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Comment by greggarious | Hacker News Reader

This is true. For example, it is my understanding Lyft drivers face no penalty for ending a ride if they feel unsafe, whereas Uber will penalize the driver if they don't complete the ride - incentivizing drivers to tolerate abusive or sexually harassing behavior.

[1] Lyft driver cancel policy: https://help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/213584358#drivercanc...

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I can't believe the number of rides a typical driver gets harassed on is significant enough to make a significant dent in their earnings...?

Maybe the number of bad rides is low but the severity of a single one can be career ending. Didn't some politician recently get fired because she berated a driver and said, "Who are they going to believe? You or me?"

Policy is to address the combined impact of frequency and magnitude.

People can be _really_ awful though. Drunk, threats of violence, prolonged berating.

Definitely not worth the ride. The fact that you can get kicked out at any time tends to moderate your behavior.

To be clear, I'm talking about drunk and belligerent. If you're just drunk and vomiting, first there's a cleaning penalty. Second, people are generally most sympathetic as it does not make you a bad person.

Some people are just assholes. Heck, if they like abusing people after a bad day at work, they might even take the long way around so they can feel better after more sustained abuse.

Penalisation comes in the form of timing you out of the account for 15 mins to X hours; and possible deactivation.

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