Driving for rideshare services such as Uber or Lyft surely has to be an adventure as nothing can ever prepare the driver for who will climb into their car. Most of the time their biggest worry is if the passenger who had a few too many might lose their evening intake all over the backseat, but there are those terrifying rarities when the situation is far more grave. This was just the case with these unfortunate rideshare drivers who picked up customers they wish would have never crawled into their backseat. Content is edited for clarity.
Felt Like A Trap
“Around when I first started doing Lyft full time, I decided to try the night scene out in a town that had a bunch of bars. Around 12 am, I ended up getting a ride where the pickup took me 20 minutes away to a bad neighborhood. As soon as I get to the ‘apartment’ complex, I call the passenger and tell them I am there because I have a bad feeling about this neighborhood and need to get out ASAP. The passenger answers and tells me they will be right out which relieves me a little but I’m still on edge sitting there in my car. Lyft has a 5 minute timer you have to wait before you can ‘no-show’ the passenger and leave.
The timer ends up running out but I usually wait a little longer and give another call. I call a second time but someone else answers the phone, this time saying they didn’t order a Lyft. As I hang up, I see two guys in hoodies coming toward my car and one seems to be reaching in his waistband for something, so I no-show the ride and nope the heck out of there. I made $10 off the no-show but I was done driving nights for a while after that.”
They Even Talked About It In Front Of Him
“This story happened about 2 years ago and is one of the main reason that prompted me to get a dash-cam.
Around 2 am in downtown Orlando, I pick up a group of four passengers: three guys and a female. The female was passed out completely and the guys put her in my truck. I live by UCF and they were going towards that direction.
During the ride, I overhear the conversation between the guys about who was going to go first, one guy said something along the lines that he got her the drinks and worked the girl all night.
They had given the girl something and I knew they were talking about taking advantage of her. They all looked like college kids and I assumed they were all friends. So I pull up to the destination and when the ride is about to end, I tell the guys they need to hav get a female friend of the girl to help her into her dorm and they said the didn’t even know her!
I called 911 and two of the guys took off running, the one dude lived at the address and started begging me to move down the street or take the girl somewhere else. Nope. I waited, I wasn’t afraid. Cops showed up in less than 5 minutes followed by fire and EMS.
The EMS guys transported her to the hospital, by this time the one guy had gone inside his house and locked the door. It was my word against his. The cops knocked on his door, but he said that they were just sharing the ride and didn’t know the girl. The cops couldn’t do anything they just took my statement. I gave them my info but never got any calls or questions after.
I hate driving UCF students, but that day I was glad they got into my truck and I believe I saved that girl. She probably doesn’t even know or remember this ever happening.
Ever since I got a dash-cam installed and keep an eye on your friends if they are leaving passed out.”
They Got Kicked Out Of The Bar AND Their Uber
“I’d been driving for a little while, few months or so, and pull up to this bar with a man and two obviously inebriated middle-aged women. The guy says hey, it’s my account, but I’m vouching for these two, can you take em home. I’m like sure.
So we’re heading down the road, and they’re wasted. I’m talking and it’s no wonder this guy was basically kicking them out of the bar – the one was worse than the other.
So we’re going down the road, and the one in the middle back seat starts just asking me all these weird questions like, ‘How do you know the people you pick up aren’t some kinda weirdo crazies or something?!’
And I’m thinking, ‘Uhhhh…what?!’ But I try to play it off, you know. By this point I’m driving, going 60 down the freeway, and I just kind of mumble some kind of non-committal answer – but she’s getting all aggressive for some reason.
Her friend’s trying to calm her down, while the first one straight-up says something to the effect of, ‘What would you do if someone just attacked you while you were driving…?!’
Mind you, at this point, she had also been making numerous physical movements which to me appeared to be either her mimicking, or actually going for some kind of weapon, like reaching down under her shirt/ belt region and stuff. Then, out of the blue, she shouts, ‘What if I just STABBED YOU IN THE NECK RIGHT NOW!’
Which is at what point I was like, ‘Whoa!! That’s it!’
Her friend by this time was ‘trying’ to control her wild friend, but again, she was messed up herself. So I pulled over at the first exit I could see, my heart beating about out of my chest, thinking I’m about to get freakin stabbed in the neck at any moment. Luckily, there was a Chevron gas station right there. We halt to a stop and I said, ‘This ride ends now!’
As humorous as it may sound, they actually looked at me dumbfounded, like, ‘Are you really kicking us out?’ I said I was serious, ya’ll gotta go. The other woman actually seemed to have sobered up a bit once we pulled over and realized I wasn’t playing around. Her friend looked at me angrily for a second and then was just like, ‘Okay.’
