How much did you rate the driver? When I was waiting for my driver to arrive (about 20 minutes in), I was prepared to rate him 1 star. Then I just felt bad that he may lose his job and so stuck with 3 stars.

I see the problem is Uber sometimes do not do proper quality control. In my country where they're starting up, the drivers do not always ring to say they are on their way (some I have to ring them first) and some offer drinks, while others don't. Usually they tend to be very unfamiliar with the roads and takes longer than the 15 minutes estimate to arrive. I can see in your case, the driver doesn't know the best route to get to your destination.

Uber can probably improve this by helping the driver decide the best route there while avoiding getting stuck in traffic.

And I've always wondered what happens if my phone runs out of battery before the driver arrives.. so that is why the driver MUST ring after the customer puts in an order request!