lol taxi cabs are safer? okay. sure. my sister's ex, who went to jail for raping her (and another woman who later came forward), is out and a cab driver in the dmv area.

i'd rather my 14 year old take the metro after dark, late at night than put herself in a cab.

This is how we survive at times, because of too many activities and us working full-time. Our DD is required to txt when picked up and dropped off. We order the Uber, but only in a pinch and we're in Western LoCo.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to hear more from BTDT parents.

My one rule would be to use Uber Black only, not Uber X or share, etc. And there is now a feature in the Uber app that allows you to send your ride details to someone else, so they can track you. So make that two rules.

I send Uber for my daughter, and actually ONLY do Uber Pool for her, because I want her to have other people in the car with her besides the driver. I don't have a car, and when she stays at a friend's house until 10pm and then wants to come home, it would take me an hour to get to her using mass transit. We've never had a problem.

I think I started sending an Uber for her in 9th grade and now she's in 10th.

What?! I trust drivers much more than other passengers. First, the driver is registered. Uber knows who s/he is, where they live, what are their social security numbers. The passenger only needs to give a paypal account or any credit/debit card. Uber pool can be hell. I got a drunk man early in the morning, a hundred spoiled and unpolite millennials, smelly people... No way I would put my kids in an Uber pool alone.

It's fine. My kids are younger and do that all the time together or separated. I always ask them to call me when they are in the car. And I check the ride on my phone because they use my account. We never had an issue.

I’ve been using it since DS was 11. Sometimes drivers reject him but mostly it works out well. I order the rides, though, so I can track them.

We use all the time. It's fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here

I hadn't heard of Rydz but this would be perfect since we need driving at set times each week. Curious to hear any more feedback about this service.

If you search the boards you will find more threads -- I've been happy with them and have seen threads with other positive experiences as well.

DP and I contacted them regarding services and it sounded very promising. They do charge a yearly registration fee. I believe it is $150

We use rydes4kids. Their driver pool is small with low turnover and their dispatcher keeps us posted on when picked up, en route, etc.

Anonymous wrote:Hoping to hear more from BTDT parents.

My one rule would be to use Uber Black only, not Uber X or share, etc. And there is now a feature in the Uber app that allows you to send your ride details to someone else, so they can track you. So make that two rules.

I send Uber for my daughter, and actually ONLY do Uber Pool for her, because I want her to have other people in the car with her besides the driver. I don't have a car, and when she stays at a friend's house until 10pm and then wants to come home, it would take me an hour to get to her using mass transit. We've never had a problem.

I think I started sending an Uber for her in 9th grade and now she's in 10th.

Anonymous wrote:I would only do it with female drivers.

How do you make sure you get a female driver on Uber?

Anonymous wrote:OP here

I hadn't heard of Rydz but this would be perfect since we need driving at set times each week. Curious to hear any more feedback about this service.

If you search the boards you will find more threads -- I've been happy with them and have seen threads with other positive experiences as well.

This is a new service geared toward kids under 18
www.zoomeerides.com

Anonymous wrote:My daughter does it all the time. I don't understand the concern.

All you have to do is google "uber rape" and many stories will come up. Some of the victims are teenagers.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter does it all the time. I don't understand the concern.

I'm in Los Angeles, and was talking to some cops and they were saying there are lots of problems and for some reason it's very under-reported. They didn't know why, but they were not fans of girls doing uber-type services alone.

PP, the concern is one of this: Everyone can be a target, but young women have always throughout history been a common target; seems to be part of the human condition that an unprotected young female is a big target for all sorts of abuse.

In any job/occupation/hobby etc where an adult can gain 1)unsupervised 2) access, to a target, among the many many good people, you will get some predators in there who self-select those positions just to get access. So instead of thinking, "I love soccer so I want to be a soccer coach" they are thinking, "what job will give me unsupervised access to teen girls" or young boys, or whomever their target is. Teacher, coach, priest, tutor, babysitter, chauffeur, uber, etc.

We just had a situation (I believe it was around here) where family called a girl/young woman an uber, and when she didn't show up, and they tracked her phone, drove out, and found her unconscious in the back seat getting raped by the driver. ugh i hated even typing that

Anonymous wrote:I'd rather my kid take an Uber where I can see the driver information versus taking a taxi where the information is unknown to me as is their route. That feels very unsafe to me, IMO.

There's always a line of Ubers picking up kids from sports practice each evening where I live.

Just to play devil's advocate -- there have been far fewer reported incidents with regular cab drivers compared to Uber drivers. And taxi drivers have to go through more licensing. Assuming your child has a cell phone you can also track them that way by turning on that feature / the app.