They got out, and I drove off, heart beating fast as all get out…
That night scared the life outta me. I didn’t drive on the clock again for weeks…”
“Just Keep Driving”
“About a year ago, I was driving a little before midnight and picked up someone in a somewhat run down part of town. The guy gets in the back, and didn’t respond to my greeting. He was wearing a really awkward black coat of some sort which had pink fuzz lined on the shoulders and arms. The first thing I noticed was an absolutely overbearing stench of sewage. I started to sniff and cough because it was so powerful and rancid. He began to quietly snicker and I could see a grin form on his face with the little lights I had in the back of the car. He had a massive nose, and very ‘rubbery’ features.
I said, ‘Hey man, what’s with that smell? It’s making me sick.’ He looked up into the rear view mirror and I could see his eyes were bloodshot. He was staring at me in the mirror with this creepy smile.
He softly said, ‘Just open a window and keep driving.’ He began digging in his backpack and pulled a phone out, turned the flash light on and pointed it at his chest. He opened his coat and I saw what looked like some type of writing and symbols of mud all over his chest. He was holding his phone with one hand and picking this ‘mud’ off his chest. Then he loudly barked, ‘HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A SCAT PARTY? IF NOT THEN SHUT YOUR MOUTH!’
Just then, we rolled up to a red light, he cackled loudly and ran out of the car into the woods. I was completely dumbfounded in disbelief. I got out and looked in the back seat, where I found his backpack and this dried poop he had picked off his chest. I opened the backpack and it was full of poop covered clothes. I immediately went home, cleaned my car, took a shower and tried to forget everything that just happened.”
A Crazy Twist
“I drove Uber in Denver for a couple months, but the singular event that forced my retirement happened on a classically Coloradoan night in late December of last year: cold, snowy, everyone stoned off their tails.
I wasn’t planning on driving in such miserable conditions. I’m a bad enough driver as is, I have no confidence in my abilities nor should anyone else. I find the need to mention that the only reason I Uber’d people around was because I lost my job at Chick-Fil-A because of some ‘can I speak to your manager’ hag who wanted fat-free ranch, despite my insistence we didn’t freaking have fat-free ranch. Anyways I got testy and got fired, which finally showed me that customer service probably isn’t a good job choice for a person like myself.
But I’m chilling at my apartment and the heating at my place was broken because Shawn the idiot landlord was too busy catching up on Game of Thrones to fix that stuff, so I decide I’m available to drive this girl to the DCPA (Denver Center for the Performing Arts) just to get outta the apartment.
This girl lives directly underneath me, but I’ve never met her before. As I’m driving her there, she starts telling me the story of why she’s all alone on this chilly pre-Christmas night.
Turns out, her ex-boyfriend Scott was supposed to go to this play with her tonight but he’s a major prick. The stories about him start off small enough: he banged her best friend, lied about it, basic stuff right? Not even close! Turns out he was dealing from the basement of her old house, like hardcore stuff, and got her arrested for it. Thankfully she was proven not guilty in court (the evidence was entirely circumstantial) but he had skipped town, so she was left to suffer on her own. She tells me he was abusive, beat her nightly, and tried to assault her before she broke up with him. My sympathy senses are going off the charts for her. She even sheds a few tears.
Apologizing for spilling her history, she asks if I want to see this show with her. She still has the extra ticket. I, of course, jump at the chance to go on a date with this hot bombshell who’s probably definitely out of my league, so I agree.
We park about a block away from the DCPA and have to walk the rest of the way. The snow is sprinkling around us like this magical fairytale, and I’m getting serious vibes from her, like ‘I’m totally gonna bang you tonight if you ask’ vibes.
We get to our seats in the show when she asks me if I want to go backstage to meet the actresses before it starts. That’s against the rules, right? Well, Girl insists she knows them and it’s fine. So she takes me on this shady little path backstage and pulls out a set of keys (KEYS) to unlock the doors.
Red flags are going off, yeah, but I’m wanting to get laid, and the last thing I wanna do is tick her off.
She takes me to the green room and introduces me to this dude called Scott, one of the lead actors. He looks at her and starts freaking out, which is when she pulls out a freaking knife and stabs him in the gut.
That Scott was the same Scott that broke up with her. I got the heck out of there, called the cops and ER, and when everything calmed down, googled his name.
Turns out, she was the dealer and the one that skipped town. He was her innocent boyfriend who found out and ratted her out to the cops, and she wanted her revenge. She was actually a monster in disguise. Who knew?
That was the end of my Uber career.”
