Comment by ChrisMarshallNY
2 days ago
Another recent anecdote.
A friend was recently in Milwaukee (first time ever. He was there for a conference).
He, his wife, and another friend, wanted to go out to eat.
They were given a wrong address. Could have been the source, or it could have been they screwed up writing it down. It was definitely a wrong address, though, that they gave to Uber.
The driver picked them up, and took them to the address, which was deep in Da Hood. Not a good area for three middle-class white folks to be wandering around.
The driver insisted they get out, even though it was clearly a wrong address, and a downright dangerous neighborhood (my friend has some experience with rough neighborhoods. If he said it was bad, it was bad).
My friend offered to pay whatever it took, to get to the correct address (they had figured out their mistake, by then), but the driver refused to do that. It was probably algorithmically prohibited.
My friend had never used Uber before (and never will, again), so wasn’t aware that you are supposed to be able to appeal to Uber.
I have a feeling that my friend offered to rearrange the driver’s dental work (Did I mention that he was familiar with tough neighborhoods?), and got the driver to drop them off in a better area, where they caught a cab.
Sounds like a bad customer experience. I doubt Uber ever heard the story. My friend never bothered contacting them, and I will bet that the driver didn’t.
If I was that driver, you bet I'd be contacting Uber to try and get your friend banned for life. Threatening a driver is never ok, even less so when it's not his fault.
I mean, we're talking about a literal crime here, getting banned from Uber is not an adequate punishment for threatening someone with assault.
Then maybe don't threaten to leave a family in a dangerous area while they're offering to pay it
I don't think that'd hold up against a legal review. It seems like an unreasonable position that some neighbourhood is so terrible that standing there for 20 minutes is an imminent threat. It might even be true, but that isn't a baseline a judge should really accept. The residents who live there obviously get through the day.
It may well have been very dangerous, but realistically it is hard to make dropping someone off in a residential area a crime. Threatening a driver with physical violence is definitely a crime though.
The driver is under precisely zero obligation to provide you a service. He provided the service asked for, too.
This is the address they gave to the driver,full stop. After the job’s done, you can’t just tack on extra requests like it’s a buffet. He delivered exactly what you asked, not a mind reading bonus round. It’s not his fault you gave the wrong address, he’s not clairvoyant.
Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.
I really do not care how uncomfortable it makes the driver to move a family a few extra blocks to somewhere vaguely safe. I’d similarly threaten him if he tried to drop my family off in a forest, or on the side of a highway, even if that’s what the GPS, God’s Position System, tells them to do.
If your job ends in a way that someone who was your customer is now in danger, you absolutely deserve to be threatened.
> Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.
"Being an asshole" is in the eye of the beholder. Plenty of people thing CEOs are assholes, you are saying that it is "always ok, and even cool" to threaten them? Some people think that religious folks are assholes. Some people think blue haired lefty folks are assholes.
I think you need better criteria for violence than "I think this person is an asshole". Even if you had a standard definition for asshole, threatening violence is an escalation. Someone flips you the bird, sure, they are an asshole, doesn't mean you can move to threatening to punch them.
The driver doesn't know these people, doesn't have any protection against them should they do something unpredictable or make a mess of his car outside of the Uber ride. The driver is also making a threat assessment here -- "why did they have me drive to this place and then insist I drive somewhere else? Is this a scam somehow? Is this a precursor to a violent crime?"
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Edit: and if you dislike the fact that you need to have a vague level of care for your fellow man, stop working exclusively with people.
> Threatening someone for being a complete asshole is always okay, and even cool.
I disagree, but I wasn’t actually there. I only heard one side of the story.
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If your friend thinks it's okay to threaten to assault a driver, especially for an issue that wasn't the driver's fault, then it sounds like "da hood" is where he belongs...
Not sure if he did. He probably didn’t have to. He’s a big guy, but also one of the most decent people I know (but let’s not assume anything). He never said he did. It was my assumption (ASS out of U and ME). It’s also possible he bribed the driver enough. He could certainly afford it. I didn’t actually ask him. I do know that he (and the two women with him) were pretty terrified of being left in the middle of that area, and scared people can get pretty pithy. This guy used to run night clubs in Miami. It would probably have been a lot less of an issue, if he had been alone.
What he was amazed at, was the driver’s insistence that they get out, without any recourse or care. A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.
A New York cabbie would probably threaten him right back, but would also have known they were headed for a bad patch, and maybe have asked if they had the right address. This was their first time ever, in Milwaukee, and I suspect Milwaukee cabbies are of a similar stripe to New York cabbies. I know quite a few former cabbies.
Funny how the least verifiable thing in the story is the one everyone hooked on. I guess I could ask him. It happened last week. Not sure if I’d want to spoil everyone’s good time calling him a criminal, if it turns out he was just able to shame the driver into accepting a couple of Jacksons to get out of there. If he did, I suspect Uber would sanction the driver, for accepting a fare, outside their system.
So basically, you’re admitting key elements of your original story were made up?
> A Waymo could do the same, I guess, but they could also sit in it until the company contacted them, or the cops showed up.
How’s this different from an uber? If this guy is as big and strong as you say, the uber driver has no more ability to force him out than a Waymo does.
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The absurdity here is that any cabbie would be happy to continue driving you around as long as you're able to pay for it. It's the entire business model after all.
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The only difference with the Waymo experience would be that there would be nobody your friend could threaten to assault for putting in the wrong address.
The Waymo also can't force you to get out. Probably you can just give it a new address.
Have you ever used a Waymo?
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Heh, from the sounds of things it’s more likely the Waymo would have simply driven to their actual destination.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44281694
these tales are generally the apocryphal dreams of suburbanites. the uber driver would have pulled a gun on you?
i’m sorry but i grew up in urban America, nobody is mugging people under an account tied to their name/DL
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Huh? Your friend paid uber to take them to an address, and they did.
Actually, it sounds like my friend was robbed. Classic gypsy cab robbery.
The confusion around getting the address wrong is an interesting tell. If you think you’re not likely to make that mistake, anyway. It’s also a bit late to realize at that point since you’re already in the bad area.
But it reminds me of tech support scams which usually have an element of convincing the victim that they made a mistake.
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