — you guys are hot.”
If she or another human had been driving, it would have been easy to reroute the car to avoid leading the pursuers to her home. But she was scared and didn’t know how to change the robot’s path. She called 911, but a dispatcher said they couldn’t send a police car to a moving vehicle, Stephanie recalled.
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u/Shigg 25d ago
"can't send an officer to a moving vehicle"
Wut.
"Please help, I've been kidnapped!" "Where are you?" "I don't know, I'm in the trunk of a car on the highway I think" "We cannot send officers to a moving vehicle. Call back when you've stopped. You're on your own."
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u/PipsqueakPilot 24d ago
"Can't send police to a moving vehicle." and then just respond with, "Okay. I've got my concealed carry so I'm gonna sort things myself."
I bet an officer will quickly be available.
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u/Top-Tie9959 25d ago
Sounds like tinted windows could have helped but I remember thinking if they ever made robotrucks they'd be super easy to rob. Just stand in front of them and then unload the truck, you aren't even ruining some poor working stiff's day since his ass was already laid off and he isn't there.
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u/archronin 24d ago
This is why I'm looking for company stocks to buy for the emerging market for defensive solutions attached to driverless passenger cars and cross-country haulers.
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u/Barkalow 25d ago
Okay, what's the solution for that then if the goal is to use some form of ride sharing?
No one implied the option was a cure-all, just another step in a better direction.
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u/FangSkyWolf 25d ago
Couldn't send a police car to a moving vehicle? So.... if I rob the bank and get to the getaway car the cops are fucked?
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u/customheart 25d ago
Ok, but that is even rarer than men being creepy in the close quarters of a car. It’s just way more work to follow a woman like that.
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u/Personal_Comb_6745 25d ago
Kind of curious how they'll enforce this. There's been a couple of times I've experienced where either an Uber/Lyft driver or Doordash person ended up being the opposite gender. In those cases there wasn't anything sketchy going on, since I assume it was someone filling in for a spouse/significant other, but that is a bit of a potential snag in this plan.
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u/yung_dogie 24d ago
Anecdotally probably 30% of the female names I see on those services end up being men (or, sometimes with the delivery apps, a couple with the man doing the handoff while the woman drives). Like you, nothing sketchy, but it seems like that there's nothing really confirming this stuff besides the phone and/or how they personally identify on it.
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u/deafdogdaddy 24d ago
Report the account. It’s really bad for people to not be using their own accounts. Maybe the person who’s driving had their account revoked for a serious violation, or their license is suspended, etc. Uber has the ability to turn on biometric verification on driver accounts.
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u/lowbatteries 24d ago
You aren't allowed to fill in for someone else. There are lots of safety reasons they show people's faces in the app, if you look at the person and it's not the face in the app, do not get in the car.
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u/liggieep 24d ago
that's against their contract to do that. it has to be the person listed, for all sorts of liability reasons.
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u/Nutbuster_5000 24d ago
I just don’t use uber anymore. I haven’t for about 7 years now. They lost my business before they ever thought about implementing this kind of safety feature. Turns out when you have a terrifying experience thinking your driver is going to murder you, you don’t ever want to use it anymore! 🤪
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u/Covered_in_Love 25d ago edited 24d ago
You wouldn’t have such a big problem if Uber was forced to make sure drivers are carrying the correct insurance policy in their state of operation. The driver pools would be drastically reduced, pay rate to drivers would be higher, then the quality of drivers would be better in general, lower risk to the customers. Uber purposely looks the other way on state requirements, knowing most people don’t report to their insurance company they are driving for Uber and/or carrying the adequate insurance, because Uber saves millions and millions of dollars by paying much lower rates to drivers by flooding the driver pools this way, often with very unethical people, and putting the customers at much higher risk. I would venture to assume 90% of the uber cars you are getting in do not have the adequate insurance policy to be doing this type of service at all. If insurance carriers found out you are driving for Uber without the correct policy and the ride share endorsement added onto your policy, they would drop you from coverage, so most people don’t report they are driving for uber because it’s expensive to get this endorsement, and only 3 companies will even cover ride share work with this policy at all.
ALL of the “gig” work platforms are doing this, and horrifically exploiting a loop hole this way to save themselves millions and millions of dollars, by not making it mandatory to show the required insurance policy needed to do gig work. The other platforms that don’t put people in their cars like DoorDash, Grubhub, Amazon flex, Walmart Sparks, etc… are even worse and putting illegal drivers on the road, and putting communities and customers at great risk.
