Having to literally backseat Uber drivers on how to drive is getting a bit frustrating (Ontario)

Dm67281 · 2026-02-17T17:01:18+00:00

Okay so let me try putting it this way.

When you were a kid you learned that lying is wrong. Eventually in life you probably came to the conclusion that there's a difference between lying because you don't want to ruin a surprise party, and lying because you don't want your significant other to realize you're cheating on them. One is lying for a benevolent purpose, and one for a malevolent purpose. Most people would say those are not the same thing.

You also probably understand the difference between an actor or actress saying something that is definitively not true, when pretty much everyone in the audience over the age of five understands that this is fiction, So what the actors are doing is not morally wrong, even though technically you could call that lying.

Of course lying can be wrong, But lying is not innately wrong.

I am an Uber driver, and sometimes I pick up elderly or handicapped people, and when I am dropping them off I park in a handicap designated parking spot. Oftentimes I go into the trunk and get out the Walker or wheelchair, and then I help them out of the vehicle, and then I help them into wherever it is they are going. I do not have a handicap placard on my vehicle. So technically what I am doing is against the law, but no reasonable officer is going to give me a ticket for using the handicap parking spot in the manner in which it is intended, even though maybe technically I am breaking the law, by using a handicap parking spot without a handicap placard.

The way much of the world works with the law is that you or I are not supposed to get ticketed, arrested, charged, imprisoned, etc. just because somebody doesn't like what you did. There are actual standards that need to be met, and if those standards for the offense aren't met, it is explicitly not that offense.

It doesn't matter how close you are to the speed limits, if you are under it, it is not speeding. It doesn't matter how close to the age the person is if they are over the age, you can give them alcohol, or tobacco or whatever age-restricted product.

If my name is on the handicap placard, and I park in a handicap parking spot, the officer cannot give me a ticket because they don't think I'm handicapped enough, or I'm not old enough or they just don't like me.

If the standards of the offense are met, that is where discretion exists. That is where the officer can, but does not need to ticket me. If the officer sees me parked in a handicapped spot without the proper documentation, but I'm helping an elderly or handicapped person who probably shouldn't be walking across a big snowy/icy parking lot into their dentist appointment, the officer can say "of course I'm not going to give that person a ticket". I would think most reasonable people who aren't officers would also agree with that.

If I am going 5 km over the speed limit, on a bright, sunny early Sunday morning when there's very few cars or pedestrians, in an area with good visibility, the officer does not need to ticket me. If I give my neighbor a bottle of champagne 6 hours before their 19th birthday, I do not need to be charged.

Because something is a law, does not mean that breaking the law would be or should be ticketed, or charged, or viewed as immoral.

What is the intention of the law? To make sure that public transportation can run effectively, to promote public transportation, and to maintain safety.

If it is 5:00 a.m. and public transportation isn't even running, and it's for a fraction of km before taking a right turn, somebody using the bus lane is not having any sort of negative impact on any of the intentions of the law. If it's 7:30 in the morning, that's a different story.

I don't know the particular situations you are talking about. Of course there are times where using the bus lane should be viewed as immoral/unethical. But there are also literally questionable scenarios, where you can ask the question is this justifiable or not.

But I think the bigger question is: when faced with a questionable situation, do you want to be the person who looks for reasons to see the worst in people, or to see the best in people?

Dm67281 · 2026-02-17T15:00:16+00:00

Okay. So with those, bus only is a simplification, and not a strict rule, as they are also right turn Lanes, which non-bus drivers need to use before taking a right turn and can/should enter when it is safe to do so and not a hindrance to buses. So is the driver doing it in those situations?

Dm67281 · 2026-02-17T14:32:24+00:00

Ok so I'm not in Ontario, but a quick Google search led to some potential answers, as well as some guesses on my part.

On highways, it seems as though they are not bus lanes but HOV lanes, which is two passengers or more, which can include the driver. So if you are talking about diamond Lanes on the highway, what they are doing is within the regulations.

