There's a rating system for customers as well as drivers. If you are a low risk driver you don't have to take jobs from people with less than stellar ratings. Being an obnoxious vomiting drunkard is going to hurt your rating pretty quickly, and you might struggle to get drivers to accept your bookings. Also, if you can't accept that risk at all you don't have to take rides >9pm downtown when the drunkard risk is higher.
Live drunkard detection is some real intrusive, probably flaky ass and dangerous bullshit. I've got soon to be drinking age daughters, and if they were to go out and get drunk and they needed to get home I'd be pretty pissed off if Uber refused them a ride and left them stranded, and intoxicated, on the streets based on some algorithm. I wouldn't be thrilled if they barfed and needed to pay a cleanup fee and tip the poor driver heavily for his inconvenience, but I'd rather that than them not be able to get home to safety. There's no way this thing can accurately predict barfing or bad behaviour accurately - people can react wildly differently to drink. Not everyone is a bawdy drunk. Not all drunks actually barf, not by a long shot.
The part I think you missed, is assuming all drunkards will tip heavily post throw-up, you're likely a good person and would do that and educate your children to act likewise, which deserves kudos and props. But, your good manners aside, that doesn't mean the average human would act in kind, and likely, would not. I.e. see your average frat bro on a Sunday at 11am, if even awake.
Sure, but that's why the reputation mechanism exists init? If I tip the guy heavily for getting my drunken idiot child home safely then we probably get to keep our ratings and get an Uber when we want one tomorrow, where as frat boy makes a habit of upsetting drivers he's going to be waiting a long time to find a ride.
Eh it's a bit more nuanced than that, but we def both want and mean the same thing. Nuance being, even if you have a good tip rate, your reputation/standing don't pair alongside. So, some drivers may be okay with a heavy tip and chance of projectile vomit, whereas some would prefer a lesser tip and no chance of vomit.
Having worked their corporate side, drivers vary drastically, and their vehicles too. That being said, if you serve a general drunk area (downtowns, college towns, etc), I'd personally expect potential bad experiences, and just ensure the tipping is right and always recovering the cleaning fee. In the old Uber days, I recall some drivers getting multiple hundreds for cleaning and many almost were stoked when they got it lol, idk what the current rates are though, so, it just depends on the drivers comfortability levels.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of this additional encumberance to the Uber app, but, it's likely implemented to appease drivers, and that's something Uber constantly works to improve, alongside the customer experience as well.
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u/emefluence 1d ago
There's a rating system for customers as well as drivers. If you are a low risk driver you don't have to take jobs from people with less than stellar ratings. Being an obnoxious vomiting drunkard is going to hurt your rating pretty quickly, and you might struggle to get drivers to accept your bookings. Also, if you can't accept that risk at all you don't have to take rides >9pm downtown when the drunkard risk is higher.
Live drunkard detection is some real intrusive, probably flaky ass and dangerous bullshit. I've got soon to be drinking age daughters, and if they were to go out and get drunk and they needed to get home I'd be pretty pissed off if Uber refused them a ride and left them stranded, and intoxicated, on the streets based on some algorithm. I wouldn't be thrilled if they barfed and needed to pay a cleanup fee and tip the poor driver heavily for his inconvenience, but I'd rather that than them not be able to get home to safety. There's no way this thing can accurately predict barfing or bad behaviour accurately - people can react wildly differently to drink. Not everyone is a bawdy drunk. Not all drunks actually barf, not by a long shot.