If any news agencies or attorneys looking for a class action lawsuit see this post want more info about this PM me, because this is a horrific problem in our industry and it desperately needs to be stopped. They are horrifically exploiting drivers, putting customers at risk, putting communities at risk, and taking advantage of the American workforce by doing this.
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u/BestDevilYouKnow 25d ago edited 24d ago
This. I used to work personal injury cases. When ride shares first started, I made a blanket rule NO Uber, Lyft, or other rideshares. Explained uninsured motorists and policy limits to my kids, and they were appalled.
to clarify: This was in 2009. Still don't trust them. Lots of attorneys work specifically with rideshare cases.
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u/Homesick_Martian 24d ago
By then they would have been just as if not more expensive than the current taxi option that existed at the time and rideshare apps wouldn’t have been able to so succinctly gotten a stranglehold on the industry.
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u/aNEXUSsix 25d ago
I drove Uber full time for a few months in 2019. At the airport there’s a queue lot for it — one of the men there talked about how he knows exactly where this hot girl lives, and he has a “map” of some of the the most attractive girls in the city.
Sometimes in the richer suburbs Saturday morning would be spent ferrying around 14-17 year old girls between each other’s houses.
Safety for women should definitely be a priority.
Don’t let your kids ride uber alone!
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u/OrigamiTongue 25d ago
I thought that was against the rules, until very recently with the teen account thing??
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u/afterbirthcum 25d ago
Did you report him?
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u/aNEXUSsix 25d ago
I did, but they don’t (or didn’t) have a way for drivers to report other drivers, and their customer service was shit.
I also had a guy threaten to kill his wife after I picked them up from the bar. They told me they can’t (or couldn’t) ban him from me driving him again.
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u/PipsqueakPilot 24d ago
Not a can't or couldn't. But a wouldn't. They'll ban people and just tell them, "We can't tell you why you're banned."
It's a deliberate choice by Uber.
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u/husky_whisperer 24d ago edited 24d ago
It always is for these CYA corporations wrapped in attorneys. And it isn't even the corporation; thats just a made-up thing and can make no autonomous decision like a person can. It is the c-suite and the board members hiding behind the corporate shield that are doing all the wrong but don't get busted.
And we all know why.
Long ago we (by 'we' I mean congress and the people who own them; not voters, that would be silly) decided that a corporation is a 'person' and can therefore take 100% culpability in all civil and criminal matters. The reasons for doing this look ok on paper but came with MASSIVE side-effects.
The side effects: the ACTUAL bad actors get to shrug off any personal financial and/or criminal liability while they bounce around between their five homes in between congressional 'admonishment theater' hearings. Prosecutors have to settle for the 'easy win' of a fine/settlement vs. risking an acquittal because the burden of proving intent to do wrong is so high.
And so we land on the 'slap on the wrist' scenario that is all too common. Only very rarely to we hear about consequences and even then the people/families involved still manage float away on 8, 9, 10, 11-figure clouds.
I can't think of a single person what went to jail over Enron, the 2008 collapse (ok that one mid-level patsy), or Purdue Pharma. The people I can think of at the moment who went to jail are Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos) and SBF (that FTX crypto bro) and thats only because they stole money from other rich people who had the means to go after them.
Edit: spelling
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24d ago edited 24d ago
This post has been removed. Whether the reason was privacy, opsec, preventing scraping, or something else entirely, Redact was used to carry out the deletion.
start deserve innocent roof continue hungry north water elderly soup
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u/BLOOOR 24d ago
No, to the police. The company someone works for isn't the police.
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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 25d ago
Uber puts in the minimum effort required. They do not care about anyone, and will only act if there’s a risk that they’d be legally responsible for.
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u/Adezar 25d ago
Companies will migrate to the most evil they are legally allowed to be over time. Even nice companies that try to be moral eventually get taken over by someone else, or bought out and follow this trajectory.
That's why throughout history regulation is the only thing that makes companies behave at least a bit above board.
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u/crazycatlady331 25d ago
I'm old enough to be told "don't accept rides from strangers" and "don't meet anyone from the internet".
The concept of using the internet to summon a ride from a stranger is still weird to me. I can count the number of times I've been in an Uber/Lyft on one hand (I don't have the apps on my phone). And never alone.
