Drunk in Uber: a Collection of Stories
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Drunk in Uber: a Collection of Stories

As if we needed more encouragement to hop in an Uber after last call.

​Uber announce​d Wednesday it's teaming with breathalyzer app Breathomoter to reward people with a free ride if they hail a car after consuming too much alcohol to drive.

But if the experiences of Motherboard staffers are any indication, people don't need much encouragement to hop in the ridesharing service when they're wasted.

In honor of Uber's attempts to get more drunk people off the road and into its pockets, we've shared some of our favorite drunk Uber stories below, from staffers, our friends, and random people on the internet.

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The time I accidentally did some actual ridesharing

I still don't understand exactly what happened in this story, but it was Christmas Eve. I ended up in Bed-Stuy. I mixed too many different kinds of alcohols and ate too much and just hit that point where I needed to go to bed immediately, which is always the precursor to an expensive Uber ride for me. Some Uber driver had told me on a previous trip that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were big days for Uber—that there would be a 6X surge on Christmas Day—so I was expecting that there would be no cars, but actually there were a million and no surge and I got one right away. As I was getting into the Uber, the driver asked me if I wanted to share with some scrubby looking dude who was a few paces down the sidewalk. I drunkenly agreed and the guy got in the cab and he smelled TERRIBLE. He told me he was going to visit his girlfriend on the Lower East Side and I could not imagine how he could be on his way to a romantic encounter because he smelled like a month of sweat. He tried to small talk me a little and kind of dance for his supper, but I just put my head on the window to pretend to be asleep. Then I actually fell asleep which was probably a really bad idea in retrospect. When I woke up, I was home and he was gone. At some point he must have given me a five, which he definitely could have gotten away with not doing. So I guess it was actual ridesharing. -Adrianne Jeffries

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The best time I passed out in Uber and was charged $150 for it

While visiting some friends in LA last January, I went to an apartment warming party where we decided taking many shots of tequila was the best way to celebrate the new place. A few hours into the festivities I was restless and convinced that in order to have the best time ever in LA I needed to go to a club downtown where some "friends" I had met at the bar next door and subsequently invited to the party had gone.

I downloaded the Uber app for the first time and pressed "request a ride." When the driver showed up I tried to invite him to the party (not a good sign for my judgement skills at that point in time), and when he declined I hopped in the car and directed him to a vague address in downtown LA. When we got to the destination I took one look at the line and said, "I'm too drunk for this," and asked him to turn around and take me back to where we started. If you think paying for an Uber to drive you to a club and back during surge pricing sounds like the worst time ever, just wait!

Memory fails me from this point on, but in the morning I woke up with a painfully ironic "Congratulations on your first Uber ride!" email accompanied by a $150 bill. I had never used Uber before but this price seemed insane. After checking out the route, I realized the driver had passed my friend's apartment in Hollywood by about 20 miles, turned around in Sherman Oaks, and overall screwed me over (not unlike a d​river who did the same thing to a passenger in NYC recently).

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The fun part about Uber is that it is a modern hip company that doesn't bother with talking on phones, so if you have a complaint you have to file it by email and/or send a bunch of sad tweets at the company account–not exactly the timely option I was looking for after over drafting my bank account in an unfamiliar city.

Ultimately, I got a reply from a rep who said "I can see that the driver's route was less than ideal" (*LESS THAN IDEAL*) and refunded me for half of the drive a couple days later. Ultimately, had to borrow money from friends to get home before I was reimbursed for the kidnapping portion of my ride. I sent a number of indignant "I'm never using your terrible app again" emails, and ultimately re-downloaded Uber when I was drunk and stranded in LA the next time around.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-Kari Paul

The time I got an Uber and walked anyway

In New York, most Uber drivers also drive for Lyft. This is frowned upon by both Lyft and Uber but, whatever, I don't care. They are supposed to turn off the competing app when they're doing a fare, but few drivers do this. So, on more than one occasion, I've had drivers ask me if I'll get out of the car so they can take another fare. I am sympathetic to them for some reason and once let a driver drop me off 10 blocks away from my house in the snow at 4 AM because I saw he had a pending fare in the opposite direction and he was FREAKING OUT about potentially missing out on it. I slipped on the ice and also I was not wearing a proper coat and went to sleep VERY grumpy. Five stars. -Jason Koebler

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The time I tried to party in an Uber Escalade

One time I was at Winnie's in Chinatown with an old friend and they kept getting pissed off at us for trying to smoke in the bar, so my buddy stormed off to go home and I accidentally ordered an Uber SUV to take me back to Brooklyn and spend the entire ride calling people I shouldn't to see if they wanted to live the Escalade lifestyle. No one did because it was 4:30 in the morning. I woke up feeling very sad about my life. -Derek Mead

The time I woke up in an Uber and the driver was taking pictures of me

I had one Uber driver pull over and start taking taking pictures of me while I was half passed out lying on the back seat. I was so drunk and confused that for a moment I thought I was still at the party and my friends must be taking the pics. Then I realized I was in the Uber and was like holy shit whuuuut. I didn't want to jump out because I was way up in the Hollywood Hills, hammered. When I sat up he tried to act like the photo shoot was fun and playful. Like "Oh, you're awake! Join in!" I played nice, gritted my teeth, and smiled for a photo then asked him to drive me home right away. When I got home & got out of the SUV he gave me a pamphlet about Jesus and said "God bless you, Jennifer." -Jenn Hoffman (via Facebook)

I spend more time figuring out how to use the Uber app when drunk than actually taking an Uber when drunk

I rarely take Ubers; living in London, I haven't yet transitioned from black cabs. I know where I am with them.

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Last time I attempted to take an Uber after drinking was trying to get home from a house party with a bunch of people who insisted it would be easier, cheaper, and quicker than getting a regular cab.

I don't even have the app—it had some issue with my card when I first tried to download it and I gave up—but two of our party did. We were about to order two cars when we remembered there was an option to book one, larger car. Then the price went up! Uber's surge pricing is very confusing when you're in a group of people in varying states of non-sobriety. Then one of the guys' cards had expired so he couldn't book. Then the other guy's had too.

It took us about an hour in total to figure out the best way to get home. The night ended with me pulling my flatmate away from the car window, where he was trying to pay the driver in cash. -Vicki Turk

The time I was drunk in an Uber and touched darkness

The first UberX ride I ever took was an act of desperation: getting home from a concert in San Francisco at 2 AM, well after public transportation had shut down for the night. I was bone tired from a long day of work, hours of loud music and dancing. And, yeah, I was a few beers in.

When the driver picked me up, he was blasting radio. Not music. Talk radio. The kind of garbage you can only hear at 2 AM: Howard Stern-wannabe shock jockeys talking about affairs, marriage propositions gone wrong, and other marriage horror stories. He was laughing along with it, and I was too tired to do much more than zone out for a few minutes. Then we started talking about some of the radio stories, and suddenly he says: "I listen to this stuff because my brother killed himself last month, and it's the only way I can keep my mind off it."

WHOA DUDE. What was I supposed to say about that? I said I was sorry. And then he told me how he thought his dead brother was haunting him. I think his story just got weirder and sadder from there, but I was too overwhelmed by the dead ghost brother to absorb anymore. -"Wes Fenlon" (via anonymous Google doc)