Tales of the Uber/Lyft Driver: Your Tardiness Is Not My Fault

I recently had a passenger get upset with me because she was 10 minutes late getting to her destination. It wasn't my fault, however. When she requested a ride I was 5 minutes from her location. She had 2 stops programmed for the trip because she wanted to pick up some food along the way to her final destination. We reached the restaurant she had chosen and they took a really long time getting her order prepared. I didn't time the wait for her food, but it was at least 10-15 minutes before the order was ready. We left from there and drove straight to her final stop in the middle of rush hour traffic. When we reached the street her final stop was on, I asked which house we were going to because house numbers weren't clearly visible. She pointed to a house, and following the line of her finger, I stopped at the house I thought she had indicated. She finally looked up from her phone and said we weren't at the right house and we should have been at the house next door. She opened the door and began getting out. I told her I could drive her to the house next door and she said she was already late anyway and walked off in a huff with her food. The fact that we were 10 minutes late wasn't my fault. She should have requested a ride earlier to build in more time to get her food and for traffic. It's not fair to smart off to the driver when the tardiness is your own fault. Plan better.

As a rule of thumb, for trips of under an hour, double the time estimate when using a ridesharing service. So if it would normally take you 15 minutes to drive there in your own car, you should hail your Uber/Lyft at least 30 minutes before you need to be there. If you're requesting additional stops along the way it's safe to add at least 10 minutes per stop. Add a few more minutes if rush hour traffic is expected. In essence, allow enough time for things to go wrong. Don't blame the driver when you didn't plan appropriately.