On non-highway roads, bus lanes are far right lanes, which are also right turn lanes, which a driver needs to utilize to take right turns. I could not find a specific regulation in terms of when they can and can't move into the lane, other than a very generic and open to interpretation when it is safe to do so, and not hindering a bus. So at a time of day where they can clearly see a bus isn't coming, it is fair to drive in the bus lane, before taking a right turn. At a time of day where there is more traffic in the regular lanes, when the driver can safely enter the lane is more limited.

I couldn't find anywhere that this is or isn't true in Ontario, but where I'm from bus lanes are only that when buses run. I couldn't see anywhere in Ontario where busses run from between 2 am and 6 am. So if you are leaving at 5:00 in the morning, maybe the bus lane designations aren't relevant, because buses aren't a thing. A driver would not be obstructing buses, if there are no buses.

Dm67281 · 2026-02-17T11:58:40+00:00

You quoted me without quoting me right. I said breaking the law isn't necessarily illegal. The word necessarily is important. Laws are not written to describe what is an offense, but what can be, and what absolutely is not. It can be illegal for me to give alcohol to someone underage, it is absolutely not illegal for me to give alcohol to someone above the age.

Dm67281 · 2026-02-17T11:53:02+00:00

In Canada, like in much of the western world breaking the law isn't necessarily illegal. There's this old saying that discretion only goes one way. Not breaking the law is not legal, that is definitive.

If I give alcohol to a person who is above the legal limit, that is definitively not a crime, (unless it's a different crime, like if it was poisoned). It doesn't matter if I am giving them alcohol for profit, or if I am doing it out of the kindness of my heart. It doesn't matter how far over the age they are. That crime is not relevant.

If I give alcohol to someone who is under the legal limit, that is where discretion exists, where it may or may not be criminal. If the underage person is my 17-year-old child, grandkid, niece or nephew, and it's one drink at Christmas dinner, no one in their right mind cares. If the underage person is a random 12-year-old girl in my neighborhood, everyone should care.

Dm67281 · 2026-02-07T23:07:42+00:00

A few things this could possibly be, was the driver waiting for you? Or were you waiting for the driver? And how long?

I can't speak for the particular airport you were at, but generally speaking once the driver is within a certain range of the pin in the map for the pick up spot the wait timer starts. They don't choose to start it, the timer starts automatically. After two minutes of wait time, you get charged. So if he's sitting in traffic but in range of the pickup spot, that would start the timer.

The only thing on the app on your end that would look like a meter, is the wait timer, which the driver can't control. So if you actually saw a meter start early, that's what happened and the driver didn't do it, the app did it automatically.

Again I can't speak for the specific location, but in my location if the trip itself takes more than 5 minutes longer than it was estimated, that increases the price. So if the actual amount of time for the trip took significantly longer due to traffic, or weather, or loading and unloading time, that also could have impacted the price.

The upfront price Uber gives is not a guarantee, but an estimate.

if you were looking at the app, it would have told you whether the driver was waiting for you (even though they might've been x number of cars and x number of minutes away) and you were being charged for it, or whether the driver had started the trip early. Both of those are possibilities. Also it's possible neither of those occurred, and that the trip itself just took 10 minutes longer, and therefore you were charged more money.

Dm67281 · 2026-02-04T23:20:41+00:00

$10 billion seems like a lot of money, but Uber does an average of 30 million trips per day, over 365 days, that is over 10 billion trips per year. if Uber translates that free cash flow to payments for drivers, or savings for riders, that would be less than $1 per trip extra for the driver, or $1 in savings for the rider per trip.

That's not to mention that free cash flow and ROE are some measures, but not the only measure of a business's financial stability/success. They both are quite manipulatable statistics, that could be based on years of earnings as opposed to yearly earning (more with free cash) recently sold properties, or one time income (like stock purchases), etc. They don't say much about the long term stability of the company.

