

In three thousand rides, I’ve never kicked anyone out of my Uber. I carry no weapons, no pepper spray, not even a strobing LED penlight, like the bouncers use to disorient testosterone-raging patrons. I have no dash cam.
Perhaps I’m shooting dice with fate. Or just rather blessed. Or possessed of a sublimely American faith in my fellow man. But I drive bareback, and so far it has served me well.
No man has tried to grab my steering wheel while driving on the freeway, praise Jesus, on the 110, down in the luge run south of USC, at late-night velocity. Can you imagine the sphincter-clenching craziness?
Women break the rules in rideshare, not men. Because they can. They jump over the back seat to engage you in conversation. They shriek in the middle of chaotic intersections, posing for selfies. They demand to be taken to the Taco Bell drive-thru. They put their hand on your arm, and say “you think I’m pretty, right? Right?”
They fall asleep with their dress hiked over their hips, and don’t respond when you tell them they’re home, leaving you to decide whether to ‘nudge’ them awake, with all the potential liability that might entail. They grab the aux cord and volume control and play their jams. They stand with the door open, talking with their friends, causing traffic jams in front of nightclubs. They refuse to leave the car. They overshare. They interrogate you with intimately personal questions.
None of them have reached for the wheel, however. Deep in the limbic brain, they know not to.
So what to make of tragic, doe-eyed, all-American Justin Lavelle cruelly ejected from a Lyft on the Harbor Freeway by swarthy, villainous Tariq Rasheed, after being pepper-sprayed (allegedly) because he grabbed the steering wheel (allegedly) while having a panic attack, which he was prone to, though there is no way of knowing he was actually having at that moment? Justin was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver while walking along the shoulder, sobbing on the phone (also allegedly) with his mother in Virginia.
Who could do such a monstrous thing? Would I? Perhaps I might.
A 1 am ride from WeHo to Long Beach is a big, big moneymaker for a driver. You have distance, plus a late-night bonus of 50-60%, plus open roads. One can earn an easy $50 in half an hour, and still have time to make it back downtown for last call. Rides like that make driving profitable.
It would take an extraordinary provocation to cut it short.
“I couldn’t move the steering wheel an inch. I could have died. I had no choice but to save my life”.
Only the two of them know why this ride went south in a hurry. Justin, sitting in the passenger seat, called his boyfriend to complain the driver wanted to drop him off. A three-way argument ensued, then Justin “held” the wheel (twice, allegedly), forcing Tariq to continue on to Long Beach, rather than taking an off-ramp. Bad idea. That’s how you end up walking along the freeway shoulder, wiping pepper spray out of your eyes.

This is how far he had to walk. Stay well to the right of the white line, and you’ll be okay. So why didn’t he? The mystery of human behavior is revealed in danger.

David Madson, Andrew Cunanan’s second murder victim, watched as he murder his lover, Jeffrey Trail, in his apartment. Then he rode round with him in a truck for several days. Given a number of opportunities, he didn’t attempt to escape. Friends of David saw him with Andrew, walking the dog, but he made no outcry for help. Perhaps he was hoping, when the moment came, he could talk his way out of it. Watching the Versace miniseries, we root for him to slip away, but we know he won’t. He was executed in a lonely spot by a lake where he allowed his captor to take him. Don’t Be A Victim 101 says: never let someone else remove you to a remote location. Don’t relinquish authority over your destination. Don’t let them take the wheel. Fight or flight begins there.
The circumstances in these two cases couldn’t be more different. Intoxicated he may have been, Justin’s desire was to get to Long Beach. Tariq’s desire was to get home to his two sons. He had no margin for error. There begins the tragedy.
The driver of the death car, the person who didn’t stop? Now he’s in a fight or flight with his own conscience. That’s a longer, stickier narrative.
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