Photo: Dan Gold
Uber driver profiles depend for their livelihood on receiving star ratings made up of past rider experiences. Of course, that only gives you one picture because we all know some riders are an absolute dumpster fire of a nightmare. Just think of all those age-old sayings: there are two sides to every story; it’s a two-way street; it takes two to tango; two if by sea (maybe not that one).
The best way to curtail bad behavior is to hold up a mirror to it and in Uber’s case that means seeing a judgmental rating of your “performance.” The popular ride-sharing app now allows riders to read their own 1-star reviews.
Ok, to be clear, they’re allowing riders to see all of their star ratings, even the glowing 5-star ratings, but it’s more fun to talk about the kind of stunts that pull a 1-star rating from someone you’re paying money to. What did you possibly do to piss that driver off?
Here are some reasons you might have pulled a 1 star from your friendly Uber driver:
If you’ve partaken in one or more of these delightful affronts to common sense, please read on.
You can check out your star rating by firing up your Uber app and navigating to the privacy menu. It’s going to look different because this is a new feature available to every user in the world starting Wednesday. (Or I guess Thursday if you live in Australia.)
Go to your settings, tap on “Privacy” and then “Privacy Center.” Once you do that, swipe right and tap on “See summary” in the “Would you like to see a summary of how you use Uber?” box. Scroll down and tap “View my ratings.”
This is where you’ll find out if you’re a good rider or a terrible rider or something in between. They’ve buried it, so if you’re not one of those self-reflective types, looking to improve the way they treat others, there’s a chance you’re not going to expend the effort to find it.
Uber takes it a step further and makes a number of suggestions of how you can improve in your role as someone being chauffeured to your destination. These include not leaving a mess, buckling up, not slamming the door, and not being an a-hole (not their wording).
In case you’ve made it this far and are wondering – yes, I have a 5-star rating as an Uber rider, which they say is next to godliness.
By: Nick Gambino
