Rides with Strangers

My freshman year of college, my skinny, sweet boyfriend and I left campus in the middle of the semester to hitchhike from Wooster, Ohio to Boston to hang out with old high school friends. I was in no way ready for college, but a gap year was in no way an option for my parents. So, I manufactured a gap-in-the-semester and travelled 1400 miles to prove to myself that my friends were struggling, like I was. But they were drinking beer, skipping  classes, and generally loving the freedom of college. By the end of the road trip, I thought I could probably stay in college and do fine, too.

I look back on this trip as one of the high points of my life. Although we hailed rides with our thumbs and not an app, we got into cars with strangers who pulled over and offered us a lift. Reckless? I like to think romantic. We walked off to look for America, like that Simon and Garfunkel song, and we found it. There is nothing more beautiful than the skyline of New York City viewed from the cab of an 18-wheeler at dawn. There were reckless moments, of course. It’s America, after all.  Our first ride out of Ohio was a coked-up, dissipated twenty-something in a whale of a car, and oddly formal in a white suit, who was grateful to turn the driving over to us. One truck driver who drove us through New York City started rambling about killing women in Mexico and showed us a gun. We jumped out of the cab into heavy traffic on the Cross-Bronx Expressway, and ran. But then—there was always a “but then”!—we were picked up by a Good Humor ice cream man who took us along on his route before dropping us off on a northbound interstate. “Red” drove his huge 18-wheeler down the narrow streets of campus to the door of my dorm and deposited me back where I didn’t think I belonged, so sick from sleeping rough that I had to take a medical leave for the rest of the semester, which I spent in bed. The skinny, sweet boyfriend dropped out.

Reckless? Well, yes, if the story I told my Mom 20-years later, and her hysterical response, was any indication. Coming of age in the 1980s, I was raised on stranger danger: Random strangers were kidnapping (raping and murdering) children across the country and this crime wave bred panic in our parents. I had been warned, as had all my friends, repeatedly and throughout our lives, that we should not talk to strangers, accept candy or a puppy from strangers, get in a car with a stranger, or accompany a stranger anywhere, at any time, under any circumstances. That strangers are categorically dangerous because they are “not known” seems redundant and “stranger danger,” as it turns out, was largely unfounded.  There is no evidence that hitchhiking was dangerous to either rider or driver. Only about 1% of missing children are abducted by a stranger each year; thousands of children are abducted by a parent, relative or caregiver. Strangers are not always the perpetrator in criminal cases either. Acquaintance rape is more common than an assault by a stranger. When victims are targeted due to race or sexual orientation in apparently random crimes, neighbors or community members can be the culprits. Statistically, there is little danger from strangers; we meet and interact with many strangers every day without incident.

And yet, I cannot embrace the “sharing economy” despite my youthful success at hitching rides, sleeping on couches after Grateful Dead shows, or my research about strangers. Maybe I’m just getting older and have come to the recognize my own vulnerability. Or, I hear that ancient voice warning about strangers. Or, I’ve read the news: Uber, in its first released safety report, admitted that riders—and drivers—had reported thousands of incidents in 2017 and 2018. Female riders were the majority of rape victims; passengers and drivers were almost equally likely to be the victim of robbery or murder. Studies of AirBnb warn that scams, unsafe conditions and discrimination against guests were major issues, exacerbated by non-existent customer service. However, living in Houston without a car, I am totally dependent on Uber. I’m just not all that comfortable with it.

I have taken a lot of Uber rides, most of them positive. I always start a conversation, even with the drivers who look like they just want to drive in silence. I have gotten to the age where I talk to strangers. It’s some middle-aged thing that I don’t quite understand. Maybe I spend too much time alone and I am unable to amuse myself with my phone. Or, I still believe in some now-discarded etiquette that encourages a friendly conversation when you’re alone with someone.^[1] Admittedly, I’m using my Uber drivers as data; when it was 105, I quizzed all my drivers about the weather. Now, I usually open with: “Have you lived in Houston all of your life?” and “Do you like it?” The majority of the drivers are young men of color who have emigrated; the majority of them like that Houston is a fairly cosmopolitan city. People live-and-let-live, it’s quite diverse, and there’s a lot to do: Good restaurants, nightlife, music. Of course, the bad driving of other drivers is a source of mutual interest, and sports is always a good topic since the Astros won the World Series and the Texans are horrible.

