This Week: CA Drivers Get More PUA Help, New Uber Hourly Trips

Welcome back to This Week in Rideshare News w/ Cecily. Here’s the stories we followed this week:

• Californians receiving PUA start to receive an increase to weekly benefit amounts
• Doordash Driver Held at Gun Point
• Introducing Uber Hourly
• Courier/Driver Riot Tips

Cecily:                                 Hey guys, it’s Cecily. And welcome back to This Week in Ride Share news. Californians receiving pandemic unemployment assistance are finally starting to receive increases to their weekly benefit. Those funds will be automatically credited to your EDD debit card, and you don’t need to do a thing to receive it. Now, earlier this week a DoorDash driver said he was trying to deliver food at an apartment complex in Arizona, when he was met by a man who held him at gunpoint.

Jade:                                    We’re doing DoorDash.

Valentino:                          No. That’s not what’s going on.

Dimitri:                                Yeah. That’s what’s going on.

Jade:                                    We have food.

Zach Crenshaw:                You can hear the desperation in their voices. After this man, Valentino Tejada, pulled his pistol out on Dimitri Mills.

Dimitri:                                By the time I hopped out the car, he has his gun drawn out. And he’s telling me all why am I stalking him? Real quick I grabbed it like, “Hey sir. I’m just doing DoorDash.”

Zach Crenshaw:                The 24 year old was helping his girlfriend Jade deliver food for extra cash. She was filming from the car.

Jade:                                    I was just really scared for Dimitri’s life, as well as my own.

Dimitri:                                And he’s telling me like, “Hey man, don’t get too close. Don’t get too close.” While he’s aiming the gun at me.

Zach Crenshaw:                As he was staring down the barrel, Dimitri was thinking…

Dimitri:                                Honestly like, being another Trayvon Martin.

Zach Crenshaw:                Fortunately neighbors called 911.

Dimitri:                                This is the man right here.

Zach Crenshaw:                And Mesa PD quickly arrived. Tejada dropped the gun and was arrested and charged with…

Speaker 6:                          Aggravated assault. And in class six felony charge for disorderly conduct.

Zach Crenshaw:                In the past three years, Mesa police say they’ve had three contacts with the 32 year old. None of them criminal. On the report though, officers wrote Tejada maybe mentally disturbed.

Dimitri:                                I didn’t see none of that. He was fully able, capable.

Zach Crenshaw:                Tejada is already out of jail, but the cell phone video will play a huge role in the case.

Dimitri:                                If there was no video I’m not able to say nothing. My word is only so much. People to be aware of these situations.

Cecily:                                 Uber riders will soon be able to book trips for hours at a time. It’s called Uber Hourly and it’s being built as a personal driver service. Now the feature is being tested in 12 cities. It costs $50 per hour, excluding tolls, and has a seven hour limit. Hourly can be used to get to multiple destinations, but not to the airport. RSG correspondent, Joe, will be talking about This Week, so look out for that video. Now there’s no easy way to delve into this topic so I’m just going to go right into it.

I heard from a subscriber earlier today in Denver, who reached out and said that she found herself in the middle of a riot. She said she was caught off guard and had a really hard time navigating the crowd. And it was just a lot. So I thought, hey, why don’t I come up with a number of tips that you can use should you find yourself near a riot zone. Don’t just turn on your app and leave. Stay informed. Use social media. Twitter is my thing. Definitely the news and radio are just as good. Carry only the essentials. Keep it small amounts of cash, no jewelry, purses, wallets, nothing flashy. Keep it really basic. Be prepared. Make sure you have your phone, your phone charger. Make sure your phone is charged.

Get familiar with the areas that you drive in. Create escape routes and always have multiple ways to get home if possible. Bring your ID and avoid high traffic areas that would include the freeway, major roads, if possible. If you deliver via bike or scooter, it’s probably not the time to do that if your city is protesting. I wouldn’t recommend working in your market if that’s going on. And you come across activists or police, just people in general, stay in your car possibly. And if confronted, stay calm, avoid confrontation, avoid eye contact, walk instead of run and don’t get involved. Stay safe and stay informed.

And now for my question of the week. I saw that this lady said that she had what she claimed was the weirdest ride ever. Sharon basically transported a box of squirrels last night. That was her weirdest ride. So I just want to know for kicks, what might have been your weirdest ride. Now I’m going to share mine. So my weirdest ride is not as cool as Sharon’s. I thought about making something up, but I was like, you know, that’s too much stress. So my weirdest ride really involves this guy who ordered a car. And so it brought me to Tito’s Tacos. Tito’s Tacos was on Washington. I feel like… I think it’s in Venice, but it’s a very famous taco place.

So I’m excited when I pull up like, “Ah, Tito’s Tacos. Yeah.” So, I love this place. I always get tacos here on mother’s day and we go to the beach and that’s my thing. Well, the guy shows up to the car with a box of tacos, and he’s like, “I need to have these transported.” I’m like, “Okay. That’s fine.” So I go into the back of my car and I get… I had trash bags in my car. So I put the trash bags down, and he comes out again with another thing. And so I’m like, “Okay, two boxes of tacos, party time, whatever, not a big deal.” “I’ll be right back.” He goes back inside and he brings two other boxes of tacos. And so I’m like, “Okay.” So now I’m lining all my seats up because they have boxes. It’s like a big box, like the same kind of box you would have for a donut box.

Okay. Similar. So I’m putting those in there, lining them up, lining them up. Six big boxes of tacos, so it’s this big, this wide, that deep or long. And I’m thinking, what am I doing? What is this? You know what I’m saying? I’m like, “Hey, there’s no way I can actually anchor these tacos. I’m going to be driving. So I can’t hold on to the multiple boxes.” He’s like, “Well, if they fall, they fall.” And I’m thinking, although these tacos are hella good they’re super flimsy too. I know that they all come with this salsa, and the salsa is very liquidy. So I’m thinking, I don’t want this to fall in my car. I’ll be cleaning up salsa for days. So luckily my destination was down the street, Marina Del Ray, not too far. So I could pretty much take the street that I was on to get there.

And with every single bump and dip and stuff, I was so nervous. So I was constantly looking in the back seat. I have long arms. So I’m like… I’m hitting the boxes as the boxes fall forward and everything. I mean, it’s smelling good, but I’m stressed out, because I’m trying to keep everything back there. But at any rate, it was really fun. I get to the house and there’s all these kids that come out and there’s enough people that came out to be able to grab a box. It was like, bam, bam, bam, bam. So it was like, I was able to get out of there pretty fast. And he gave me a nice tip. But, yeah. So that’s my story. Let me know what your weirdest ride is in the comments.

If you liked this video, give me a thumbs up. I appreciate you guys coming back here every single Saturday. If you want to hit me up directly, if you’ve got a great story for me, please hit me up on Facebook. My name is Drive Girl, Drive on there and Drive Girl, Drive on YouTube. Peace out.