We Ain't The Babysitters' Club

With the ease and convenience of using Uber and Lyft, people will often times order an Uber for someone else, whether they are their significant other, co-worker, relative, and in some cases minors riding unaccompanied.  According to the TOS, Uber does not allow minors to ride unaccompanied by an adult on their platform for obvious reasons.  Yet, parents, rather than being bothered by having to run their kids to school when they miss the school bus, or the need to shuffle them to an activity, tend to turn to using their Uber app to order up a car to take their kids on.  When the driver pulls up, they are either faced with young kiddos sans parents, or kiddos with parents, where the parents have the gall to let the driver know that they will be transporting their kids.......ALONE.  Stop the press.  This isn't what we signed up for.  If you have kids, they are your responsibility.  Not ours to drive from point A to point B.  Unfortunately some parents never get it through their heads.

Yesterday, after dropping off passengers to Hobby airport I got a trip request.  When I drove up, the passengers were two 15-year-old boys.  Their dad had ordered the Uber.  The address 8501 Howard was to Ceasar Chavez Highschool.  When I realized no parent was joining us and it was kids only, I cancelled the trip and asked them out of the car.  I also rated the account holder a 1 Star and wrote in to Uber.  Guess who lost their rider account?  This is a common annoyance among Uber drivers of Houston with 107 high schools in Harris county (35 in Houston ISD) spread among 21 school districts.  But us drivers have caught on.  Now-a-days when we see a pick up from a high school, we don't bother accepting or we cancel the trip.  

However, there is one problem area in all of Houston, which is the Memorial Villages.  Very affluent parents whose children hold bank accounts and credit cards of their own can open up their own Uber accounts.  

Minors aren't supposed to be able to ride in Ubers unaccompanied, but they can still create an Uber account.  This is where Uber needs to step in.  As drivers we have to give our date of birth on our driver licenses to create a driver account.  The same thing should go with passenger accounts as well.   We're kinda tired of driving to a pickup to realize we wasted gas and time for a trip we couldn't accept.  Give us a damn break already.

As for you drivers out there, that have no problem transporting unaccompanied minors, you are putting your self through unnecessary risk.  Stop enabling these lazy parents.  We are here to make a living or get our side hustle on.  We're not babysitters.  After all, they make more money than us.