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Comment by bdcravens | Hacker News Reader

My first Uber ever was when I went to San Diego for a tech conference, and the driver revealed he had been in town two days and asked me how to get to my hotel. (Presumably he was driving on someone else's account) He also started asking me about some sketchy ads on Craigslist for things that were illegal in his country (back when CL still allowed those kind of ads)

Needless to say, I've had better luck since then, though I've had more than a few rides where they tried to avoid the toll roads (even though my quoted fare allows for tolls) and it ate up my time.

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I sort of expect this from Uber, but I actually had this scenario a few years ago in London in a black cab that was clearly borrowed. As you may know, black cab licensing requires passing an infamously grueling test of the entire point to point graph of central London dubbed "The Knowledge" where the examiners call out random trips (by intersection and/or landmark) and the candidate has to recite turn by turn directions between them.

I stepped into a black cab at Hammersmith tube station going to Kew Gardens (look it up, it's about as easy a route as you can get in London) and this 75 year old man slowly reaches over and pulls out a paper map like we used to use in 1985, I shit you not.

It used to travel a lot and have had the full range of issues with taxis. In NYC it seemed pretty common for them to try to get you to give them cash for tolls (like at the toll booth, asking you to pay it) which were already added to your fare automatically.

I once had a harrowing experience in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language and my roaming didn't work, where I needed to direct the taxi driver using the gps from my phone's dying battery, since he want off in the completely wrong direction and had no idea about the area I was headed to (and I only was barely aware enough to interpret the minimally-labeled map the gps provides when you don't have data access).

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