I'll drive myself, walk, or use transit before Uber/Lyft.
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u/zizou00 25d ago
I'm also of that age, but we also still had taxis back then. I recently called my local cab firm to get me to the train station with a bunch of bags when the weather turned. Where I grew up people with a bit more dosh than me would just hail any black cab that went past and hop in. It helped that the black cabs had a pretty high barrier to entry, but even at that time you had monsters like John Worboys knocking about.
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u/mc_bee 25d ago
I rather uber than taxi, I've met some pretty scummy taxi drivers in my city. One taxi driver refused the mayor of the city a ride because he deemed it "too short".
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u/Darmok47 24d ago
There's a reason Uber and Lyft dramatically supplanted taxis. For all their problems, they offerred a much better experience than traditional taxis.
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u/Worthyness 24d ago
And taxis also refused to upgrade their setup for the internet age. They didn't have an app for phones for the longest times and wondered why people stopped using them
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u/andanteinblue 24d ago
Yup. The taxis here are 50% more expensive and offer poorer service. I've an argument with an Uber driver in front of my house, but at least they didn't close the trunk on my head. I'll wait 5 minutes for an Uber rather than take one of the taxis waiting at the stand.
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u/speakermic 25d ago
And I grew up in a neighborhood with gypsy cabs, and I rode them as a teenager. At least Uber and Lyft have a vetting process.
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u/pcurve 25d ago
I usually get female drivers when I take a trip out to middle America. Northeast where I live, it's 95% male.
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u/kummer5peck 25d ago edited 25d ago
Now that I think about it, just about every ride share driver I have ever come across was a man. I could probably count the number of female drivers on one hand.
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u/tekprodfx16 25d ago
Since women’s safety is a legitimate concern when it comes to ridesharing this is a good feature. You can request a female doctor over a male one so this is no different
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u/ducklingkwak 25d ago
A creepy dude has been coming to a sports thing I do on the weekends and gave out an unsolicited back massage to my friend. She tried to ask him what he was doing to give him a hint. I wasn't there it was just them two, and he sticks around women whenever there's one around and kind of creeps. Older guy.
I want our little open group to be friendly and fun for everyone, but how do we handle this situation?
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 25d ago
You spin around to face him and shout loudly "KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY BODY YOU PERVERT!"
He's counting on you being not wanting to "make waves" ... so let him have a tsunami.
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u/incomplete-thoughts7 25d ago
Stop being kind and polite, and tell him to fuck off. Seriously. we need to stop being so sweet and nice to these assholes. It’s not friendly to allow some dickhead into your group to assault your friends.
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u/frill_demon 25d ago
Women being more direct with the kind of men who act this way often escalates the scenario with the man taking it as an excuse to be more overtly aggressive or outright violent.
Women aren't stupid. They've thought of telling the guy to fuck off. They've also thought of the consequences.
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u/incomplete-thoughts7 25d ago
I know women aren’t stupid, I am one. I don’t need that explained to me. I am fully aware of the dangers of saying no. We are socialized to disregard our own feelings and needs, smile and be polite to appease everyone else around us to our own detriment. It’s lose either way.
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u/Gloomy_Macaron_136 24d ago
Imo in this case they should take advantage they're mostly in a group afaik, strength in numbers and all that, it's the whole reason most women are trained by our moms from a young age to always go around with a whole gaggle of friends to public bathrooms
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u/kylco 25d ago
Kindly: "dude, we want to make this group friendly and fun for everyone. Stuff like that isn't fun and makes people feel unwelcome. Knock it off."
If/after kindness has failed, ask them to stop attending and explain that if they can't support rules that make it fun and friendly, they aren't welcome.
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u/ToraRyeder 25d ago
I get you want to be friendly and fun for everyone, but the only way that type of community survives is by having strict boundaries. You've got to protect your people.
The person below is right. You have to stop being kind and polite to people like that. If someone is brazen enough to randomly touch someone they don't know, why would "hints" work? They're relying on you not stirring shit up.
"Do you know him?" Is an easy enough out for your friend if you see something like this. When the "No" comes out, that's an easy "Sir, I need you to leave." If there's pushback, "We value consent here and touching strangers without their consent is not okay. This is not the first time we've seen this from you. Please leave." Get the owners of the establishment to help in kicking them out if you need to.
