
Your Uber Driver Can Secretly Report You on the App for Weed - moonka
https://herb.co/marijuana/news/uber-ban-weed/
======
smt88
Multiple drivers told me years ago that they had riders get into the car with
a lit joint and demanded to be allowed to smoke it. They said they'd give the
driver a bad rating otherwise. At the time (in my city), this often meant the
driver would have such a low rating that they'd rarely get any fares.

I personally dislike it when cars smell like (any kind of) smoke because I
smell like it, so I like this feature of the app.

~~~
wutbrodo
It would of course make sense if getting in the car reeking of any kind of
smoke was theoretically punishable by a ban. But getting in a car reeking of
tobacco smoke is covered only by the usual ratings system.

I assume this is simply a problem of large-company bureaucratic policies: they
don't want to have a separate policy for every local polity, and it's fairly
reasonable policy from a liability perspective to ban people on, say, crack or
heroine repeatedly getting into Uber. The unreasonable thing here is the fact
that weed is illegal federally, but everyone already knows that.

~~~
reaperducer
_It would of course make sense if getting in the car reeking of any kind of
smoke was theoretically punishable by a ban. But getting in a car reeking of
tobacco smoke is covered only by the usual ratings system._

Where I drove, you were permitted to kick people out for smelling bad. Whether
it was body odor, a drunk covered in his own puke, or someone reeking of
cigarettes.

If you've ever been waiting for your Uber and he drives by while you take one
last drag from your cigarette, now you know why.

~~~
wutbrodo
Good to know. Presumably it doesn't trigger a ban from the system in the way
that repeated infractions of the kind described in the article do, right?

~~~
reaperducer
Nope. But it does ding the driver.

------
dawhizkid
People are going to be smoking weed, doing drugs, having sex, generally making
a mess when autonomous taxis roll out. They will be disgusting.

Once you remove the "let's respect the vehicle because it's owned by an actual
human being sitting in front of me" you feel a lot less bad about being
disrespectful when using a product owned by some corporate entity.

~~~
bowmessage
Sure, but I think a few interior cameras would deter that behavior. Not saying
that's desirable; just likely where it's all headed.

~~~
tjoff
There are cameras in taxis today. I don't believe for a second a self-driving
taxi would ever be used without internal cameras.

As a privacy minded person I think that is ok. When I enter a taxi I don't
expect total privacy (obviously don't expect the recordings to end up on
youtube though).

I'm more concerned by the external-facing cameras. Possibly registering
everything and everyone that didn't take part in my ride.

Without laws in place that data will most definitely be used for evil and the
excuse might be targeted ads.

------
in_cahoots
Seems pretty reasonable to me. Look at it from the driver’s perspective: if
you’re pulled over and the car reeks of weed or alcohol your day just got a
lot worse. Doubly so if you’re a minority and you get pulled over by someone
on a power trip. What is the driver supposed to do, strip the customer looking
for illegal substances? This gives an easy way to decline the ride or
disincentive the passenger without having to make a long explanation.

~~~
chillwaves
Are you saying people who are intoxicated on alcohol are no longer welcome to
use Uber? Or should not be welcome?

~~~
ambicapter
Alcohol isn't smoked and isn't likely to vaporize out of a drunk and settle on
the walls of the car.

~~~
wishinghand
It can much more easily settle on the floor of the car though.

------
patagonia
I feel like we're burying the lead:

“another claim of this nature could result in permanent account deactivation.”

Uber wants to replace private and public transit, and then wants to be able to
permanently "deactivate" your ability to transit.

~~~
boxspam
This is what scares me about these stories. First kill any competition (go in
debt if you need to) to become a giant. Then start enforcing (sometimes
arbitrary or politicized) rules to the detriment of some customers who now
have nowhere else to go.

Uber with surge pricing and this MomCorp weed ban (Uber drove the taxi's out
of your neighborhood first, so now you have to pay for surges). "Sorry sir, I
won't pick you up and drive you home, even though you are drunk, and unable to
drive, because I only pick up people with a 3.7 rating or higher."

Netflix for entertainment (you rely on it so much for entertainment that you
simply don't see a movie if it is not on there).

AirBnB refusing hosts to host you, if they suspected you came to
Charlottesville to protest/march for your beliefs (that are counter to
AirBnB's beliefs). Not saying that those protesters are not scummy or that
AirBnB does not have the right, but look at the future where AirBnB owns 90%+
of accommodations. Can you imagine a hotel chain acting like this? "Sir, we
saw you say on Twitter that you came here to protest. The management has
decided you can't sleep here. The next competitor is 50 miles that-ah way.
Good luck!".

------
gnicholas
In other news today, some Uber drivers pee into bottles while driving:
[https://www.sfgate.com/cars/article/Uber-driver-pees-in-
bott...](https://www.sfgate.com/cars/article/Uber-driver-pees-in-bottle-
passenger-urine-urinate-13089274.php)

~~~
smofnoopttzzaaa
Every professional driver does that, at some point.

------
jschwartzi
Meanwhile Lyft continues to be a pretty cool company to do business with.

------
fhood
I don't really care. It seems like a reasonable response. But why single out
marijuana? There is a rating system for customers, and this seems like it
should fall under that.

~~~
reaperducer
Because the number of people lighting up a joint in Ubers vastly outnumber the
people who are doing smack in an Uber.

My guess is that it's not being singled out. This is just the interest of the
publication. Doing drugs of any kind in a car is illegal (at least where I
drove), and equally problematic.

------
xkcdefgh
I'm not sure I'm following this. The smell can't be that powerful as to stay
in the car. It's not like the customer lights up joints inside the uber

------
thejrk
Seems like there may be a market for a new tier of uber. Maybe one were the
car standards and passenger expectations aren't as high.

~~~
smofnoopttzzaaa
ünter

------
reaperducer
I drove for Uber for a little while, and I kicked people out of the car for
smoking weed, just like I kicked people out of the car for smoking cigarettes.

1\. My car is no-smoking. Ask before you light up. This is my personal
property, not your living room.

2\. Smoking weed is legal where I was driving, but only in your private home.
Not in a hotel. Not on the street. And certainly not in a motor vehicle. I'm
not going to lose my license because you can't wait 18 minutes to get high.
(Which is pretty much the definition of an addict.)

Where I drove, Uber would very quickly take $150 out of your credit card and
give it to the driver if you vomit in the car, as a cleaning fee. I would not
be surprised if the same applied to smoking drugs.

(I don't know if any of this was covered in TFA because I'm not going to visit
what appears to be a stoner website on a work connection.)

~~~
wishinghand
Yeah that's fine and all, but not the point being made in the article. The
person smelled of weed and got told on. No one tried to smoke in the car.

~~~
reaperducer
Uber drivers are allowed to kick people out for smelling bad. Reporting them
for smelling bad seems like a less harsh result for the passenger.

------
trhway
Now law enforcement would just mine that data.

