Sadly, a lot of terrible cab drivers are moving over to Uber and Lyft now, and they're bringing with them the bad attitudes that drove people away from cabs.

I'm a frequent Lyft rider. One of my worst experiences recently was with a guy who spoke extremely broken English and who could barely understand English either. This wouldn't be so bad, but Apple Maps told him my house was someplace it wasn't (I didn't realize this was Apple Maps fucking up at the time; I've since begun texting drivers coming to my house telling them to not use Apple Maps), so I had to call him on the phone. It took a solid five minutes for him to understand that he's in the wrong location and needs to drive a few more blocks to find me, and he refused to exit his nav and look where I dropped the pin (I always take extra care to put the pin in the right spot). It took so long because his English was word salad, and he didn't understand basic words like "keep driving forward". Then, when he got to my place, I went to sit in the front (which I always do, and Lyft encourages), and as soon as I opened the door, he shouted at me "HEY, I'M UP HERE! GET IN BACK!" (the most coherent thing he said to me the whole time). Fortunately, the ride wasn't too far, so I just endured it and one-starred him when I got to my destination.

His rating was already at 4.5, which is below Lyft's termination threshold; I probably should've cancelled as soon as I saw it. Hopefully the one star I gave him was enough to get him kicked off the platform.

I've also had other bad experiences from drivers who act like their job is to milk their passengers:

- One guy also demanded I ride in the back. When I got in, I saw why: the inside door panels and the backs of the front seats were covered in advertising for his private driver service. If I knew then that was against the TOS, I would've had a nice chat with Trust & Safety.

- A driver took the wrong turn and got into an express toll lane on the freeway. Because of that, he missed the exit and we had to go on a long detour. He started ranting, saying "I'm trying trying to run a business here but people keep hitting me with all these tolls!". Also, this was another guy who made me ride in the back. Yeah, there's a pattern with these people. Because of that, making me ride in the back is now a guarantee you'll never get more than three stars from me (3-star or less means you're never matched with me again).

- A superstitious guy who refused to trust the voice nav... so to verify that the directions will indeed get us there, he started thumbing through the turn-by-turn directions with his face buried in the phone so he can't see the road, driving 20mph on the service road of a freeway. After the third time I told him to trust the nav and that I've taken Lyft from this place to that place dozens of times before, and he refused, I had him cancel the ride and let me out. I complained to Lyft and got my money back (because he charged me for the ride).

- Drivers, plural, who report that they've arrived before they actually get here. Dude, I can see your car coming down the street in the distance. You're not here yet.

- Driver who, on the way, pulled over at a gas station and texted me demanding I send him my destination address. When I told him I already entered it into the system, he cancelled the ride. My guess is he was going to cancel if the destination wasn't far enough away or maybe he was trying to redline me (the system only shows destination addresses once the driver reports they've arrived). Nothing of value was lost.

- Drivers who insist on parking a couple of blocks from my office building and then demanding I walk to their car instead of them driving up to my building. I'm not even on a busy city street... I work in the burbs! Also, the path from my office building to their car is always unlit, and it mostly happens when it's dark out. Sorry, but I'm a woman... I'm not walking through an unlit area at night to meet a driver who's exhibiting sketchy behavior. I'll just cancel and eat the fee. Bonus points to the guy who told me that I need to look at the Lyft map and walk to where his car is. He was laughing when he said it, too. Not my first bad experience with him: I cancelled on him once before after he was rude to me on the phone (and he has a very unique name I remembered). Since then, if I see his name come up, I immediately cancel. Guy is seriously creepy. He's not the only one who does this: maybe 5% of drivers who pick me up from work pull this, and they're all creepy guys who you can tell used to be cab drivers.

- One time I did walk the block or two over to the guy in a scenario like the above (one of the few times a driver pulled this when it was light out), he started ranting at me about how I kept him waiting for three minutes. When I said "I was expecting you to arrive where I actually was", he told me to get out of his car. As I was getting out, I told him I was complaining about him to Lyft, he said "I don't care, I work for myself", and then I walked back to my office building. As I was about to request a new ride, he drives over to me and physically chases me into the building. Luckily, I got in the elevator before he could. My boss called the police, they made sure he left (according to the police, he wanted to make sure I wouldn't do anything to hurt his reputation), and I then had a nice long chat with Trust & Safety.

There's a common thread here: people who think that they run private driver businesses and claim to just use Lyft as a tool are always the worst drivers.

Actually, 90% of drivers I deal with are perfectly pleasant. I just ride Lyft a lot, so I meet more drivers than the average person, and these experiences stick out in my mind.