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Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

The last time I got an Uber, it was driven by a young fellow who looked to be in his first year of driving (I could be wrong), the car smelled like mothballs and was obviously in poor shape, and he accidentally drove on the wrong side of a divided road for a block or so (he was apologetic). The last time I tried a regular taxi stand, the car looked even worse, and it broke down. So, we called Lyft, and the driver could not find where we were because it was not a normal address (she was trying her best, but her English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation).

Waymo's selling point might be that its cars are all in good shape (right now), and customers know this.

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I've been in more than one Uber that smelled like the driver just smoked weed.

I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous. My worst one was a 30 minute ride to the airport in LA - I thought about just having them pull over and ordering a replacement

Just say you feel carsick and want a window open for fresh air. They surely don't want puke in their car so they should be willing to oblige.

Oh I lean my head out the window like a dog, I am not their friend and give no fucks about offending them, but riding so long having to breathe in 65 mph wind just because a gas station toilet spilled in the car is a reportable offense

They get paid $300 (may be different these days) if you like in the car. The financial incentive for making you puke is quite high.

I don't think that tracks. Not only do they have to incur the cost of getting the car cleaned, but while they're off getting it cleaned, they're also not accepting rides and taking in money. Not to mention it's just a huge hassle and waste of time.

> I formally report it every time I'm in a car that has the deodorizer turned up to 11 because it makes me nauseous.

This is a good thing. I do think we're much better off now than we were in the 80s-10s (relentless, pervasive over-fragrancing).

But lately I've been running into the occasional Axe-weilder or odd desktop gadget that creates an airplane sized zone of unbreatable air. It might be time to dust-off some civil reminders about air quality.

I've had this happen many times. One time, I got into an Uber and it smelled like there were 100 kilos of cocaine in the trunk. Not joke, the car reeked of coke.

Does Uber no longer fire drivers who don't consistently get 5 star trip reviews?

I have zero clue if they still do, but based on my experiences lately with Uber and Lyft there's zero chance they fire drivers even if they have terrible reviews. I'm an "always 5 star" type of reviewer (sorry if you think I'm obligated to be honest!), but, man, it's rough out there at least in big cities in the US. Sorry that's not reliably answering your question, but even if Uber said they fire those people I would not for one second believe them.

> I'm an "always 5 star" type of reviewer

Same. Only time I will rate lower is for safety issues. Offensive conversation and bad smells are not great, but I don't want to screw up what might be someone's only job because they're having a bad day or because they can't afford to get their car cleaned as often as they should.

But I also don't judge people who would rate lower for stuff like that; everyone's threshold for what's acceptable is different.

I mean... It's crazy to read this in a thread complaining about the quality of ubers. I guess you didn't start the thread but your here all the same. It's this behavior that enables it.

The last terrible Lyft I had had a 4.9, yet the car literally rattled and you could 'hear' the suspension (hard to explain, whatever the hell it was wasn't right).

Guessing by the odometer being 220k and the sticker over the check engine light, it had likely been like that for a while.

Part of the problem with this system is that I’m hesitant to give a driver less than 5 stars (unless they are truly dangerous) because I don’t want to take someone’s livelihood away.

> her English was not up to the task of understanding our explanation

Another Waymo selling point is its universal (since they're all the same) ability to communicate with anyone.

This is amazing. Don't forget that by you doing this you're taking us one step closer to AI replacing not just the job of drivers but the jobs of all of us. Good sides and bad sides.

Hopefully we won't get there and only uber drivers are the ones screwed. Since you and I aren't uber drivers, we don't really care do we?

I'm for equal opportunity screwing: if they lose their jobs, it's only fair my job is at risk too - and given improvements in programming agents, it will be.

The only way we're getting through this is by facing it together, not throwing the more precarious of us under the bus.

Imagine how backwards our socioeconomic order is that "people are no longer needed for grueling work" is a bad thing.

I mean, you're not wrong, but I feel like it's a condemnation of out economic system.

Driving is not grueling work. Imagine a utopia where people aren't needed for any work at all! No job for you. Only AI robots taking care of rich people while everything else burns. Just make sure you're one of the rich ones and everything is A-okay!

Sitting for extended periods of time is bad for one’s health. Also, being in a vehicle is the highest morbidity/mortality risk thing people do. More time on the road = more chance of injury.

Agreed. But it’s not grueling. Programming you also sit for long periods. Programming usually isn’t considered grueling.

You don’t have to sit to program, and there are generally far more degrees of freedom, e.g. bathroom breaks and eating healthy food from a fridge and microwave, etc.

Also, many/most taxi drivers have to regularly work evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. (Also upping the risk due to sleepy or drunk drivers).

Uber drivers can take a break and pick their own hours whenever they want. They can even nap wherever they want.

Still not grueling imo.

This is just devolving into a dispute about the definition of grueling.

The dictionary says “extremely tiring and demanding”. Letting random people into your space, putting your primary income generating asset at risk, being on constant alert, and working long, undesirable hours that results in health problems qualifies as grueling for me. Maybe not as grueling as some other types of labor, but obviously more grueling than 95% of programming jobs.

The drivers taking constant breaks and working whenever they feel like it are not the ones earning any decent amount of money.

I'm not actually convinced that "AI" will even replace all the jobs of drivers. Rumor is that Waymo had trouble in Austin (where I live) when they were centered downtown, because they would gridlock. I'm not convinced that they will work well once they become common on the roads, because they will all drive cautiously, and that may lend itself to gridlock situations. Right now they're in the SE corner of town (also where I live), and they don't seem to gridlock, but the first thing they do is almost always to go to another part of town. They will likely have a useful place, but I'm not convinced that it will pay enough to keep the cars in good shape, long term. The cars are all new, right now, but what happens when they get old and start to malfunction? Will they be making enough money to pay for that? Right now they might (like Uber and Lyft before them) just be burning through VC money, without any prospect of profitability.

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