My Craziest Ride

Being a rideshare driver, one question is often asked of me:

“What was your craziest ride?”

And I had one particular story that I told for five years about a couple that I drove from the south side of Denver up to Ft Collins at 4am. It was a 97 minute ride and for the entirety of the ride she kept screaming at her husband about how she refused to be a part of any more threesomes until he invited a man into the bed with them. It was a true story, one that I could tell quickly elevator speech style if the current ride was short, or I could make it funny and drawn out if the current ride was a bit longer.

Well, after five years that story is now retired, thanks to the fact I watched a passenger get kidnapped last night.

Last night, I accepted a ride request in the south side of Denver (why do all my crazy rides start there?) And as I approached the neighborhood, my passenger called to say that she was going to meet me at the entrance into her neighborhood. She had her “live location” on so it was easy to see where she was walking to, and for gated communities or tricky neighborhoods, this isn’t a strange request. So I simply say “not a problem, I see your live location so I’ll come find you.”

Well, when I pull into the neighborhood their are two women standing at the corner. I smile and wave and one is mad and runs over to my door. Confused, I roll down my window and she just starts screaming “You have alcohol? Where is the alcohol? Did you bring alcohol? Are you delivering alcohol?”

I immediately get defensive thinking this woman has lost her mind and is a raging alcoholic who ordered a ride but forgot she ordered Uber Rides, not Uber Eats. Over her shoulder I see the other woman sigh and say “no mama, leave her alone”

I then say “I’m just an uber driver, here to pick up my passenger. I don’t have alcohol” and the mom just completely loses her shit and starts screaming “You’re not taking her! The police are on their way! You’ll be arrested if you take her! You’ll be in trouble if you take her!”

I’ve been a driver long enough to know I won’t get in trouble if a legal adult gets in my car.

Well, the mom starts screaming again “She is drunk! You can’t take her!” And she is physically blocking my passenger from being able to get in my car.

At this point, I put my car in park and take my keys out of the ignition and climb out to open the door to help my passenger in the car. I try to calmly explain to the mother “I am an uber driver here to pick up my passenger. It is my job to drive drunk people to places where they feel safe” I then indicate to my passenger to get in and her mom loses her shit again. She takes out her phone and takes a picture of my license plate and tries to take my picture, reiterating that I’ll be arrested if I take her but I put my hand over my face and let her know I don’t consent to my picture being taken. She screams it doesn’t matter that she’s going to take my picture and the police are on their way. I’m just thinking “please let them come!”

My rider was able to get in my car but her mom began trying to drag her out so I stepped between the two of them and the mom is just slamming her body into mine like we’re sumo wrestling. This is a move I’ve known my entire life because I’ve always been the fat kid on the playground that the skinny kids try to sumo knock over and that’s exactly what’s happening here- she is a lot thinner than I am but body slamming into me to see if I’ll back off, which I won’t because my mind is telling me “get the daughter someplace safe”. Meanwhile my rider is just screaming “Mama let me go! Leave her alone and let me go!” And I’m informing the mother that she is assaulting me and she needs to back off and leave me alone. The mom slips past me and sits on her daughter’s lap and says “fine then you’re taking me with you!” And I inform her that I’m only taking the rider who is listed and I inform her that she is trespassing on my car and needs to get out.

I successfully close the passenger door and lock the car with my key fob so now the mom can’t open the door to drag my passenger out, and as I’m trying to figure out ok now how do I unlock my car so only my door unlocks? A black SUV comes to a screeching halt in front of my car diagonally like a cop car trying to cut off someone’s escape. I’m still trying to figure out how to let myself into my car when this guy climbs out of the SUV and runs up to me screaming “You know her? How do you know her? How do you know my daughter? Where are you taking her? How long have you known her? You can’t take her!”

I’m trying to explain to him that I’m just an uber driver picking up my passenger and he and his wife just keep screaming that I can’t take her and the police are on their way.

I’ve now had enough so I hit the unlock button and try to get in my car quickly, but unfortunately my key fob is set to unlock all the doors when you hit the unlock button. That means that as I open my car door, the dad flings it open so hard I was afraid he’d turned into The Hulk and it was going to tear the door off the hinges. As he flings open my door the mom is able to open the back door and starts clawing at my passenger trying to drag her out of my car. Meanwhile the parents are just screaming that the police are on their way and I need to go, I can’t take her.

I climbed into my seat and as I did the dad lunged inside with me trying to take my keys and I began screaming “Sir you need to get off me! Get out of my car! You can’t be in my car!” He’s still trying to reach for my keys so I throw them across the car into the passenger seat.

