We’ve all been there before: Accidentally liking an Instagram photo during a bout of late-night stalking (shudder), mistakenly typing our Facebook crush’s name into our status bar instead of the search menu (noooooo), or trying to talk to the men of Tinder about women and climate change. Cringe-worthy faux pas like these are a dime a dozen in the Internet Age, but combine tech with the rise of the sharing economy, and the possibility for hilariously awkward encounters goes through the roof.
Call it the Uber effect.
As more and more folks are reporting on Twitter, needy and distracted passengers are hopping into cars with total rando’s who are trying to park or pulling over on the side of the road.
“Basically anytime I’m pulled over on the side of the street, someone tries to hail me or just opens my car door,” said tech investor Ashwin Deshmukh, when I asked him about the trend. …
“If I pull-up at a food truck in Williamsburg, there will be four guys asking, ‘Can you take us to Long Island?'” Deshmukh blames it partly on tooling around in a 2009 SUV and was told the GPS sitting on his dashboard gives the wrong impression. … “The best line so far is, ‘Are you Uber? Well can you just be, can we go?'” he said.
Word to the wise drivers in cities with Uber: If you see a drunk bro on his phone stumbling toward your car, hit the lock button. Sharing isn’t always caring.
