Nashville Lyft Driver Shawn Reed describes a passenger as “just one of those women where she knows it all, alpha female”; “the biggest most arrogant, conceited bitch”. What brought about this description of a passenger by her driver?
Imagine if you’re a person that is sensitive to loud noises & bright lights – maybe you just have a headache, and you just want to get home. To be safe, you request a Lyft. The Lyft app tells you when the driver is arriving, and despite that, the driver has sent you additional texts already, and when he pulls up has even more questions as you get in the car. The car you’re getting in has bright lights on the inside that are one during the ride, and the music is loud to your ears. This could be the experience from the passenger’s perspective of an incident that happened this past Saturday night. Of course there is more than one side to every story, and here’s how the Lyft driver documented this incident – that led to a passengers deactivation from the service going forward, according to driver Shawn Reed.
According to Lyft/Uber driver Shawn Reed, an incident similar to the above happened to his passenger this past Saturday night. Except he wasn’t very nice about it, and took the passenger as being “the biggest most arrogant, conceited bitch” that he almost ‘put her ass out’ one minute into the ride. Per his own account, he was picking up his female passenger at Red Door Saloon in East Nashville, she complained about his lights (he has colored lights in his vehicle that are bright, photo below), and remarked “they’re freaking me out, turn them off now”. According to Reed, she complained (“bitched”) about the type of music he was listening to, the volume of the music, which he justified by saying it was only on a 6 out of 40, despite the perception of the passenger. She tried to tell him the proper way to go, thinking he was taking the long way to ‘milk the fare’ – a common request from passengers.
How did driver Shawn Reed handle this passenger? Perhaps a more experienced driver would have simply (1) Turned down the lights/radio, (2) Apologize for the extra text, say it’s just keeping you safe, (3) Have a quiet ride to her destination on the route she requested, and chock it up to experience if he got a bad rating. However Shawn decided to take a different route. He decided to give her 1-star, submit a ticket about her, for what he considered bad behvavior – and THEN according to Reed, he emailed a contact at Lyft and got her completely deactivated from the service. Now this passenger is unable to use Lyft, because one driver thought she was “just one of those women where she knows it all, alpha female” and “the biggest most arrogant, conceited bitch”
See how it played out, directly from the driver:
This is an actual photo of Reed’s interior with the lights that are on while driving:
What’s your thoughts on how driver Shawn Reed handled the situation? Did he overreact? Was he justified?
Uber/Lyft drivers are sub contractors that work through Uber and Lyft to be connected with riders. The car belongs to the driver. It is personal property. No driver is expected or required to put up with rude riders. It’s is the goal of Uber and Lyft to make the ride share experience good for everyone, and when we run into riders that we don’t like we are asked to tell why. If they mistreat drivers for any reason, they are deactivated. It’s as simple as that. A more experienced passenger would have asked politely that the lights be turned off for whatever reason, asked the music be turned down cause she had a headache, and allowed the driver to follow the GPS because the GPS takes drivers the best way with the least resistance that will get the riders there faster. Usually when I rider tells us to go their way, we end up in traffic, blocked off roads, or taking longer because they don’t know what they’re doing. We are not a service provided to people where the customer is always right, and thankfully we don’t have to put up with such bull crap either.
Sounds like both of you should be deactivated. Her for the verbal abuse, and you for not turning both the lights and music off, after requested to do so. Out service is (even if we don’t get enough payment) is to transport a passenger, following these goals: safely, navigation, FRIENDLINESS, and cleanliness. Obviously, both of you were NOT… FRIENDLINESS.
Those lights are obnoxious. I have never had an Uber or Lyft driver that did not ask me if the music was OK.
I’m glad this dick works the other side of town. 🙂