I know some people get big feelings about being able to request women drivers, but I was really relieved to have that option especially since this is a novel experience.

That's so rad the option to take a woman driver is available now! It can be a little nerve-wracking doing anything for the first time. Hope you were going somewhere fun :)

Picking up a moving truck unfortunately lol

Damn, not quite as fun haha. I hope your move is as smooth as possible then!!

Oh, that's big. Even setting aside the idea of how men might act towards me personally, I'd just feel safer on the road in general. I've had some road ragers lately 🙄

Now if I could also request no Teslas, I'd feel super safe.

I used Uber quite a few times while traveling over the last 2 weeks. I was initially so excited to have women only as an option, so I chose it for my first ride.

I was so very disappointed with my driver, she spent the entire trip talking to someone on the 15 minute ride. I’m not one to chit chat with the driver, but having full on phone calls during a ride seems a little over the top to me. I would definitely use this option if I was going out with friends to the bar or something.

That said, I had more disappointing rides this time than I’ve ever had before. Out of 8 rides, only 4 were friendly outside of confirming that I was the correct rider. Of the 8 rides, 4 rides I had luggage with me, I’m not sure if there has been a policy change but only 2 of the drivers even offered to assist with my luggage. I had it, but the offer is nice. Thankfully, the last ride to take me home, the guy helped with my bag, I was so exhausted at that point.

These 8 rides were across 3 different states, so it’s not just a specific area. I dunno, I was just disappointed with all but 3 of the rides.

This is a great option and I'll definitely use it

Idk, it feels a little sexist to me... I'm glad it worked out for you, but I feel like if Uber has vetted them as safe, it's basically employment discrimination against a protected characteristic :/

Uber does its "vetting" by vibes. There's plenty of cases of "vetted" Uber drivers raping or otherwise assaulting their passengers.

I'll be sexist over raped if I were ever to use an American service ever again.

Yea, I know people have feelings about how others choose to protect themselves. Mine are “better my safety than your feelings.”

That's the reason why I used to heave a sigh of relief here when taking a taxi and seeing a woman driver. The men in Wuhan drive like the laws of physics are just suggested guidelines. The women drive far more sanely.

Weirdly it was the opposite in buses until all the bus lines got taken over by the state and turned into one service with strict standards for driver behaviour. (Ask me about the plastic cups.) In those days the women drivers were far more aggressive than the men on average. Nowadays the drivers are far more uniform in behaviour no matter what the gender.

Ah, here's the article from NewsNation.

Uber received 400,181 reports of sexual assault or sexual misconduct in the U.S. between 2017 and 2022 which averages out to roughly one report every eight minutes.

One report. Every eight minutes. Over a six year span.

And then comes the garnish on the shit omelet: This number is far higher than the 12,522 serious sexual assaults Uber had publicly disclosed for the same period. This is because Uber only reported the "serious" offences like physical sexual assaults and worse. Which still means one of those every 4.2 hours. For six years.

i marked myself as a woman on uber so i could do the woman driver thing but then never used it because as i went to mark it the app said i could get into trouble for falsely marking it. and if my driver was a transphobe... well you get the picture. i rely on uber way too much to get my account suspended or some shit

wait that's an option?

Yeah. It kept prompting me to switch because there was a delay. The delay was like 2 minutes.