Well, yesterday I faced my first Uber mask “situation”.

Uber needs everyone to wear a mask

Uber has a policy requiring all drivers and passengers to wear masks, with a few exceptions.

I have never experienced this before. For the first six months of the epidemic I used the ridersing app twice – just to get to the airport and An international trip of mine. Both rides were unbearable.

However, I’ve been using Uber a bit more since I came to Germany, and my experiences this weekend were good – the drivers not only wore masks, but there was also a plastic liner between the front row and the back row. Between that and the open window, it feels safe enough.

And then yesterday was my ride.

My Uber driver was angry about wearing a mask

Yesterday afternoon Ford and I went to an Uber in Berlin. It was raining, so it was not possible to open the windows, and this was also the first Uber after coming to Germany where there was no plastic shield between the first and second row (I’m not sure if that policy is one way or the other, or just the drivers do).

I immediately sat behind the driver, while Ford sat next to me. As we drove into Uber I saw the driver put on his mask… and then 10 seconds after we got inside he took it off. I couldn’t see it directly, but Ford was texting me about it.

About a minute into the ride the guy said (German) “Is everything alright?”

Ford said politely “Can you please put on your mask?”

He nodded and replied “Why, do you think I have Corona?”

At the time I explained to them that we do not know who the coronavirus is, and that it is about taking precautions and that Uber drivers and passengers need to wear masks.

When he put on the mask then:

• He spent a few seconds renting about the masks and how they feel uncomfortable wearing them, and how he can’t believe we think he has coronavirus.
• He has to drive more aggressively, accelerate faster, move around corners more and more.

Looking at the instant Uber feedback loop, I’m a little confused about why I was arguing so much about it. If he had just put on a mask, I probably wouldn’t have reported it or given a bad review. But since he was so rude about it, I ended up giving him a star and informing him about not wearing a mask.

As for the price, in a very short time (6.6 stars) we had the lowest rated Uber driver, so I guess that wouldn’t be a surprise.

Bottom line

Apparently asking someone to wear a mask in line with someone’s company policy is now tantamount to accusing them of being coronavirus. To be clear, for me this is not whether you are a pro-mask or an anti-mask.

It’s fairly simple – Uber promises that drivers wear masks with limited exceptions. He put the mask on as we sat in the car to show we were wearing the mask, but then took it off seconds later. And then when he faced this he tried to argue back, and I’m not sure he was trying to accomplish this.

If you have used the RidingSing app during an epidemic, do you have any mask events? How did they go