Aside from the recent insecurity uprising in Nigeria, people are still taking risks to get by on a day-to-day basis, including me. And yesterday, I was let in on uncommon information from a Bolt driver
While riding with one of the Bolt drivers yesterday, we got talking after he asked what my destination was and then, he said he does not like accepting female customer’s requests. I asked why and he relayed all he goes through with most of them.
He said, most of them request rides they cannot pay for and even though they know they do not have the means, they still request rides regardless. He narrated his encounter with a woman who he picked some time ago, he said her transport fare was totaled 6,000 naira, and immediately, she placed her two hands on her head and said all she had was 3000 naira and her eleven-year-old daughter went on her knees and started pleading as well with tears flowing down her chicks.
He said, he encounters nothing less than three passengers who cannot pay their fares daily because some are probably going to meet a guy or someone who already promised to pay for their fares, but on getting to the location, the person to pay the fare will not be reachable or available. And he said, most men do acts this way to their lady friends.
He also said some sexually harass them saying “Is it only money you will collect?” and so on and so forth.
The most irritating to him, are those that turn Bolt drivers into their chauffeurs. He said, they will say they are going to a certain location and then, they tell the driver to branch at a makeup studio or stop-over at a friend’s place and delay the driver for hours. The Bolt driver told me, these hours do not equate a substantial amount to justify the time wasted. And after all their nasty behaviours, if a driver reacts, they rate him/her low and even report him to Bolt management, who in turn ranks them low without listening to their side of the story.
After all that was said, only the company can resolve the issue, Bolt needs to step up for its drivers and protect their livelihood by putting some rules like only payments allowed in credit or debit cards and verification of customer’s account’s ability to pay before ride request goes out to drivers.
Also, drivers should be given a platform to defend themselves against such customers as aforementioned. Most importantly, Bolt should update their application to not end a trip that is yet to be paid for. Trips should only end after it has been paid for.
Hopefully, some drivers have complained about similar encounters to Bolt management to foster the desired change for the good of both drivers and customers.