Was Hands Down The Scariest Experience Of My Life
“This was around 2am. I was in-between rides and 2 people jumped in my backseat and told me to give them all the money I had and that they had a knife and I was going to take them to get crack. I thought it was a joke and didn’t do anything. They repeated themselves and told me to drive. I had to take them to 2 houses before they got what they wanted. They tried to get me to smoke as they smoked in my car. The man was saying all sorts of perverse things that he would do to me If he could get hard. I got a ping for a delivery at the same place they got in my car. I explained that if I didn’t get the delivery, people would notice as I’d never missed a ride or delivery (complete bull but I was so scared). They agreed and said to drop them off. I peeled out of there and found a cop which I chased and flagged down. Was hands down the scariest experience of my life.”
A Sketchy Guy
“I briefly drove for Uber a few years ago. Decided to try my hand at the airport. Fares from airports could be as short as, ‘Take me to the hotel 3 miles away,’ or as long as, ‘I live 4 counties away.’
I got a 4 county trip to a college town on a Friday night. Should be good pay. (And it was.) But this guy…
Mid 20’s, wearing a brown leather jacket, jeans, and no bags. Trip starts out fairly normal, ‘Have a good flight? Vacation? Etc.’ Dude says he just got back from a 2 month stay in Istanbul. Red flags start popping up. No bags, just came back from 2 months in Turkey, had clearly just shaved before returning. I’d just gotten out of the Army a few weeks before and suddenly remembered some briefings about possible Americans radicalizing and training with insurgents.
Guy comments on my combat engineer decal on the windows. Talks about how we shouldn’t be there. About how ‘you guys’ are interfering with the natural order. I am now covered with red flags. He starts talking about how he spent his time learning abroad with new friends and gaining important skills. I asked if it was coursework related since he’d mentioned being in college. ‘I suppose it involves [his college] in a roundabout way.’
Aw heck no.
Rest of the trip is mostly silence. Drop him at the address he gave. Drive a little way down the street to a parking lot and call 911. They apparently took their counterterrorism packet seriously. Got a call from an alphabet soup agency the next day asking if I had recorded any of the conversation. Emailed the dash cam footage with audio. Told they’d handle it and thanks for the info. Never found out what happened after that, but at least I made $400 in one night by driving a terrorist to college.”
Could’ve Gone Worse I Guess
“This was my second night driving ever. It was 2 am. I pulled up to a clearing in the woods in the middle of Denville, NJ. I had to go partially off-road to get to the spot, I don’t even know how it showed up on my map. I pull up to a spot that looks like something out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There’s a busted old barn that’s dry rotted and falling apart, and there is the rear bucket of a landscaping truck HANGING from a tree FILLED with cans, I mean FILLED.
All of a sudden, I see my rider come out of the woods, chugging a brewski with his other hand in the air signaling to me. He gets in and doesn’t say a word. We start driving and I go, ‘How was your night man?’ just to break the awkwardness.
He responded very…normally, ‘Good man, just hung out with some friends at the bar, got really wasted and met some chicks. Then we all went out into the parking lot and dropped acid.’
‘…Oh…wow!’ Now I’m wondering if this dude is hallucinating that I’m Satan taking him to Hades in my Honda Pilot Demon Chariot .
‘So…How did you end up in the woods man? There are no bars near where I picked you up…’ He was completely silent, didn’t say a word. I glanced into the rear view mirror and he was DEAD STARING INTO MY SOUL.
I looked back at the road, at this point we were in a pretty well populated area so I felt safer. He was silent for the remaining 14 minutes of the ride until about 2 minutes from his destination when he asked me if we could stop at the convenience store on the way. I obliged and he asked if I wanted anything, I declined and as I dropped him off, he gave me a really nice $10 tip and said, ‘Thanks Maria.’
…I’m a dude.”
A Drive With A Killer
“I took a guy to a nearby town across the river at 3 am
When he got out he came to the driver’s window and said, ‘Ever see pure evil? I am the reincarnation of Jeffry Dahmer!’ Then he walked away down the dark street.
At the time in my town, we had a bunch of male teens getting possibly murdered by drowning that year. Due to how they were found, there was no forensic evidence to go on.
An inordinate amount of drowned male teens were found in a line following the Mississippi river that winter.
The next summer, a man walked into a police station and said, ‘I am the reincarnation of Jeffry Dahmer!’ and confessed to killing many of those kids.
Apparently, his quirk was going to gay teen chat rooms and cybering with his fetish being holding a teen underwater while he assaulted them.
There being no witnesses and no corroborating forensic evidence, he was released…he is walking the streets today. I just hope I never get a call for a ride from him again.”
