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The essential guide to taxi etiquette in the age of Uber
In a world where drivers can rank passengers, follow these rules and reach your destination with your rating intact
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We’ve all been there. You’re in the back of a taxi, engrossed in Wordle, when suddenly the driver slides back the partition and starts canvassing your views on whether the Elgin Marbles should be on the first flight back to Athens. Your soul takes a dip, the traffic snarls up, and suddenly home feels like a million miles away…
My worst experience must have been in San Francisco, where my taxi driver pegged me as gay and then spent half an hour ranting about how much he looked up to a terrorist who had recently shot up a gay nightclub in Florida. Then there was a very friendly woman Uber driver who enquired why I was travelling alone and then offered me sex. Both utterly mortifying experiences but I’ve grinned and borne each of them to protect my precious Uber rating.
With trusty black taxis, if conversation takes an unappealing turn, you can simply sit back, gaze at the traffic and zone out until you reach your destination. But in an age where apps such as Uber and Bolt have made taxis easier to book than ever, new etiquette questions have opened up. With drivers able to rate their passengers and those ratings informing whether or not you’ll be picked up at all, keeping your drivers on-side can be the difference between getting to the office party on time, or arriving cold and damp after a walk in the rain.
New stats from Uber show that Merseyside passengers are most favoured by drivers. They have the highest ratings on average, with 4.90 out of 5, closely followed by Cambridge and East Anglia (4.89) and Stoke (4.88). In contrast, those from Birmingham and London are apparently the least well-behaved passengers, with average ratings of 4.76 and 4.72 respectively. A 4.72 rating and a 4.90 rating might not seem far apart, but those decimal places mean something to drivers when selecting which rides to accept on a busy night.
The company has also surveyed drivers about their most hated behaviours and found rudeness and aggression top the list. “Simple gestures including closing the door softly, buckling up for safety, avoiding eating in the car and simply sparking up a conversation with drivers are all ways to help improve ratings,” says Andrew Brem, general manager at Uber UK.
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But “simply sparking up a conversation” with strangers can be fraught at the best of times, let alone when you’re relying on them to ferry you from A to B. So what’s the basic expectation? Engage? Keep schtum? Answer an entirely fake phone call that magically ends as you pull up at your front door?
“For me, it’s great to engage,” says Asher Moses, founder and CEO of Sherbet, the electric black taxi company, who has been driving London black cabs since 1989. “Customers come from all walks of life and all types of business: you get so much information from the people in the back of the taxi. I call it the barometer of London. Cabbies know better than anyone what is going on in the city, what the economy is like, how people are feeling. I love to chat.”
That being said, most taxi drivers wouldn’t consider it rude if you sat quietly in the back of the car, adds Daniel Cooper, a driver for DG Cars in Nottingham. “Being a taxi driver is a varied job and part of what makes it enjoyable is the wide array of people we get to speak with,” says Cooper. “You’ll meet people who are happy to chat the whole journey, those who prefer a small-talk exchange, and those who just want to get from A to B in peace. We’re happy to talk as much or little as the customers want, we’ll be led by you.”
Liz Wyse, an etiquette expert at Debrett’s, says: “Always be polite when you first get into a cab. Offer a greeting and a smile – no piling into the cab without a word, no brusque commands. At the end of the ride, wish the driver a good day/night and smile agreeably.”
According to Wyse, it would be “advisable to indulge in small talk” if you find yourself sitting in the front seat, but for those in the back – “and especially if there is a partition between you” – you shouldn’t feel rude if you don’t want to start a conversation. “If you get your phone out or appear self-contained, they should get the hint you don’t want to chat.” If your driver gets it wrong, “try to convey that fact by answering politely, but in a way that closes the conversation down. If the driver asks ‘Did you have a good night?’ reply ‘Yes, thank you’, which doesn’t lead the conversation any further.”
And if you’re keen to give your passenger rating a boost, be sensible about the topics of conversation you cover. “Stick to safe small talk: the weather, the traffic, general observations about the city you are passing through and so on,” Wyse continues. “It is best to steer clear of politics, or to comment on news items that you hear on the driver’s radio. You really have no idea about your driver’s political beliefs, and you might encounter a point of view that you regard as indefensible – the last thing you want is an impassioned row on the cab ride home.”
With a sigh, Moses agrees. “Political discussions, wars, religion; please avoid those kinds of things in my taxi. I just want to take you from A to B efficiently; I don’t need to be preached to.”
There are few more hair-raising social situations than finding oneself trapped somewhere with another person who is freely giving voice to views that one finds intolerable. So what do you do if your driver starts talking politics? “Don’t get into an argument, but simply shut them down,” suggests Wyse. “Say something repressive like: ‘I’m afraid I don’t agree with you there, so let’s leave that topic well alone.’ This should effectively silence them, and you can reinforce your message by looking intently at your phone.”
Ultimately, over the festive period, both passengers and drivers should cut each other some slack, says Cooper. “During this hectic period it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Some passengers may not behave as they usually would, but for every ill-behaved passenger, we’ll get to speak with at least ten perfectly nice customers. Perhaps the big message from cabbies is, treat others how you’d like to be treated.”