Uber, Lyft and other rideshare drivers are here to help make transportation easier for everyone. Hop on an app, schedule a ride and have the driver come right to your office or home – it’s a very easy way to travel.
But when you’re a driver, you’ll want to keep your liability risks to a minimum.
With the winter months upon us, it’s even more important to limit these risks. One risk that goes overlooked, even while Uber and Lyft announce that they still operate in the snow, is snow and ice.
Both companies may “go through the snow,” but that doesn’t mean that drivers will agree.
If the weather is bad and you risk crashing, it’s often better to shut off your app and call it a day. But let’s say that you plan on driving, and maybe the weather isn’t bad, should you be pulling in and out of driveways?
It depends on what driver you talk to.
Obstructions Mean No Pulling Into Driveways
Obstructions will result in most drivers not pulling into driveways. Perhaps the driveway is undergoing pipe repair, so entering the driveway is not going to happen. There is also a risk that the city doesn’t plow the roads or shovel the sidewalks.
When the driveway is covered in snow, most drivers will leave the passenger at the entrance of the driveway.
But when the driveway is clear, there are also drivers who choose not to go into the driveway. Why?
- Liability. Drivers don’t want random complaints, often not true, of a driver possibly hitting one of the vehicles in the driveway or being accused of causing damage that wasn’t the driver’s fault.
- Safety. Drivers never know what risks they’re getting into when driving into a driveway, especially a long one, so they don’t put themselves at a safety risk by pulling into the driveway.
- Inaccuracies. Navigation systems aren’t 100% accurate, especially in rural areas. This leads some drivers pulling into the wrong driveway.
A lot of times, a driver will only go into the driveway when they know that there is a way out of the driveway safely. There are a lot of reports of drivers pulling into the neighbor’s driveway, so unless they’re 100% certain that they’re at the right location, they’ll opt to stay at the end of the driveway and wait for their pickup to walk out of the house.
Of course, there are drivers that also make exceptions to the rule.
When a driveway is very long, the driver may pull up to stop their passenger from having to walk a long distance to the car. Airport pickups are another time when a driver will pull as close to the home so that the passenger doesn’t need to lug all of their baggage with them up and down the driveway.
Snow also poses a safety risk when a driver pulls into a driveway where the snow is covering a ditch, and the driver has to call a tow truck to pull them out of the ditch. So, while it’s up to the driver, pulling into a driveway is not a must for all occasions.
