My Driver Showed Up High and Uber Didn’t Fire Him

It was 8am and I was headed out to the Las Vegas Airport, so I called an Uber. Ride-share services are always a crap shoot as it is, they‘re a good reminder of what the less than average person is capable of. Not saying all Uber drivers are stupid, it’s just that there’s no real way to screen out the ones that are, and you’re stuck with them when it happens.

First thing to set off alarms was that they driver claimed “he had arrived” even though just by looking at the map he wasn’t anywhere close. I called him, I was like “It says you’re here?” He goes “Naw, I did that by accident.”

Ok, whatever.

Now, there were two serendipitous things that did actually happen this morning. One being that the Uber GPS was off and marked the location as a different part of the neighborhood. Easy fix, I had a ton of time to walk all the way over to meet him. That, thankfully, meant he doesn’t know the address I was at.

I told him to call when he got to the gate, he didn’t. Whatever. I did even more walking and after calling him finally met up and jumped in….jumped in to a car that reeked so bad of weed that there is absolutely no way he didn’t just smoke a huge bowl.

Weed is legal in Nevada, but it’s still illegal to drive while impaired last time I checked. But time is ticking down and I had to make a choice to let him drive me, or miss my flight.

Sigh.

Somewhere before we get on the highway, he realizes he’s been driving on E and needs to stop for gas. I’m like, “Really bro? You can’t make it 5 more minutes on the highway to get me there?”

He’s like, “You can get out and get another Uber if you want.” Yea, not an option anymore now…but thanks for being so willing to dump me by the side of some highway on-ramp gas station, asshole.

So he gets gas (which I’m being charged time for) and now I’m sweating making the flight.

I told him that I punched the airport into Uber’s GPS, and I’ll need whatever terminal Southwest is it, just follow the signs. There are only 3 terminals, it’s not exactly a complicated airport.

He fucks up, of course, because reading signs is hard. And does a couple of weird illegal u-turns and then proceeds to get completely lost because he can’t process the fact that he needs to stop looking at the GPS because it was going to the wrong terminal and START READING THE FUCKING SIGNS.

I’m trying to stay calm, because clearly dumping me on the side of the road is a completely viable option for this turd. But now I’m growing increasingly frustrated because he can’t focus enough to navigate a simple airport return lane.

I’m tweeting this whole transaction as it’s going down minute by minute, by the way. I’m a right wing troll, it is my outlet. Which gets the immediate attention of Uber online, and they ask me to message them.

So after this guy who seriously looks high even in his profile picture finally drops me off, and I’m not kidding….

I’m able to make my flight because no one, absolutely NO ONE was in line for security. That stroke of luck may never happen again.

So I’m corresponding with Uber right before takeoff. Explaining everything, and they refund my money. OK, thanks.

Did you know by the way, that Uber charges you extra just for getting dropped off at the airport? I didn’t. Taxi lobbyist fought against ride-shares at the airport forever, now we know how they got around it. Who wants to bet that charge goes to pay off whoever allowed it.

Whatever.

So after pretending to care about their customer’s safety (I assumed Uber would fire him as drivers are abundant and this could be a huge lawsuit for them) they let me know not to worry….they blocked him from ever being able to pick me up again.

Huh? You think that was my main concern here? And after corresponding back and forth fluidly, I asked Uber twice why they didn’t plan to fire him and they never responded.

Look, I like the idea of rideshares. But as weed becomes legal in more and more states, this is going to continue to become a growing problem. Usually I order Uber so that I can be impaired and still get around town safely. The drivers job is to NOT be impaired.

Apparently I’m not the only only one having this problem either….

So fuck you, Uber. You need to fix this.