Rideshare Passenger Safety Tips

Rideshare Passenger Safety Tips

In a world where there’s news circulating every day about a different negative experience someone had with a rideshare company or a dangerous situation they got into because of one, it’s important to remember that as a passenger, you can help yourself stay safer.  While the industry is going through changes, and RideShare Advocate Group is working to help the industry become safer for everyone involved, we believe that it’s crucial for passengers to take as much control of the situation as possible and make themselves the safest rideshare passengers they can be!

Follow these safety tips next time you find yourself as a rideshare passenger, and reap the awesome benefits that rideshare companies offer while still staying safe in the process.  Travel smarter!

• Share Your Trip – If you’re traveling in a rideshare alone, share your trip with others. When you share it with someone (specifically someone who pays attention to their phone and will notice if you don’t let them know you’re safe in a timely manner), they’ll get a notification to their phone and can follow you along in GPS.  With Uber, you hit “Share my ETA,” and with Lyft, “Send ETA.”  If your rideshare company doesn’t have this option, there are other great apps that allow you to do this, such as Glympse or Life360!
• Check the Driver’s Rating Beforehand – Make sure you check to make sure other individuals have used this driver frequently and have had positive interactions with them!
• Don’t Give Out Personal Information – Your driver is obviously going to know where they’re dropping you off, but try to keep everything else friendly and small-talk related rather than giving out personal information. Don’t tell them how long you’re traveling for, your phone number, where your parents live, etc.  Remember, while rideshare companies do run background checks, they do not run fingerprints, so you shouldn’t trust them with personal information!
• Request Your Ride and Wait Inside – This is important so that you’re not standing outside looking lost waiting for your rideshare car to come show up, making you vulnerable to predators and thieves.
• Confirm Your Car Before You Get in! – This might be the most important one. Scammers have faked being a rideshare driver, so make sure you look at the license plate and name of the driver before getting into the car!  Ask the driver for the name of the passenger they’re picking up before telling them your name to make sure they know who they’re supposed to be getting!
• Sit in the Back Seat – Dave Sutton with Who’s Driving You? says that many of the rideshare incidents they have seen have happened to passengers riding in the front seat. Sit in the back seat, and wear your seatbelt!
• Don’t Pay Cash – Lastly, don’t take out your wallet during the ride at all. Pay and tip in the app so that you don’t provoke a driver to take your money.  A driver shouldn’t ask you to pay cash, so keep that in mind as well.

Make sure you leave feedback on the rideshare app to help other riders, and always be very aware of your surroundings and the situation!  Know where you are at all times, and have your phone ready just in case you need to make an emergency call.  Taking all these precautions may seem excessive, but they could be very helpful if an incident were to arise and can even help incidents from arising at all.

Our goal at RideShare Advocate Group is to keep rideshare passengers educated and informed to help them be the very safest rideshare passengers possible.  While we can’t change the industry overnight, we hope that by educating passengers, the industry changes will begin to make a much safer experience for all future passengers of rideshare companies!