Strike 3
“Female driver here. One Friday night, I picked up a law student after last call in West Hollywood, he was pretty hammered 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 peed on her apartment stoop when she wouldn’t call him a cab. Then Thursday night he talked himself out of getting arrested for driving under the influence, so he was riding with Lyft this 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 says, ‘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. Um, NOPE. I scream at him: ‘Get the eff out of my car, I’ve got mace up here!’ Dude freezes and awkwardly rolls out of my car… I’d call that strike 3.”
Definitely Grounded
“I used to drive Uber and one of the worst ones was when I roll up to a pickup at the end of a gated driveway to this huge house in Marin County to this about 14-year-old girl in a nice dress, mascara running down her face, sobbing. She gets in the car and I don’t say a word since the name on the Uber request was a male’s name. We drive towards another really rich part of the area and I notice her grinding her teeth and fidgeting. I pull up to this HUGE house with this sobbing girl in the back seat, and in the bay windows I see this silhouette of a man with his arms crossed just GLARING at the driveway. Girl gets out and she sheepishly says thanks and I tell her to have a good night.
I’d apparently picked up an underaged girl from a house party who was spun out on coke and delivered her to her very, VERY, angry father.”
A Very Close Family
“Was driving an afternoon in the late summer. I live in a beach town so it was perfect weather and people everywhere. Went to a pick up and saw a guy and two women. Picked them up and they clearly had been day drinking, just laughing and having a good time.
It was a husband and wife and the wife’s cousin. They all were clearly loosened up a little from the drinks, joking about having getting intimate (the husband and wife). The guy makes a joke to his wife’s cousin saying ‘if I had met you first we’d be married. ‘Then the wife said to her cousin, ‘if you weren’t my cousin I’d let you join in when we get home.’ The guy and the cousin starting laughing their heads off, and the guy said to the cousin, ‘I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t.’ They all laughed like crazy until I got to their house a few blocks away.
This was only maybe a 5 minute drive. Between the fare and tip I made about $7. Was definitely worth it, I mean a little creepy being that close with family, but you do you man.”
A Demon And His Children
“This is from a few months ago – still gives me shakes…..
I went to pick up ‘Austin’ in NJ. It was about 2 am, so it’s my last ride. He’s a little far out, but not awful (I’m pretty rural anyway). I meet him at his spot near the woods and he’s in some sort of gown. Almost like a graduation gown, but it wasn’t black. He waves and then four freaking kids (around ten years old) come out in solid white with another person in a gown just like his and they all climb in.
They are all silent other than Austin, who is giving a monologue on the importance of some animal they were with. After about ten minutes, I look back, and I kid you not, every single kid was glaring at me in my rear view mirror. All. Frickin. Four. Immediately, Austin asks to halt the ride and asks for a new drop off, about two minutes away. Pretty confident the other gent in the gown was staring at me too, but I couldn’t see his eyes. I tremble and ask him to update the app. He says he won’t, as it’s a discrete location. I’m shivering and do that trick where you call a friend and let them listen in. I get to the location and they all pile out, except for that Austin guy, who looks at me dead in the eyes, then at my upside-down phone, then back at my eyes. He then got out and went into the woods.”
Scary Hypotheticals
“Drove Uber one night… it was pretty tame until I picked up two guys who wanted to go to an club 40 miles away. As they requested an UberSelect fare, I was happy to drive that far ($80-100). It took them 15 minutes to get ready and into the car and they seemed cool, so I wasn’t worried.
As soon as we got on the freeway, the guy in the passenger seat started asking about Uber driving, no big deal, people ask all the time. After a few minutes things got dark. He started saying stuff like, ‘What would you do if someone just grabbed the steering wheel and ran the car into the median?’ and ‘Have you ever thought about what would happen if someone in the back seat tried to strangle you while you were driving?’ I got a little freaked out and tried to lighten the mood by asking what they were celebrating, etc, but the one guy just kept at it.
I was happy to get to the club and get them the heck out of the car. I never drove UBER again. Forget that noise.”
Caught It On Camera
“I am an Uber Black driver. A few months back, I picked up a man and woman in their 40’s from a restaurant. They were clearly not having a good time, still arguing about something. Towards the end of the ride, he punches her in the face as hard as he could. When we pull up at the destination, he pulls out a knife and starts to threaten her and me. I tell him to take it outside and I drive away. I couldn’t help but feel bad for that woman, so I drove to the county Sheriff department and told them what happened. Luckily, the Uber Black cars have a camera inside that recorded the events. When the sheriff looked at the video, he asked for the address and they arrested the guy.”