Uber has become a hot topic of discussion among academics and non-academics: from the dynamics of ride sharing platforms, competition between Uber and Lyft, speculation about possible strategies that have been employed by Uber to attract customers, to the social aspects of meeting new people in shared rides, personal stories and experiences of people using Uber. Uber is definitely hurting the taxi companies, but is it a good service or bad for the society? Is it just healthy competition for the taxi companies bringing down the prices, or is it reducing the freedom of movement because now this company knows all your movements and rides? This post is about an incident that increased Uber’s positive points by a lot, in my eyes.

I called an Uber, a couple of days back, to go from Galleria to my department at Kendall. Uber found a driver 3 minutes away, and sent me a notification while I was waiting for the driver: “The driver of your upcoming ride is deaf and probably cannot speak. Please cooperate when you start your ride and we will send instructions to your driver for your destination.”

This was amazing!! Driving for uber is a job I’ve seen people from all walks of life do: from students to entrepreneurs to now mute people! He fist bumped me when I got in, and we both greeted each other smiling. At a red light, he quickly scribbled on a notepad, are you from India? and looked back. I nodded enthusiastically. He wrote down, I’m from Kerala! I took the paper and wrote down, I’m from Delhi. My ride was short, and before it ended I wrote down on my phone: nice to meet you! He smiled widely, and gave me a thumbs up!

Well thumbs up to him and to uber!