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Comment by threeseed | Hacker News Reader

> You don't have to talk to a person

My partner has been propositioned and harassed over a dozen times by Uber drivers.

I think for many this is going to be a killer feature.

I had an Uber driver in upstate New York who was trying to get me to agree or at least not disagree with the superiority of the white "race". I had another driver in Oakland California who would not relent until I acknowledged God is real and I should be thankful for his love. I felt massive cognitive dissonance afterwards feeling both the requirement to report these drivers but also massive guilt at the non-zero chance I was depriving them of one if not the last potential for work available to them. I decided not to report either but still reflect on whether that was a good choice or not.

Edit: to be totally clear: I did not agree in either situation, but tried to gracefully divert or redirect without escalating the situation. I didn't confront as, frankly, I wasn't sure if the person would have responded violently.

Uber is valuable, but I have kind of accepted the premise that an Uber drive is just a public transit experience with a customized destination. I should expect some potentially weird and possibly unpleasant interactions as part of the process.

I would 100% convert to Waymo only away from Uber just based on those two experiences and dozens if not hundreds of generally positive Uber experiences.

Wouldn't such cases result in bad ratings for the drivers?

I honestly don't recall ever having a driver lower than 4.2 or so ever when taking an Uber. My guess is both of those drivers were low to mid 4 stars as I didn't pay any attention to it.

I think a lot of Lyft's early "we're like Uber, but better for women!" marketing hints that this is a killer feature that will absolutely drive growth. Especially now that Lyft, too, is saturated to the point of equally-risky drivers as Uber was/is.

Yeah, as a guy I personally quite enjoy interacting with my driver (if I feel like it anyway). But basically every young female I know has been spoken to or treated inappropriately by taxi drivers here in the UK.

I think Uber has solved this to some degree with their rating system, but it's still a big problem.

I feel like once they start rolling out to more and more locales, we will be hit with a spate of news stories like "creepy guy wouldn't let my car drive away by standing in front of it and leering at me"

Another benefit to Waymo vehicles: Full video recording of all road interactions

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