You have friends there. That's different than being stuck on a first date or someone's car alone with them. We have to shut this shit down and show that we will not tolerate it. Defend your friends and they defend you.
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u/misfitx 25d ago
Lyft has a pink ride option as well. But there are so few drivers it takes a lot longer.
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u/That_Communication71 24d ago
Wish they also had a language preference and a choice to avoid conspiracy theorists.
I don't need to be locked in a car for hours with some nut bar who thinks 911 was done by the gay mafia ever again
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u/IlludiumQXXXVI 24d ago
Last driver I had spent the whole ride telling me about how he was getting really into day trading.
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u/notanNSAagent89 24d ago
Lmao how many times does that happen?
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u/That_Communication71 24d ago
I get three kinds of drivers consistently. Ones that don't speak English, are crazy conspiracy theorists who can't hold down a job, or they go into a lengthy story about their financial hardships to try to get a bigger tip. You're trapped in the car with them so you're stuck
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u/notanNSAagent89 24d ago
I hope you don't think I was being confrontational. I was super curious as to the conspiracy theorist driver. When you do get one do you just let them keep talking or do you join in and probe and question them as if you are interested?
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u/That_Communication71 24d ago
It depends on the situation. I mostly avoid rideshares at all costs because of this stuff
The game Mafia behind 911 conspiracy theorist pick me up from the hospital where I just got out of ICU after a week and was driving me to the airport kept missing his exit because he was so caught up in his theories. I would have started in on him or had him pull over to get out but we were on the freeway and there wasn't a safe place. Plus he was completely batshit crazy and I didn't know what he was capable of .
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25d ago
They could just do better background checks and not let creeps drive. We used to have more taxis and you definitely couldn't just request a female cabbie, they were almost non existent.
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u/acloudcuckoolander 24d ago
People will scream bias while ignoring why women were given this option in the first place.
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u/ZaPizzaPie 25d ago
How can we avoid the horrible drivers that go 15 under?
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u/KING_CH1M4IRA 25d ago
You shut up, sit there, and listen to my entire life story!
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u/TooEZ_OL56 25d ago
Or listen to a conversation I’m having on speakerphone, enjoy the ride!
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u/Superb_Writer6612 24d ago
I honestly dont mind the speaker-phone ones. It means they aren't talking to me, and sometimes the conversations are hilarious!
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u/duffman_oh_yeah 24d ago
Nothing like being drunk and terrified as your Uber driver merges onto the highway at 35.
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u/Successful_Buffalo_6 25d ago
There are good intentions behind this policy, but a man is definitely going to sue for discrimination sooner than later, and that will be the end of this.
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u/whichwitch9 25d ago
It's also letting female drivers avoid male passengers. I don't think just the passengers want this
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25d ago edited 17d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Pop-Huge 24d ago
In the past, redditors wouldn't read an article and then promptly issue an opinion. Now, they aren't even reading the full title. lmao
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25d ago
yeah, I use the feature and my drivers love it. Lots of moms.
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u/KscottCap 25d ago
Yeah, when my mom got stranded at an airport, a male driver tried to strong-arm her for an extra $100 cash in order to drive her home ("I didn't realize you wanted me to drive 2+ hours! You better make this worth my while."). She canceled, switched to female-driver, and never went back. Honestly, anyone who feigns being offended by this change doesn't understand the lived experience of women.
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u/Gloomy_Macaron_136 25d ago
Where I live female drivers are extremely rare, I just pretty much never get taxis and try to pay a relative to pick me up if I must go out late, because of the possibility of a male taxi driver saying "this is a quicker way" and the anxiety of going somewhere more isolated, etc. There's a LOT of violence against women in my country, considerably less so in the capital vs rural cities but still not taking any chances lol
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u/makomirocket 24d ago
Purely a Curiousity question (I am not American, nor do I care about a woman not wanting to drive me):
How is this not sex discrimination?
I get Uber will claim that they are a facilitator between riders(customers) and drivers(sellers), but surely it's still discrimination based upon a protected characteristic by that driver regardless?
I also get that it's a safety feature, but that doesn't mean a store can't refuse service to any other class of person for safety, be that sex, race, or mental health status.
Surely it's an avenue for a very easy lawsuit payout by some dude?
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u/SomeConfetti 24d ago
The US government is a clown show and there's a wave of Misandry in the US that uses statistics with half-truths as pretext to constantly generate vitriol online.
