What should have been a straightforward 9 pm ride home from a friend's place became a chilling reminder of how vulnerable women remain whilst using ride-hailing services. This isn't just another complaint about poor service; this is a disturbing account of how safety protocols failed twice in one evening, leaving a passenger genuinely fearing for her well-being.
The evening began with a booking that immediately raised red flags. The vehicle that arrived was in such poor condition that it barely seemed roadworthy, a situation that has become distressingly common amongst Uber's fleet. But the state of the car was just the beginning of this passenger's ordeal.
From the moment she entered the vehicle, the driver launched into an aggressive tirade, blaming her for traffic conditions and speaking with shocking rudeness. Despite repeated polite requests to roll up his window to avoid the Delhi smog, he simply ignored her.
Five minutes into the journey, something deeply unsettling occurred. The driver suddenly screamed at his passenger, accusing her of asking him to take a turn she'd never mentioned. She had been sitting quietly, not speaking at all. He was hallucinating instructions that hadn't been given.
Without warning, he veered sharply off the main road into a pitch-dark bylane, completely abandoning the mapped route. When challenged about this dangerous deviation, he became defensive and argumentative, insisting she had requested this turn.
Then came the moment that sent chills down her spine. After two minutes of tense silence, he held his ears and said: "Sorry, mujhe aapki shayad energy se sense hua ki aapne bola woh dusri road lo" (Sorry, I probably sensed from your energy that you told me to take that other road).
The situation deteriorated further when she noticed his eyes closing repeatedly. He was clearly struggling to remain awake whilst operating a vehicle with a passenger inside. This wasn't fatigue; this was a driver who could barely keep his eyes open on the road.
Acting quickly to protect herself, she changed her destination to a nearby mall, the only well-lit, crowded location she could identify. She needed to escape this dangerous situation immediately.
Shaken but determined to reach home, she booked another Uber from the mall. This driver insisted she walk 200 metres to the main road in the dark, despite the mall entrance being the designated pickup point. When she politely refused and mentioned she could cancel if necessary, he suddenly appeared within a minute.
But something was wrong. Critically wrong.
The number plate on the vehicle didn't match the registration shown in the app. This fundamental safety feature, the ability to verify you're entering the correct vehicle, had failed.
She politely declined to enter the mismatched vehicle and began walking back towards the mall's entrance to find safe ground whilst booking her third Uber of the evening. What happened next escalated from concerning to genuinely frightening.
The driver exited his vehicle and began following her, pleading with her to see his Aadhaar card for verification. She asked him to stop following her. He didn't. Instead, he continued shouting her name, begging her to believe him and get into his car. He pursued her all the way to the mall's escalator.
Even after she'd made it inside, he didn't leave. His vehicle remained parked outside the entrance for ten minutes, forcing her to wait inside the mall until he finally departed.
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This account isn't an isolated incident, it's part of a distressing pattern that women across India navigate daily. The passenger herself noted that she's experienced numerous occasions of feeling unsafe in public spaces and facing physical harassment, as has ‘literally every other woman’ she knows.
What makes this experience particularly galling is that safety should be the bare minimum when using a service like Uber. Not merely road safety, but mental and physical security across all genders and ages.
These aren't minor service hiccups. These are fundamental safety breakdowns that put passengers, particularly women travelling alone, at genuine risk.
This woman's experience represents countless others that go unreported or are dismissed as one-offs. Friends and family share similar or worse stories. The pattern is undeniable, and the responsibility lies squarely with Uber to implement rigorous safety measures, proper driver vetting, ongoing training, and real-time monitoring systems.
No woman should have to resort to social media to demand basic safety. No passenger should need to book three separate rides to simply get home. And no one should ever experience being followed by a driver after refusing to enter an unverified vehicle.
The question remains: when will ride-hailing platforms prioritise passenger safety over commercial gains? Until that happens, women will continue to approach every journey with the hypervigilance that shouldn't be necessary, but remains essential for survival.
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