There are 2 categories of Uber drivers: The professional drivers who greet you by name when you get in the car and confirm where you’re going. They usually have the music on something innocuous, the air-conditioning is running, and they are good drivers: They stop at stop signs, signal their turns, and let you know if they’ve deviated from the route. They’ve read the list of demerits that will get them a low-star rating and they’re avoiding them. The other category is what I call “Alt-Uber.”  The drivers are always young men. It’s very impersonal: They don’t turn around and greet you, you get in, they drive. They are playing the music they want to, usually at a volume that I want to turn down. They drive a little faster. Sometimes the windows are down because they’ve been smoking. Harry calls the Alt-Uber drivers the “French Uber.” In France, the Uber drivers wouldn’t talk to you, they’d stop for coffee whenever they wanted and smoke cheroots with all the windows closed. You would feel privileged to get a ride at all.

One morning, heading to a pre-dawn blood draw, my Uber pulled up. A small sports car (rare) with tinted windows, and when I opened the door no overhead light came on. It was completely dark and the blare from the radio was expletive-laden rap. The young man driving didn’t say a word, but I got in. One of the safety features that Uber relies on is giving riders the car’s make, model, and license plate number. I also keep my phone on to check our route. I check everything, and then I just trust the app (which I realize, writing this, is akin to believing in the accuracy of pictures on Tinder). The song changed to a sexually explicit and quite vulgar rap about fellatio. Along the back of the rear seat was a row of baseball hats, all of them said: “Women are a drug.” Driving through my neighborhood we passed school buses picking up kids. I said, “I don’t remember having to get up so early.”  My driver, who looked all of 20, said, “The mornings are really busy at my house because I have 7 kids.” So, the conversation took a turn: I said all I remember from school is feeling exhausted by the endless sitting. He told me about all the cool things his kids do: Space camp, and sports and doing and making. I don’t think that making a connection with this father of 7 made this ride “safer” but his blatant disregard for my comfort didn’t offend me or make my spidey sense tingle. The only time I’ve ever felt unsafe was when a driver dropped me off, and he had to come around and open the door because he had “child-proofed” the locks so they wouldn’t open from the inside—that creeped me out.

I’m actually more comfortable riding with the Alt-Uber drivers. I’ve always trusted a little rebelliousness: They feel less corporate so I can shed some of my guilt using a company I hate. Uber only reluctantly revealed safety data. Globally, the company has fought to keep their status as a “platform” that merely links riders with “independent contractors” rather than an employer responsible for its employees; this labor ruse has been struck down in the UK, the Netherlands and in California. Alt-Uber feels closer to the “sharing economy” I grew up with: You can catch a ride and sit in the back like a chauffeured VIP, but it’s still the driver’s car and the driver’s life—and the driver’s music. They remind me of the gypsy cabs, or jitneys, in Pittsburgh. My mother-in-law made frequent use of them. She worked in a Black neighborhood in Pittsburgh, underserved by transportation choices, and when it was time to go home, she’d walk down to the jitney office and wait for a driver. They knew her so well that if a call came in, and she was still waiting, she would be asked to lock up when she left. She lived in a predominantly white neighborhood just over the hill, but it was a 2-bus ride to work, she was in poor health and the door-to-door service was necessary for her.

And now the door-to-door service is necessary for me. I can walk to the hospital from my apartment, but sometimes I just can’t. It’s nice that a stranger will give me a ride.

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[1] _{I have boundaries. I don’t chat people up on elevators or talk to my seat mate on a plane. I don’t talk to the cashier in the grocery store (my grandmother had long conversations with the cashiers, who frequently ended up being one of her cousins).}