I've had Uber drivers pick me up and refuse to go to the part of the city I wanted to go to... complete pain in the ass (and also racist in this specific case). Uber offered me $5 for my trouble each time, which is... very Uber.
Boston is incredibly segregated and in the area I live in is less than 10% white. It's not a coincidence that this is the only area in the city I've ever had trouble getting a ride to (roughly 200 total rides).
Uber eliminated that problem. It would be terrible to go back to that system where drivers can just refuse you based on where you are going or what you look like.
But in reality, that's just innumeracy.
Or any "drop me off within the ongoing protest" ride, really.
'Getting dragged out of your car and beaten'? No, unless the police do it (https://www.newsbreak.com/georgia/atlanta/news/1577488884462...).
The one where a man drove into protestors and shot one of them, or one of the four non-related-to-protest shootings in a neighborhood that had been suddenly abandoned by police and already had a high violent crime rate compared to the rest of the city?
> people beat up the car as it drives through
That's an inevitable result of somebody trying to push through a crowd that won't move. If you sit there, nobody moves out of the way, and you hit the gas anyway, people will inevitably try to damage the car to make you stop again, because you could kill somebody doing that.
I was thinking specifically of the "two black teenagers shot, one killed" incident that made the news everywhere. The fact that there were others is itself a great reason for Uber drivers to not want to drive there. (Protester's fault or something else, it's still dangerous)
> That's an inevitable result of somebody trying to push through a crowd that won't move. If you sit there, nobody moves out of the way, and you hit the gas anyway, people will inevitably try to damage the car to make you stop again, because you could kill somebody doing that.
It's an inevitable consequence on both sides. The driver sitting still who gets spooked by people banging on their windows and floors it is also a predictable outcome. (There's reasons that protests normally have streets closed off, and it's not just for the protesters containment) Personally I'd put both driving up to a crowd AND surrounding a car on foot as "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" - for exactly this reason.
Portland, Seattle and Chicago are examples of the cities which had recently well-documented examples of some areas being dangerous and carrying risk of violent encounters.
Pretending this isn't a reality or that it doesn't have an impact on someone driving for a living is pretty asinine.
Are HN posters really so sheltered that they don't know that this is a reality in many major American cities?
The incidents reported are reality, however that doesn't mean the picture being painted isn't misleading.
They exaggerate that the mob dragged a man out of his car, and they exaggerate that he was kicked in the head and rendered unconscious. In fact, they exaggerate so much that they had to take him into the ER. To me, it paints a completely misleading picture that in Portland you could be run off the road, dragged out of the car and beaten unconscious. Surely if reported properly, they'd notice there are thousands of people in Portland who weren't beaten senseless that night, so we'd better focus on that.
Not that I want you to have a bad experience. Not that all cities are so bad, or that you're guaranteed a bad time everywhere. There's plenty of good left. But it's easy for someone who doesn't have their wits about them and doesn't know where to avoid to end up in the wrong place and have things go sideways. Don't be that person.