If you’re someone who enjoys listening to other people’s problems and/or overhearing gossip that impacts you in no way whatsoever, there are a few careers that might be good for you – bartender, teacher, or maybe a driver.
Whether they’re actual taxi drivers or are making some extra cash running Uber (or the like) fares, these people have been privvy to some pretty juicy moments.
15. Trauma sharing.
Uber driver but, a few discussions about terminal illness (their own or a friend or relative’s).
Two different women had been sexually assaulted prior to getting in, and had quite emotional discussions about it.
A couple of ‘musings on life’ conversations that kinda twigged my suicide detecting spidey senses. But who knows?
Also one passanger mused on an abusive upbringing. We went on a somewhat disappointing date after actually.
14. My heart.
There was an old Vietnamese man that goes into my car and he told me about his life. He told how he got drafted into the Vietcong just as the war ended so he didn’t see any combat.
He told me sometimes in life you get lucky and other times you don’t.
I dropped him off at a cancer center.
13. Oops.
My friend got in Uber one day and the driver was talking about selling weed on the phone. When he hung up, my friend asked about prices, got his number and bought some weed from him.
A few days later, he got the exact same driver, who obviously didn’t remember him because he did the whole spiel again. My friend was like “Dude, we just did this a few days ago. I bought some weed from you.”
12. There’s a lot to unpack here.
When a girl told me she taunted her gay longtime friend to try out having straight sex with her just to find out the difference as she herself is bisexual. The guy finally gave in and liked it. They did so one more time and that’s it.
Sad part is that she just found out the guy is now going out with her best friend and is now swearing to be straight. She regrets having converted him to straight and now doesn’t know whether she’s jealous of them or truly in love with him.
Asked for my advice on how to break them up without being judged.
11. What was the rating for that?
Flip side of the coin, Uber driver once told me and my SO that she had been the victim of Satanic ritual abuse as a child.
She was nice enough but clearly a little unbalanced and either looking for attention or a legitimate product of all Satanic Panic nonsense back in the day.
10. I feel like this is definitely a thing.
My taxi driver buddy called it The Limo Syndrome – people talking loudly to each other about a business deal to impress the driver.
9. Good thing he wasn’t a cop in the daytime.
A ride share driver here. I once had a young lady in the car on her phone with her boyfriend.
The only thing they talked about was how many drug he sold that night and that he had too much “E” and had to push the E
8. A bad day.
There was a lady I picked up at like 4am and she was obviously desperately seeking something. The trip was over an hour and a half away and I could tell she was hurting physically. Sniffles and cringing that were synonymous with opioid withdrawals. She was quiet the first 45 min but texting often.
A phone call occurred where she was arguing with someone who didn’t want her to go to this destination. She kept saying she would be fine. I asked out of concern if she was ok and she spilled the beans. The call was from her girlfriend who didn’t want her to go to this house in a fancy area to meet up with some dudes who wanted her to come over to hang out in exchange for pills. Her gf was convinced she was going to be raped.
I told her that I’d been in a similar situation with pills when I was younger and that cannabis helped and that in a few more days she would be free of the whole thing. She cried and cried. I had an old cannabis vape deep in my car that I donated to the cause. It worked and she chilled out and let her know if she cancelled I would return her to her pickup location since I had to go back to that area anyway. She cancelled the trip. She slept the whole way back.
I hope she made it out of that addiction. <3 those places really feel hopeless when you don’t know how to get out.
7. Oh my god.
A woman who was pregnant with twins and also a heroin addict. she always got a ride to what I assume was her dealers house.
She offered me one if her unborn baby’s but I could only have 1 because she already traded one for drugs.
People unload on cab drivers all the time but this one stuck with me.
6. Easy money.
Order, destination address — “by city”, submission-location by navigator. A girl drove up, sat down, said, there is no need to go anywhere, we need to charge the phone; we sat for 15 minutes, talked, recharged the phone, looked at the charging percentage, said:
“Well, that’s enough,” gave 50$ and left…
5. It’s like a true crime episode.
I gave a ride to two women who spent the whole ride debating whether or not the man whose house I had just picked them up from had killed their friend who had died in his kitchen earlier that same day.
The alleged victim was a woman in her early 40s who lived with the man and had, according to his report, dropped dead quite unexpectedly after an afternoon of yard work and bike-riding.
Her best friends weren’t having it.
4. You never know who’s driving.
I got in a taxi around 15 years ago with my best mate and we were so drunk. We were having a laugh with the driver and told him like so many secrets. Who we were dating, mischief we’d got upto in clubs, stuff we did at work, well you get the drill! Nothing bad, just silly 18 year old.
The driver was so chatty and kept encouraging us. When we went to pay and get out, be was like “do you know so and so?” Eh yeah we did. We worked with this women, and it turned out it was his sister.
He told her everything! We were mortified and I never told a taxi driver another secret again.
3. Living a nightmare.
I worked for a rental car agency and would pick customers up or drop them off from home to shop. Anyways, one lady had just had her son murdered the day before. She lived in a rougher part of town and I think it was a gang shooting if I remember correctly.
The victim was a student not a banger. The poor lady was just trying to keep it together and get through her daily obligations.
2. Blackmail if she’s a loud neighbor.
Used to drive for Uber. Would chill at my condo, wait for a ride to ding, pick up. One ding I got was really close. A pick up scheduled from my own complex. I pop down, turn on the car, pull it out.
My neighbor walks down – girl in her 20s. She’s with her friend, and spent a significant portion of the ride talking about how she’s cheating on her boyfriend.
1. Unexpected for sure.
Former Uber driver… Picked up a very well -dressed lady from one side of town heading to a very rich neighborhood on the other side of town.
During the ride, she made a series of calls and it became clear she was a call girl with quite a few customers. It also became clear I was delivering her to her biggest client, an accident and injury attorney known for extremely extensive advertising in my local area.
Anybody around here would know his name. And he was supposed to be married and the whole family man type.
Ah. Well. My passenger indicated otherwise.
His house was a very nice mansion. Law must pay well.
I love stories like these. It makes me want to drive Uber.
If you have and are holding stories in your head, dump them in our comments!
