1. No trip is worth your life
If something doesn’t feel right, or you don’t want to pick up from a certain area. Decline the trip or cancel it. Uber and Lyft will understand, now Lyft is stricter on drivers when they decline trips or cancel. So always make sure to email them with the reason of why you did. They are usually pretty understanding.
2. When kicking a rider out
If you should unfortunately have to kick out a rider. Make sure you pull into a well-crowded area just in case things should go south. If rider should refuse to get out of the car, then you should get out and call the cops. Do not use force to get them out, unless they should put their hands-on you then in that case it would be self-defense, so you have the right to protect yourself.
3. Know Your surroundings
Know where the closet hospital, fire station, or police station is. Also know where the police like to hang out. This will come in handy if you should have a hostile rider, or rider with a medical issue. If you should have a hostile rider and see an officer driving down the road flash, your high beams at them and they will stop you to make sure everything is alright.
4. Get to know local drivers
Most cities have local rideshare groups on Facebook. However, if your city should not or say you don’t have Facebook. See where the local driver’s hangout. For yes, we are competition. But it’s always good to know fellow drivers on the road.
5. Location Sharing apps / 911 Panic Button –
Both Uber and Lyft have a feature on their app called, share my trip or share my location. That allows driver to share trip status with friends or family.
| How To Set Share my trip For Uber – new link| How Set Share My Trip For Lyft |
Also, both companies have 911 panic buttons for drivers if something should unfortunately go wrong.
| How To Access 911 Button Uber | How To Access 911 button Lyft |
6. Dash-Cam
If you don’t have a dash-cam our best advice is to purchase one as soon as possible. It’s the best way to protect yourself from whatever may happen. Also, say you should be falsely accused you will have this video footage as proof.
7. Carrying a weapon
Both Uber and Lyft’s TOS doesn’t allow drivers or riders to carry weapons. However, if you should carry something our best advice keep it out of sight of riders or fellow drivers. For all it takes is one person to report you and goodbye being a driver. Also, I know a lot of drivers carry pepper spray or mace. We advise against doing that, for yes it will take out the rider if they are attacking you. However, it could affect you for pepper spray is pretty potent. An alternative for it would be body spray or hair spray.
Note: In no way are we encouraging drivers to carry a weapon on them when they drive. If should decide to carry a weapon you are doing it at your own risk.