The 6 Worst Smells of Rideshare Driving

Oh, that smell. Can you smell that smell? Let’s discuss the many smells that we as drivers are forced to experience because we’re driving people around in a metal box.

At the end of the video, Jay shares with you his number one technique to combat the smells in your car. Take a look at his video, and scroll to the video transcript to read what he covers.

This is Jay Cradeur, and I’m going to list out six of the smells that I find most offensive, and then I’m going to give you a two strategies to combat them.

1. Farts

If you haven’t been a rideshare driver you may not know this, but people actually fart in your car!. And the funny thing is they usually act like they didn’t do it even though it’s just you and the person in the back. Suddenly this cloud of fart hits your nose. The best thing you can do is roll down that window about halfway.

2. Alcohol

I don’t drive at night so I don’t get a lot of that big, fresh, alcohol smell. But what I do get in the mornings is people who have been drinking all night with this kind of sweet smell that I can tell is from somebody who’s been drinking all night long.

Usually I’ll say something like, so did you have a big night last night? And they often wonder how I know, but they usually will start to tell kind of an interesting story. It’s not really like I got to roll the window down so much. But it’s a definitely a smell that you want to kind of get it out of the car when the passenger that leaves the car.

3. Outside smells

I was having a chat with my brother Dave, who’s driving for Uber in Chicago and he was saying it’s terrible when he goes over the sewer grates because that smell just comes up through your car. I’m in San Francisco where we have the bay, and when it gets to be low tide it can really smell pretty bad. All you can do then is set your car so that it’s not circulating fresh air from the outside, and just drive away from the smell.

4. Aftershave and perfume

I find it’s mostly men, in the mornings or before they’re going out for the evening, that they put on way too much after shave. And it can be quite offensive at times, especially if it’s crap. Women don’t seem to put on a huge amount of perfume. Sometimes you get older women that have a lot.

With perfume, sometimes you’ll get a smell that’s just amazing. It’s intoxicating. Two times I’ve asked my passengers, what they were wearing, and I bought a bottle of each. The first one is called Bond #9 Scent of Peace, which was absolutely mind blowing. And the other one is called rose by Ermias for Unisex. So I highly recommend those two.

5. Marijuana and cigarettes

In San Francisco getting high smoking weed, a blunt, a spliff is totally legall and a lot of times we’ll get passengers who just reek. I used to make jokes about it and say, Oh, I’m getting a contact high up here, but no one seemed to really appreciate my humor so I don’t really say anything anymore. I’ll just roll the window down a little bit. And definitely when they get out of the car I will blast them a blast where they were with Ozium them just to totally eliminate the smell.

6. Burps

The other other week I had a woman get in my car, she was a short stout older woman. and boy, she let out a burp that lasted a few seconds long. Like a wave hitting me in the ocean. It was like this warm chili con carne smell. And it was repulsive. It just grossed me out. I did the old ‘open up the window,’ and for that one I fully opened it and it felt pretty good.

What can drivers do about smells?

As I said before, Ozium is great. The other thing that you can do, and this is what I wanted to share with you at the beginning, is get an essential oil diffuser. You can get it for about $20 on Amazon and all you do is you open this, you pour in some water and a little essential oil. I like to use lavender, and then you turn it on.

It’s just blowing out this amazing smell of lavender. Lavender is a very relaxing scent and my passengers love the smell. It’s really been great. I think it helps with tips and it just gives you a car, nice vibe. If you play jazz or classical music like I do, it creates a really relaxing environment.

In summary, you’ve got to take the smell of your car seriously. Because if you’ve ever gotten into a car where it smelled bad as a passenger, that ruins the whole ride for you and you’re not going to tip that driver. So have your car smell good.

You want your passengers to get in and go, “Mmmmm, smells good in here! What is it you’re doing?” I highly recommend getting this thing, an essential oil diffuser and have a great day.

I want to thank you very much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed yet to the Youtube channel for the The Rideshare Guy, by all means do. This is Jay Cradeur with The Rideshare Guy wishing you a fantastic day.