Lyft’s new feature lets women and non-binary riders request driver’s gender

My dad has hearing aids. 100% this.

Hearing aids magnify sounds, so when people have hearing aids often talking slower, or talking facing them, is better.

Here's what happens for Dad.

He'll go up to the car, and and the driver will wave him off sitting in the front seat. I hate that moment. Dad always looks so sad. Dad is pushing 90, and I try as much as I can but sometimes I can't always take time off work to drive him places.

Anyway, the back seat is the worst place for Dad's hearing aids to work, since the driver is talking forward. And usually drivers have the radio on.

Then, the driver will say something, and Dad will come back with, "Pardon, I didn't catch that." (Or he'll just smile and nod.)

And, unless it's some other older person, the driver will then shout back what they just said.

This blows up Dad's hearing aids, and then Dad will be busy trying to adjust to compensate the volume.

It hurts to hear super loud sounds. It's just unpleasant. So at some point Dad just gets mad at the driver for shouting at him.

And the driver could have just said, "Nice weather we're having?" or he could have said, "Did you want to go to the front or back of the VA Hospital?" (The answer there could mean a 5 minute walk for Dad, through a busy parking lot.)

Dad has had drivers take him to the wrong address, even when I put the address in correctly. Who knows how that happens.

Now... the sensitive part, this is all so much worse with people who are non-native speakers. (But not nearly as bad as it is people from New York, or the East Coast in general -- accents and aggressively loud people are never a good mix.)

Dad really doesn't like trying to deal with language barriers on top of hearing aid issues, all while the driver is shouting at him.

They should have mandatory training for how to talk to people with hearing aids -- make sure every driver knows that raising their voice is not the way to do it.

But... that would require Uber / Lyft to care about the elderly, and they clearly don't Uber is basically non-functional when you try an use it with larger fonts on an iPhone. You can really tell how little shits someone gives about accessibility based on how their app works with non-default font sizes.

(Haven't used Uber in a year, disclaimer. I reported the issue about fonts like 20 times over 4 years and then just gave up on them.)

It sucks to get old. But it would be nice to have an "old people friendly" option on ride apps.

True but this is a problem more generally. Unfortunately society is being turned this way whether we like it or not, with no thought to effective safeguarding, boundaries or consent.

Pull the car over immediately if the passenger becomes sexual or problematic in any other way, and the taxi/limo/whatever ride is over. The camera is already engaged and has the reason clearly presented. The orange blinkenlight on the back is already blinking for others to intervene. That's what you're supposed to do in such situations as a driver.