My Rideshare Driver Took a Wrong Turn

3 min read

My rideshare driver story still makes me lock the doors the second I get into any car. It was late, maybe midnight, and I was exhausted after a long closing shift at the restaurant.

I ordered a ride home and climbed into the back seat. Everything checked out. The driver matched the photo in the app. The car matched the make, model, and license plate. The little map showed my route home, a straight fifteen minutes. I let my head rest against the window and closed my eyes.

Then he missed the turn. The app on my phone clearly showed a left onto Fifth Street. He went straight through the intersection. I sat up and said, politely, “Hey, I think that was our turn back there.” He nodded without looking back and said, “Avoiding some construction, this way is faster.” Reasonable enough. Drivers know the roads better than any app.

But then he took another turn the app didn’t show. And another. We were heading away from my neighborhood now, toward the industrial edge of town, where the streetlights grew farther apart and then stopped altogether.

The Call That Saved Me

My stomach dropped. I kept my voice level and casual. “You know what, you can just drop me here, this is fine.” He didn’t slow down. He just said, quietly, “Almost there.”

That’s when I did something I’d read about once in a safety article. I opened the rideshare app on my phone, held it to my ear, and said loudly, clearly, as if I were talking to someone: “Hey Dad — yeah, I’m in the car right now. The driver’s name is Marcus, the plate is seven-four-echo-delta, and I’m sharing my live trip with you. You’re watching the map, right? Okay, see you in ten.”

I wasn’t on a call. There was no one on the other end. But I said every word loud, clear, and certain, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

The car slowed. Then Marcus pulled over to the shoulder, almost gently, and said, “You can get out here.” I did, in the middle of nowhere, and the moment my feet hit the gravel I ran. I called a friend from a gas station two miles up the road, shaking, and waited inside until she came for me.

What the Company Told Me

I reported him the next day. The company investigated, and when they called me back, they told me something that still makes my blood run cold.

The driver’s app had been offline for the entire trip. He had ended the ride in the system the second I sat down in his car. There was no live map being shared with anyone. There was no trip for my imaginary father to watch. No one had been watching anything at all.

He just didn’t know that. The bluff was the only thing standing between me and whatever was waiting at the end of those dark turns. If a ride ever feels wrong, trust it. Pretend to call someone. Say the plate number out loud. It costs you nothing, and one day it might cost you everything not to. I still take rideshares — I don’t have much choice in this city — but now I always sit behind the passenger seat, I always share my trip with a friend for real, and I never, ever close my eyes. The tired version of me who dozed off in that back seat almost didn’t make it home. I don’t let her drive my decisions anymore.