[dileepcm]

Very unfortunate event. I believe you made a very realistic decision.

While I see the point in having Uber like firms or apps tracking the 'working hours', I don't think tracking alone will solve the problem. What if the driver drives first 8 hours for a company and starts driving Uber from 9th hour of the day? Situations like this will be a long term problem as far as additional income is a necessity.

[saket77]

And just to remind that a lot of folks take a cab after late night parties because they don't want to drive under influence. What an irony if likewise someone meets with an accident because the cabbie dozed off!

[promit]

A similar Uber incident happened with a friend of mine 2 years ago in New Delhi/Gurgaon. He made a short video of it and it went viral on social media and was subsequently covered by the major dailys. Same substandard response by Uber - refund of trip fare and nothing else, no comments.

Attaching the Time of India link of the 2016 incident - Passenger drives taxi home after cabbie falls asleep

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/52371676.cms

[Sheel]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

Driving school will apply for Learning license (LL). You might need to goto RTO to sign, but this may or may not happen depending on the RTO. Once you get LL, wait for 30 days before scheduling a driving test. The driving school will assist you again on this. At the test 99% of the times, the officer will just ask you to move front and back and ask for purpose of TR, just mention you are starting a business or something. Since you already have a full license, he won't put you through the full test
.

Thanks for sharing this detailed info. And from what little I know, the commercial license has to be renewed every 3 years, at least this is what I recall, so do bear this as well.

[TorqueyTechie]

Very thoughtful of you though not really legal as you have mentioned. The fault was with the driver only. Only he knows how much fatigued he is and whether he will be able to drive or not. He should not risk his as well as his passenger's life like this.

Reminds me of a similar incident some 8 years back when I had to drive a TT. The driver was having high fever and vomitting and still had reported to work. He drove for some distance and then started vomitting(outside the window) while driving itself. We asked him to stop and then called up our company for a different cab but since it was around 1AM they said there was none and asked us if possible to arrange any alternative ourselves. So I ended up driving the TT, dropping two people (1 lady) and then stopped near a safe parking space near my home and asked him to lock and sleep. Next day we sent a strong email to our company's transport team for which we did not get a reply itself.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by Tejas@perioimpl

As i drop him, he has the gall to ask me to give him 5 stars!

That really pissed me off.

What a thankless human being!

Good on you for being responsible and considerate.

[avingodb]

You did choose the perfect option!

I have been in this situation way back in 2012. We were travelling to Jaipur from Delhi for a wedding and left at 11 pm with a plan to get there early morning. After dinner I noticed the tempo traveller swerving a bit as the driver was shaking his head vigorously. I came forward and asked the driver why this was the case and he told me he was sleepy and this shook me to the core. I spent the next 4 hour sitting next to him, taking 2 tea breaks, offering him water in between and ensuring he was ok to drive, by chatting with him. I got to know where he was from, what his family farms and other such stuff!

He told me that he had spent the day in the workshop, getting the vehicle's problems sorted for the trip and thus got no sleep in the day plus the tiredness! After that I keep observing drivers of all cabs and vehicles i travel in.

[itwasntme]

I've experienced this twice before!

Once in 1982 as a small child, our Ambassador taxi driver hired for the Jammu to Srinagar run confessed that he was really sleepy! My uncle (I think) drive some part of the way and then handed the wheel back to the guy but kept him up all evening talking to him.

Second time around happened on a morning drop to BIAL on a Ola/Uber. Fellow gradually swerved towards the footpath on the narrow spine road inside BIAL. I was also napping but my God's grace suddenly woke up and shouted out.

[ritz3645]

Not being Tangent, but a question for all us members. If a passenger of the vehicle you are driving dozes off especially during the midnight to 5 am duration. What are the chances of you as the driver also catching the snooze? Especially with ac on.
We ourselves have traveled once, overnight from 9 pm to 7 am flat driven by a cab driver. I made sure not a single moment passed by when I was not talking or interacting with the driver to make sure he doesn't get sleepy. Our cab driver had been at the garage the whole day and drove us the whole night.

Driver asking for a 5* rating was just doing his job as coached to him, like at Domino's where they always ask you if you want extra cheese, or a habit.

[Octane_Power]

That was quite a night Tejas!

BTW, I have heard of such incidences even in the US where one would expect a stricter law for drivers to stop driving after a certain duration.

My close relative in California came across two drivers 1. who was sleepy and was frequently driving between lanes on a 70MPH freeway (where people are usually going at 80MPH!) 2. a young bloke was playing Candy Crush on his cell phone while driving!!

I don't know if that's a trend in India but I have seen so many cars here which have both Uber and Lyft stickers on them, so even if they have a limit on the number of hours they can drive, they overshoot that limit by far by driving for two different companies altogether!