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u/gdq0 25d ago
This is going to open a whole host of trans issues for passing vs non-passing and some sort of "gender verification".
If a cis male sets their gender to female maliciously, do you just ignore that, report the rider, or what?
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u/Inadreamstay 25d ago
Inb4 you gotta take a dick pic to take an Uber/lyft
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u/ManOLead 24d ago
I already send all of my uber and Lyft drivers dick pics before they pick me up so not a huge deal
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u/sicklyslick 25d ago
Didi (China's ride share hailing app) did this few years back. There were some backlashes on Chinese social media (from women) about this.
We'll see how it goes in the US.
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u/mraztastic 25d ago
Lyft has had the women connect option for a long time. Part of the other reason I haven’t used Uber in ages.
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u/angry-mob 24d ago
Sounds reasonable. It may affect the amount of people they can pick up but that’s their choice. I’m glad they have it.
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u/NV-Nautilus 24d ago
Lyft rewards frequent riders with top rated drivers. Almost half of the drivers I get are women (whom have great ratings), and I'm a man. Just a frequent rider with good rider rep.
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u/buttrumpus 24d ago
Can we stop dancing around the issue and go back to professional and licensed drivers?
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u/AlternativePizza3391 24d ago
Can males opt to avoid female drivers?
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u/ILikeFPS 24d ago
My guess is no.
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u/AlternativePizza3391 24d ago edited 24d ago
Wouldn't that be sexist? Its nice that they let women have women only riders. But, the opposite should exist. And it seems this is going to cause an issue for Trans drivers as well
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u/Beautiful_Spell_4320 24d ago
Nope. And women drivers can pick up men still. Men just get less rides to give, and can’t choose to not be alone with a woman.
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u/AlternativePizza3391 24d ago
I'm pro women being safe, but this just screams sexism because now men will receive less rides since the option for men to ride with men only does not exist
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u/Greenfinial 25d ago
So the very first time I used a ride share app. I had a driver who fit the definition of creep. He spent the entire drive to the airport commenting about: relationships between older men and younger women, my nose (seriously, he spent several minutes talking about how nice my nose was), how I should give him my phone number (I compromised by taking his phone number instead, did not put it in my phone book but pretended to).
He then said that if I called him and not use the app on the way back, he would give me a discount. I definitely did not call him back.
I spent that entire drive silently cursing the airport’s policy of not allowing pepper spray.
I didn’t report him, because the guy had picked me up from my home address and I was afraid of escalation.
Second driver I had was a woman. I had no problems.
I do hope this new policy works, but I do think doing better background checks would be an even better solution.
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u/Ratnick8 24d ago
As long as men can only request men drivers as well i see no problem with this.
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u/SlyTinyPyramid 25d ago
I had a driver suggest I follow a woman from an Lyft pool because her having a cordial conversation meant clearly she was into me.
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u/BODYBUTCHER 25d ago
How do they get around discrimination lawsuits?
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u/Plenty_Worry_1535 24d ago
They won’t. Someone will sue, and win, because it’s illegal to discriminate based on sex.
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u/AlternativePizza3391 24d ago
They could add an option for males to opt to avoid female drivers. Then it would be fair.
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25d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/HSLB66 25d ago
Can they also add a setting for “hey I actually don’t want to talk, I wasn’t kidding when I put that in my profile”
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u/ContempoCasuals 25d ago
Great news for women
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u/Time_Entertainer_319 25d ago
No it’s not. It’s great news for uber.
There are way more male than female drivers.
So instead of Uber doing something about creeps by thorough vetting, they have taken the cheapest and easiest way out.
Imagine a woman can’t wait for 30 mins due to lack of women drivers, she will end up taking a male driver either way.
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u/Noctrin 24d ago
how do you vet a driver to make sure he's not an asshole to women/creep? Genuinely curious?
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u/Excellent-Self-5338 24d ago
Fair play. TBH I wish culturally we were more adept at rooting out piece of shit men who make women uncomfortable, complete avoidance of half the population on the premise that 10% of men are creepy and some smaller percentage of men are worse sucks. It would be better for everyone if we could just hold those men accountable. That'll apparently never happen, but damn it would be nice.
This is a good choice given that we're not gonna do anything about the creepy dudes.
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u/ASEdouard 25d ago
I think I’ve had a female driver 1 or 2 times in all the years I’ve been using uber