Being an Uber driver has been a side hustle for a lot of people these days. You have to make money where you can, right? From the high costs of maintaining your vehicle to safety-related risks, it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, though. Then there are the occasional bad actors who want to make your job harder. For one Uber driver in Florida, his passenger went from “weird” to looking for any excuse to make something out of nothing.
Posted by TikToker Dryte (TikTok/drytemusicproduction), who doubles as an Uber driver, recorded himself on one of his drives. In the back, you see his passenger is sitting quietly on the phone with an Uber rep. Dryte’s passenger notices him recording her, which she tells the rep. Dryte speaks up and says, “Yeah, for my safety.”
While his passenger is on the phone, Dryte explains to his audience the passenger feels “unsafe” for whatever reason, despite making no effort to leave the vehicle. Meanwhile, you can also hear the Uber rep sighing, who then asks the passenger if there are any businesses nearby she can hang out at for a moment. Dryte turns the camera to show several in front of him.
The Karen tells the representative, “I’m scared he’s going to drive off with my packages.” Dryte is still keeping his cool, though. Props to him. Few people would be quiet over someone accusing them of theft; in fact, Dryte does the exact opposite. He personally gets the box out of his trunk, leaves it outside, then gets back in his vehicle.
Luckily for Dryte, his Karen of a passenger finally relents and gets out. I’ve never seen anything like it, and the only explanation is she was looking to start something. If she was in danger, she sure didn’t act like it.
In a follow-up video, Dryte thought she was acting “weird” when he first picked her up. She’d been moving back and forth between the seats, to which Dryte told her that was “not safe” and to put a seatbelt on. She also seemed to have an issue with his hands-free headset, and found it rude he was speaking on the phone the entire ride. After explaining what he was doing wasn’t illegal, she suddenly didn’t feel safe.
In the comments of Dryte’s TikTok video, people were overwhelming in favor of Dryte and didn’t see any issue. One commenter shared their opinion on the situation, “No one is talking about how traumatic this is for the driver. Being falsely accused as a Black man is so scary.” That bit about being afraid Dryte was going to steal her package was very telling.
Another mentioned, “Even the person on the phone was tired.” One commenter shared some self-deprecating humor, “I have White woman fatigue and I’m a White woman.” Another commenter said what everyone else was thinking, “She just wanted a free ride.”
After seeing this, I know now I could never cut it as an Uber driver. Dryte has the patience of a saint!