-Bhargav

[phamilyman]

Almost all of us consultants who work crazy 18-20 hour days have had such stories :-) That said, in 3 years, with atleast two flights a week, and incessant long hours, I have only experienced one such issue in Gurgaon and none in other cities like BOM/BLR. It was definitely more prevalent in the era of the neighborhood taxi stand. The issue is possibly not that statistically significant compared to the # of rides Uber serves, but yet, worth solving with thoughtful technology, all the same. But stories do not solve such problems. The only question is - is Uber doing enough to stem this?

Fortunately Uber has emerged because of, and in an era of previously un-thought of technology. What analytics can help them? Let's suggest solutions.

I think for the driver to be that drowsy he would have been swaying even to get to you unless you work next to a busy hub junction - I would argue that Uber's algorithms should be able to catch this. The likelihood of a sane driver, weaving that way through traffic at that hour, is next to zero. They would have all drivers' GPS coordinates in real time. This can't be that hard.

The system should automatically generate a call back to the driver or ideally the rider (who may be able to accurately assess the driver's condition). If that is confirmed, the driver is given immediate instructions to stop and take a nap right there.

Then, they should send another car over to you at no additional cost asap.

Uber must ensure that the car driver takes rest right there - if he continues to drive without resting within a defined time interval, i.e violate an impromptu geo-fence around the incident location, he is kicked off the system for a week / month / ?

What else? Let's utilize the internet hive mind to ideate solutions that hopefully Uber can take up for implementation. In a way, we are designing the house we'd like to live in

PS: No need to bother about LMV license. Just set your phone voice recorder to active before you start driving. Even in the unlikeliest scenario that you are stopped and a policeman tries to fleece you, pay up, and promptly post the audio onto Mumbai Police's social media feeds and things will take care of itself.

Originally Posted by ritz3645

Not being Tangent, but a question for all us members. If a passenger of the vehicle you are driving dozes off especially during the midnight to 5 am duration. What are the chances of you as the driver also catching the snooze? Especially with ac on.

With all due respect, my answer is Zero. These are frankly grand mother's tales that are easily overcome by most professional drivers. Accidents can still happen, simply because the drivers were really tired to begin with. It can be incredibly annoying to some folks, but its not like a professional well trained driver will doze off even after 8 hours of sleep because his/her passengers are snoring away to glory.

My evidence is not just myself: 50-60% of my 1.6 lakh km driven in my own cars have been overnight long distance trips where my wife and child go to sleep within half an hour of starting from home, but Uber drivers. Being as perennially sleep deprived as I am, I regularly catch a nap in my airport cabs with earmuffs to filter out the noise. Not one driver has complained about my sleeping (and snoring?) making them sleepy :-)

[deehunk]

I had a similar experience in 2016, it was with an app based Hyderabad aggregator called Zippys. The driver did not have experience of night driving and was a first timer on ghat roads. Around midnight he dozed off and crashed the car to a side wall on Charmadi ghat, later I realized that he even did not know about using a jack or changing the spare wheel. I was recovering from a surgery then but had no other option to do the things on my own and drove back the car till Bangalore. I have been straight forward with the drivers these days, if I feel unsafe, I just get down from the cab.

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...ru-etc-49.html

[landcruiser123]

You absolutely did the right thing.
This is the kind of case in which the law enforcement should do its duty- if you were caught, the police should be understanding of the situation and help you instead of harassing you.

There are a few rotten eggs (officers) who will take advantage of such a situation though.

[prithm]

Its a good thing that you tried your best to bring this situation under your control.

I had an elderly gentleman doze off during Hyd ORR trip to airport. I sensed the gentle swaying of car towards the left lane and saw him dozing off. But instead of shouting or surprising him, I did the fake cough to make him wake from him siesta.

Then I started the slow conversation of how ORR changed the fate of so many people in remote areas of Hyd and cash windfall it bought to the land owners. Then found that he has a daughter to marry off and that he does these extended trips (official and non-official) to help gather funds for his family obligations.

It happens. Not that it shouldn't, but as humans everyone is prone to make mistake and severity varies according to nature of job and responsibilities.

Cop's usually understand. They have no reason to believe that a office goer will drive a car as a time pass to generate revenue for his pockets. Reasons such as driver's health condition making us to take control of car is valid. Instead of harassing us and then seeing the situation getting worse with health of a human under their supervision will make them think twice. No Policeman wants unnecessary trouble in his hands.

Glad that this ended well.

P.S : One thing that I found as a conversation starter that usually keeps the other person engaged in such situations is "Local Food and Local History". Unbeatable topic that keeps drivers engaged the whole trip. I have come to know about tasty and cheap eateries and delicacies through them than with my colleagues who throng hip costly fine dine places in city.

[shady8701]

My two cents on this...a lot of drivers pull a whole day (~10-12 hours) of domestic duty and then drive an UBER at night to make more money on side. This is absolutely unsafe and carries a lot of risk for the driver/passenger/pedestrians etc, however, this is something that a company like UBER or OLA might have no knowledge of or control over.
I would always recommend getting off the cab in such a situation and trying to make the driver understand that he's putting a lot of people at risk if he does try to drive in such a state.