Pool rides are enticing. If you’ve got a little extra time on your hands, you can save quite a bit of money. Uber’s pool rides allow a rider to save money by taking a chance that additional riders can be added to the car, who are traveling in approximately the same direction. Instead of a direct route to your destination, a detour is made to add other riders and drop them off along the way. While the savings is an enticing tradeoff to the potential of a little longer ride, here is where the benefit should stop for some.
I understand why pool rides can be preferred for both the riders and Uber. The riders receive a discounted ride, and Uber makes twice the money (they receive multiple ride charges even one car and one route is used).
Unfortunately, there is a time and place, literally, where people should never, ever, opt for a pool ride.
Time and time again, people are added to pool rides, and off I go, with a stranger in my car, to your home. Or maybe I picked you up first, then other riders, who will now accompany you to your destination, your home.
By choosing a pool ride to or from your home, you are introducing them to where you live, and a whole host of other information they can compile by just viewing your home and making small talk.
The news is quick to do reports on inappropriate drivers or in extreme circumstances, violent drivers. But what the news does not report on, are the millions of riders, who have not been background checked or screened in any way, and the inappropriate touching, fondling, stalking, and other behavior that is inappropriate, that drivers deal with all too often. And these people now know where you live.
They may be able to tell if you’re home alone. They can tell if you’re tipsy after a night out. Or if it was a pickup from your home, maybe now they can tell your home is empty. You have no idea who the other rider is in the car with you.
Pool rides around town during a night out, or business to business are fine. But when taking an Uber to or from your home, pool rides should never be used. Opt for an X at the very least, for your safety.
~w