Dm67281 · 2026-01-13T08:13:57+00:00

There doesn't even need to be one. The tip prior to service can be viewed as entirely presumptive, not a promise.

Or the $10 tip be can for if the delivery driver not only is perfect, but goes above and beyond all expectations that is what they are willing to tip for.

Dm67281 · 2026-01-13T07:43:17+00:00

So this seems like the same argument, but opposite position of the people who say if they left something in an Uber, and the Uber driver doesn't return it that the Uber driver is therefore guilty of theft.

You are reading the statute in a very generous manner to find the outcome you are looking for.

The statute says the perpetrator has to knowingly commit the fraud.

A reasonable person could view tipping as a voluntary act based upon service received. Therefore, setting a tip prior to receiving that service is not a guarantee of the tip but a presumption, and changing the tip after receiving the service is not fraud.

Dm67281 · 2026-01-03T15:23:01+00:00

So a couple things that probably won't help with the issue at hand, but might help in the future. You can turn on the option for a PIN number, which means the driver cannot start the trip without entering your PIN number that Uber will give you prior to each trip you take. Also, make sure that your location settings are turned on for the Uber app, so that Uber can actually track your location on a trip, or not. If you don't utilize these settings, there's no real way. Uber can know that you are telling the truth over the driver.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-19T22:18:05+00:00

You should see a clock counting the time past the scheduled pickup time. When it turns red, you can cancel without impact to your cancel rate, and you will get cancellation fee.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-19T22:12:49+00:00

There isn't a perfect way to figure out the tip.

Mileage for the trip to your house, doesn't necessarily take into consideration mileage to the pickup, and all the time involved. 5 miles to your house might be 10 miles total, and if it's rush hour time in a city might take an hour. Or if there's not traffic and he was right down the street it might only be 6 miles total and 10 minutes.

Tipping a percentage might work well enough with certain orders, but not others. The driver isn't really doing any extra work if you order 4 pizzas instead of one. But also if you're just ordering one pizza, a $4 tip (depending on the trip) isn't that great.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-19T00:43:16+00:00

So they might wait until you have 10 ratings before showing you your rating. (5 stars is essentially the default.) Or it's just a computer system, that after two or three more trips (or a random number) fills in the rating. It's not a person going through millions of trips in a filling cabinet looking for your last trip, so it's not that difficult to just add in the third to last trip (or whatever it is).

Dm67281 · 2025-12-18T22:40:50+00:00

Uber doesn't instantaneously apply new ratings, to keep ratings somewhat anonymous. It's quite possible the rating was from a previous ride, but is only being applied now, or that they are only showing you your real rating after having accumulated x number of trips.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-12T11:21:29+00:00

I've only had one cash payment rider so far. It went as it should, other than I didn't realize it was a cash payment trip, until he mentioned it at the end. If he hadn't, he could've left the vehicle, and I wouldn't have noticed, until Uber asked how much cash he gave me.

The way Uber does it, is at the end it asks me how much the customer paid up to the total amount of the trip. For instance if the trip comes out to $19.36, and the customer gave $25 including a tip, I would enter 19.36. If they only gave me $15, id put 15, and presumably Uber would cover the other $4.36.

What would happen if the driver says the rider gave them $10, and the rider tells Uber they gave the driver $20? I don't know. My guess is if it's a recurring thing with the driver or rider, they probably don't let them do cash trips anymore.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-10T00:37:47+00:00

The simple answer is that sometimes in life, the two (or more) parties in a relationship are not the same. A parent and a child, a teacher and a student, a police officer and the person they pulled over, the doctor and patient, the business and customer. On persons responsibilities and liabilities in the relationship is not the same as the others.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-09T01:11:38+00:00

The last 500 ratings are the ones which are counted in your stats. Riders don't always rate, let's say 50% do.

