How’s your Uber rating? Mine came as a shock

I mean, the horror. Have you looked at your Uber rating recently? Like, really looked at it, to see how many stars individual drivers have given you? Or, in my case, not given you? (*If you don’t know how to do this, scroll to the bottom of this piece, where I explain it.)

Recently, I stumbled on this after I had a bad experience with a driver, or he had one with me rather, when I ordered a car in Adelaide then stood in front of my hotel, on the street, instead of at the (concealed) Uber pick-up zone in the car park below. The driver didn’t take calls, so I texted. Fifteen minutes later, he eventually got back to me and worked it out.

Illustration: Dionne Gain.Credit:

Not a big drama, but while waiting I played around with my app looking at my low – well, uncomfortably low, anyway – rating of 4.79. I discovered four drivers had given me the lowest rating of one star. Four! Would this be a fifth?

I spent the next few hours racking my brain, trying to figure out why. I mean, three is a bad day, maybe I was waiting on the wrong side of the road, maybe I was too quiet, maybe I was too loud, talking on the phone. But one star? One is a slap! An indignant rebuff! A caning.

These are the tips Uber has shared in the past for people who want to improve their ratings: don’t leave any rubbish or mess behind, buckle your seat belt, don’t keep drivers waiting, treat them with respect – as you’d wish to be treated – and don’t slam the door – “drivers hate this”.

I thought, I did all this?

Julia Baird’s Uber rating, which she says has since improved.

One driver told The Washington Post that his scoring system is simple – he only gives one or five stars, nothing in between. According to this bloke, his criteria for one star is: “drinking alcohol in the car, yelling or screaming, not being at the set pickup point, slamming doors, asking overly personal questions, trying to fit extra passengers, adding stops mid-ride, touching him, touching his radio, and throwing up anywhere but the medical-grade plastic bags he has thoughtfully provided”. He also includes speaking to him in a demeaning way, or referring to him as “Mr Uber Driver”. All of which is fair.

Another said he punishes people for being two to three minutes late.

Because I’m such fun to be around, I have brought up these ratings at dinners and over coffee in the past two weeks, if only for the pleasure of shared company, as friend after friend stares slack-jawed at the tiny metrics of anonymous condemnation on their phone. One friend, a lawyer, discovered she had a 4.6-something rating, and 13 one-stars. Her husband sat smugly nearby, having discovered his rating was in the high 4.9s, and a discussion ensued about whether he had, in fact, long been correct in his insistence that she kept calling Ubers too early, before she was ready, making them wait. Her legal training did prompt a series of questions about transparency, due process, and right of appeal.

And this is not just about a scorecard. If your scores drop below 4.7 or so, drivers will be less inclined to pick you up. You will find yourself waiting longer. If you fall before 4.6 for a good spell, your account could be deactivated.

Are you a “problem rider”? Drivers might mark you down for being rude or slamming the car door.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

And you won’t be able to tell which driver has panned you because there is a deliberate obfuscation and delay before it hits your app.

According to an Uber thread on Reddit, “4.80-4.99 is the good range. Below 4.80 typically indicates a problem rider”. Problem rider!

In a week that has involved an unusually high amount of travel, I’ve had lots of time to contemplate what I could have done wrong. And don’t @ me and tell me to just look in the mirror and regard a massive cow! I’m always clean and careful and have, hand on heart, never vomited in an Uber. Maybe I put the pick-up location in the wrong place accidentally? I remember once asking to have a radio turned off? Was I late, or, as I like to call it, time-optimistic?

It’s so weird: “You’ve done wrong, but we won’t tell you when or how.” What if they just don’t like the cut of my jib?

You may suggest I am overthinking this, and indeed I do overthink many things. But, reading through comments on articles about this phenomenon made me realise what a parade of dickheads must perch in the back seats of Ubers.

Take this lovely chap, called Patriot USA: “Who cares what a chauffer [sic] earning chump change thinks. I’m not interested in your boring life or your personal troubles. Just keep your mouth shut and take me to my hotel. Couldn’t care less how these clods ‘rate’ me.” Another said: “So Uber users besides paying now are ‘rated’ by the yahoos behind the steering wheel?”

On Reddit, a seven-year driver said: “I only rate low if they make a mess in my car, or are seriously inconsiderate. (Racist, chauvinist, or openly callous towards the less fortunate are auto 1 stars).”

But what about when the dickheads are behind the wheel? What if they are racist, or don’t like women, or LGBTQI people, or don’t like individuals who dress in unicorn onesies, or short skirts?

One commenter wrote: “Still waiting for Uber to launch a fix for the low ratings and abuse LGBTQ+ and BIPOC folks are regularly subjected to. If you are polite, prompt, and an ideal customer but frequently are given 1s based on bigotry the system needs fixing.” Fair point.

One response made me laugh. “Oh great, something else for people to get all anxious about.”

Look, this ratings’ system is fraught, it’s subjective, it is not moderated. It can mirror all of our stupid biases and suggest an uncomfortable, possibly sinister future shaped by anonymous, judgmental, possibly prejudiced strangers. I’m still a bit clueless about it. But in a world where signs asking people not to abuse staff hang in hospitals, airports, pubs and malls, it’s completely reasonable to be reminded that you should treat people with respect.

* So this is how you find the information, which is buried in the app. Go to your profile image, tap on Settings and scroll to “Privacy”. Up the top you will be asked, “would you like to see a summary of how you use Uber?” Tap on summary, then scroll down to the ratings and tap on “view my ratings”. At your peril.

Julia Baird is a journalist, author and regular columnist. Her latest book is Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything.