The Cult of Cars, Racing and Everything That Moves You.
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What Are Your Worst Taxi/Rideshare Horror Stories?

Surge pricing, poor routing and dirty cars. These rides can't get any worse, right?

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Yellow cabs and Uber car drive through Times Square on November 16, 2020 in New York City. NYC bill is looking to put Uber and yellow Cabs on single app platform where riders order from the app any for-hire vehicle, including taxis and cars of Uber or Lyft.
Photo: Eduardo MunozAlvarez/VIEWpress (Getty Images)

We’ve all been in a situation where we needed a ride, like a night out was too intense to step behind the wheel to get home responsibly. While taking a taxi has always been an option in most towns, rideshare apps like Lyft and Uber have made getting a ride more convenient than ever before. Though, it has lowered the standard of who gets to drive commercially and dismantled employee rights.

But just for today, I’m bridging the two together to ask what was the worst experience you have ever had in a taxi or rideshare? Have you ever just wanted the driver to pull over and let you out, or have you ever feared for your personal safety?

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I’ve had my fair share of bad trips. Recently, on a trip to the other side of the country, I got a ride with a relatively new driver to the service. As he started to strike up a conversation, I noticed something that should have worried me -- he had two phones mounted on his dash to give him directions to my destination, one had the rideshare app open and the other had Apple Maps.

The driver said that the rideshare app had gotten him lost before and didn’t want it to happen again. However, the confusion of two navigation apps giving directions at once made him miss a freeway exit. We eventually reached the destination, but it was incorrect. The driver went to the correct street address in the wrong zip code. Who would have guessed that one city would have the same address twice?

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Please share your own horror stories in the comments below. Hopefully, your tales are as tame as an incorrect destination.