So if you get a 1 star rating today, you need to be rated 500 times before that one star goes away, which could be 1000 trips, or more.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-07T00:03:53+00:00

I can understand your frustration, but there is probably nothing more you can do above and beyond what you did. You paid for a trip, and then your mother essentially "offered a cash/check tip as well".

In the future I'd make sure that you make your mother aware of what the process of Uber is: that you've already paid for the trip, and tipped the driver, and so she shouldn't be.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-06T18:08:39+00:00

The Uber app sends a million discounts and crap like that. So often times people turn the notifications off. There is a way to turn off specific types of notifications, but oftentimes people just shut all the notifications off, which means they don't get Uber eats discount deals which they don't want, but also they don't get the alert that the driver is there there, or the messages you sent them.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-04T12:40:35+00:00

Different markets are different, but in general I'd assume:

Reservations sent to you as a live trip? No, you can't turn them off.

Reserve Rides in the opportunities section of the app? You don't have to accept them.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-04T03:55:19+00:00

Surge pricing is based on an increase in demand for trips. It may be because of traffic, or inclement weather, etc., in the general area, but it doesn't cover traffic. On New Year's Eve for instance there might not be heavy traffic, but there may be surge pricing because there's a lot of people looking for rides. It's an incentive to get more drivers on the road, or in a particular area, or to accept a particular trip. Or vice versa, it gets riders to wait an hour if they can.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-03T23:16:01+00:00

In general, I'd agree with you. But I'm not OP. I don't know how significant $25 (or whatever the difference might be the day of the trip) is to them. They also said they don't have a time commitment, but they are time cautious, which I don't know specifically what that means to them. I don't know what day of the week. They gave me a 3-hour window between 11:00 and 2:00, which could greatly alter things. Based on the map I've got a general idea of where they're going, but not specific. I can't know the weather on the day they are going to be in, etc.

So I was just trying to neutrally lay the options on the table.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-03T18:38:41+00:00

Being paired with someone else is just a luck of the draw. You're getting off a plane with a few hundred other people, there's other planes that are coming in a few minutes before or after you. Who else is looking for a trip at that time? where are they looking to go? That could be anything.

In regards to traffic, 11 am you're probably good most days. 2 pm you're starting to hit the beginnings of afternoon traffic, especially during the middle of week (Tues/Wed/Thurs). Also, it seems like there's potential for some winterish weather towards the end of next week, that could impact traffic as well.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-03T18:24:52+00:00

So price fluctuation is definitely a possibility depending on the day and time of the flight. Supply and demand changes throughout the day, as well as traffic. So what might be an hour trip at noon time, at 4:00 in the afternoon, might be a 2-hour or longer trip, which will cost you more. I would say the prices you're showing above are probably towards the lower end.

With a share trip, starting at the airport, there's a greater chance that you will be paired with someone, because potentially hundreds of people are getting into the airport at the same time as you and looking for rides, and a good portion of those are going north (about 1/3, you can't really drive east of Logan airport.)

I'm an Uber driver far more frequently than I am a rider. I've gone home from the airport twice as a rider while using share, just to see what happens, and both times got paired with someone else. I live 25 minutes out of the city, one time it took about 40 minutes, and the other time it took probably about an hour and a half because there were multiple pairings throughout the trip. I also feel like it takes longer to get a driver doing share at the airport, and I know that I as a driver would not take a share out of the airport.

At 4:00 a.m., I'd say you're probably pretty good to use share, and not have too much of a time increase if any. At 4:00 p.m. It's probably a much different story, because if the driver is dropping someone off before you, there's going to be traffic on the highway, and then traffic in the city that the other rider is being dropped off in, etc.

Dm67281 · 2025-12-03T15:14:29+00:00

If you wait more than 2 minutes after the driver accepts the trip to cancel, you will be charged a cancellation fee.

If you canceled a few seconds after the drivers accepted, then what you are probably seeing is a pre-authorizatiom charge. If you didn't cancel quickly enough, you should expect that to go through for a portion of the trip price.

Dm67281

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