The Overload

Not all stories have happy endings

Los Angeles, California

It was about 2:45 in the morning in Downtown LA when the rideshare system exploded into a surge. Rides were going off at four and five times their normal rate as hordes of weekend revelers stood on sidewalks overflowing into the street waiting for rides that were either unavailable or too expensive.

I pulled up upon a group of kids looking desperate and distressed, rolling down my window to check and see if they were my passengers. One of them walked up and politely explained that they were college students who had been stranded for the past hour, unable to afford the surge pricing that had occurred when the bars had closed. They were from Washington and they were headed to Calabasas, where one of their friends was from, and where they were all staying for Spring Break.

“Would you mind carrying an extra passenger? We have been waiting for over an hour for the prices to come down and there don’t seem to be any XLs (larger cars) available?” It had been my experience that most college kids would just load an extra passenger into your car as if they thought it their right and that you the driver were expected to carry them with no questions asked. Many had become argumentative and angry with me personally when I had informed them of the need for each passenger to have a seatbelt.

However, given the polite demeanor of the request, the extraneous circumstances of the extraordinary surge, and the fact that I stood to make good money…