What Should Rideshare Drivers Do When You Get A Request For A Minor?

What should rideshare drivers do when you get a ride request from a minor? This is happening more and more frequently. Parents are sending their kids in Ubers, or even giving them their own account. Should you give minors a ride, and what is the official Uber and Lyft policy on this?

Watch my video to see the answer, then check out the transcript below the video if you prefer to read.

There are services like HopSkipDrive and Shuttle which specialize in transportation for minors, but the only problem with them is that they’re a little more expensive, they’re not in every city yet, and they generally require pre-booked rides. They’re not on-demand like Uber.

What’s the policy on driving minors, and what can you do?

Lyft and Uber’s policies actually say that minors aren’t allowed to ride without adults. You have to be over the age of 18.

What’s the risk for drivers if you do take a minor? Most drivers may not even be aware of this policy. They may not even know that you can’t take a high school kid or anyone under the age of 18. And even if you are aware of this policy, it’s still a tough situation for drivers.

Let’s say you get a request, you go drive five to ten minutes, you get there, and it’s some kids. Are you gonna cancel that ride without getting paid for the work you did? It’s pretty tempting to take that ride, even though you know it’s against the rules, because now you’re gonna be losing money if you don’t, right?

What’s the risk in taking a minor?

It’s really not like carrying five passengers or having people bring alcohol into the car. Those are things you know are wrong, you know there’s a potential that you would get a ticket for that. With a minor, it’s a little bit different. You’re not gonna get a ticket for transporting a minor. And frankly, Uber and Lyft probably will look the other way when you’re transporting minors. Maybe 10 to 20% of all rides these days are minors, but for them they’re still making money and they’re not really bearing any of the risk.

What is your risk if you take a minor? And really what it boils down to, it’s the risk of the unknown. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. What if you take a bunch of kids who’ve been drinking, or doing stupid stuff, and they accuse you of something, because they think it’s funny?

Not to say that adults don’t do stupid stuff either, but kids do a lot of stupid stuff. I was a kid once, you were a kid once, and just think back on all the stuff that you did. Imagine if you had an Uber at your beck and call. You’re probably gonna screw around with an Uber driver here and there.

A dash cam can protect you

Personally, I have no problem with these types of rides, because I recently installed a Falcon dash cam. I think that a dash cam is really the best way to protect yourself against these type of situations. And frankly, a lot of other situations since if you’re not doing anything wrong. You really never wanted to get into a “he said, she said” type situation with a minor. I think of a dash cam or something like that as just such a cheap insurance policy. You got out and spend a 100, 150 bucks. And now you have an insurance policy because you’re protecting against the unknown. And that’s what insurance is for.

Do you pick up minors?

I’m curious to hear what you guys do when you get ride requests for minors. Do you accept them? Do you take the risk? Do you not accept them, and cancel on them and report them to their parents and Uber, who probably don’t even really care? Or do you guys roll with a dash cam? Make sure you’re being smart out there. I look forward to hearing from you.