Wonderland turns into nightmare for Lyft driver, beaten up by customer who tried to bring his lady friend with him, police say
Transit Police report charging an East Boston man with assault and battery for punching a Lyft driver in the head twice early this morning.
Police say the man had summoned a Lyft ride for one person, but that when the driver arrived, shortly before 1:30 a.m., the man had a woman with him.
The Victim attempted to explain the Lyft order was only for a single person. The suspect male became angry. The Victim tried to ease the situation by informing the suspect male he would cancel the order for no charge. The female upon hearing this exited the victim's vehicle. The suspect male however refused to exit but proceeded to the victim's passenger door and with a closed fist struck victim in the face and then again in the Victim's ear. Suspect male then fled.
Transit Police officers found the victim with "fresh blood" dripping from his face and a new cut above one eye. Police say they found the man and woman near the station garage.
The victim declined transportation to the hospital, police say.
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Comments
Hope she runs away fast
Hope she runs away fast
Uber and Lyft really going
Uber and Lyft really going downhill this year.
That may be true
But I wouldn't blame this assault on the companies. Although pre-screening passengers would probably make more people inclined to drive for the services.
The ride share business model doesn't work as well when it's relatively easy to find better paying and less risky work.
Full disclosure. I don’t use
Full disclosure. I don’t use Lyft but when I order Uber for my party, I don’t specify the number of people because I expect to have at least 3 seats available.
I don’t take rideshare much
But don’t some options involve specifying the number of people because you might be sharing the backseat with someone else headed the same way?
See below
Yes, you can only have 1 for Shared rides, and the driver cancels if you have a second person.
Entitled attitudes
And belligerent reactions are at a high level right now.
I wonder who has been enabling those in our society?
Why are you addressing this
Why are you addressing this question to me? I don’t know. I haven’t.
Nothing says high executive function…
… like using an app that knows your name and phone and credit card number to summon a driver against whom you subsequently commit felony assault and battery.
I use Uber and Lyft multiple times per week, and I
have never been asked how many passengers will be using the ride, don't even know how that would work in the current iOS versions of the apps.
The only reference to number of passengers I can see is the maximum capacity shown when you choose the category of vehicle, e.g., Uber X (3-4 passengers, usually) vs. Uber Black (5-6, usually). I've never seen a rideshare limited to one passenger only.
If the rider wanted to add a passenger with a second destination, that could be an unwelcome surprise to the driver (e.g., only the first destination was convenient as his last stop of the night on his way home), but that kind of trip alteration can be made on the fly.
Sounds like the driver just didn't want to accept these particular passengers and made up an excuse to deny them service. I can imagine how he might have been justified (e.g., they appeared so intoxicated he was worried about them puking in the back seat), also how not (e.g., any of a number of garden-variety bigotries.)
Shared Lyft?
The shared is limited to one person per party now. Pre-Covid you could select that you had 1 or 2 people.
https://help.lyft.com/hc/lt/all/articles/115013078848-About-Shared-rides
Aha, thanks! I used shared Ubers a few times,
but found they were far less reliable on pickup and delivery times. Plus it can be awkward to share a not-always-roomy back seat with a stranger. I feel bad about that, as it's greener and more frugal to share.
Whats really wild about this,
What's really wild about this, is that shared rides will only save you like a few dollars, depending on how far you're going. So this fool caught a charge over less than a 10 spot, most likely.
The shared rides went away when the pandemic started and I welcomed it because of the headaches of the app trying to map out routes with the Boston street layout and the prices were already high right before the panini so it wasn't much of an adjustment. Wouldn't mind if they got rid of them again and made it more welcoming for drivers