He gives up trying to take my keys since they are now out of his reach and he instead turns to help his wife drag their daughter out of my backseat.

I reach for my phone and dial 911 and as the operator picks up I scream I’m an uber driver and my passenger is being kidnapped!

The operator pauses and says “Ummm I’m sorry. Can you please repeat that?”

So I scream again, “I’m an uber driver and my passenger is being kidnapped!”

She asks me the usual “what’s the address? Who is involved? Tell me what’s happening”

As I’m on the phone with 911 I’m giving her a play by play “there is a man trying to shove my passenger into the backseat of a black SUV. She is fighting him, her arms and legs are spread so he can’t get her inside. She’s trying to kick so he can’t get her in the car!” The operator asks for the license plate of the SUV and I had to open my door to get a better look because from my angle and the angle of how he’d parked in front of me the first letter was either an M or an N.

Well, because I had locked myself inside the car, when I opened the door to get a better look at the license plate my car alarm went off. That caused the mom and dad to drop their daughter and turn to me screaming “Turn that off! Turn that off and go away!” And the 911 operator is asking me who’s honking and I let her know it’s my car alarm. She informs me to keep it on because at this point we both want people to be aware that something is happening.

Well with the distraction of the car alarm, my passenger falls to the ground and her dad was able to pick her up and successfully shove her into the backseat. He then takes off driving so I tell the 911 operator he’s on the move, he now has my passenger in the backseat and he’s driving away.

Unfortunately in following him I lost cell phone reception so the 911 call got dropped. I follow him and it’s luckily only a block away but he pulls into his garage and climbs out of the car. I pull up across the street and he comes over to my car trying to scream at me through the window. At this moment the 911 operator calls me back and says “I’m sorry we somehow got disconnected. What is happening now” so I’m catching her up on the move to the house and update her on the address and how he’s yelling at me to get off his property even though I’m on a public road. I’m informing the operator that I haven’t seen her get out of the car yet and he’s yelling at me. She told me to keep my windows rolled up and to not engage. She then asks me to park my car several houses away and to wait for the sheriff to arrive. I ask “is she going to be safe if I drive away?” And the operator promises the sheriff is on the way. I pull forward a few houses and let the operator know that the garage is now closed and the dad is on his front porch screaming at me to leave.

The sheriff blessedly arrives a moment later and I tell the operator he’s just pulled up behind me and the operator says “ok I’m disconnecting the call. He will take over”

I climb out of the car and kind of laugh at the sheriff and shrug and say “Never a dull moment for an uber driver!”

He sighs and chuckles and says “I’m sure” before continuing “Unfortunately this is a known house with a known issue. I’m sorry you got drug into this. Start from the beginning and tell me what happened.” When I tell him how the mom threatened to have me arrested he shook his head no and said “that wouldn’t have happened so you don’t need to worry about that in the future if something like this happens again.” I nod and let him know I’ve been a driver for over 5 years, I know what will and won’t get me in trouble. So I tell him the rest of the story, acting out certain parts all while the dad is screaming from the front porch “get the crazy uber driver out of here! Don’t listen to her she’s crazy!” And the sheriff is telling him “I’ll be with you in a minute sir.”

While I’m telling him what happened his back up arrives so he tells the back up “I’ve got her handled if you just want to go watch the dad” so his partner does. I’m able to continue telling him my involvement in it all, he gets a photo of my drivers license and asks if the number I called 911 from is a good number and then asks if I have time to hang out in case they have any more questions. I say yes so he heads inside the house for a few minutes.

When he comes back outside, he explains to me “Sorry, again, that you got caught in this. Like I mentioned earlier this is a known house with a known issue. There’s a bit of cultural differences because the parents immigrated from Africa, so it is part of their culture that the parents- for lack of a better term- own their daughter until she’s married. She is a known alcoholic and we get called frequently to this house because of the fights that her drinking causes. Her parents are simply trying to keep her away from alcohol, but obviously assaulting the uber driver isn’t the best way to do that. I want to thank you, though, for standing up for her. Given what you knew I’m glad that you tried to intervene. I wish more people would but unfortunately we live in a society where people just watch kidnappings happen and don’t get involved because it isn’t their problem, you know?” He gave me his business card and was going to say more when we both heard a crash come from inside the house and he hurriedly said “I’ll call you with an update” before taking off to run inside the house and assist his back up.

I took a deep breath, called a friend to decompress and began to drive away.

And that is the story of when one of my passengers got kidnapped.