Lyft Driver Accused Of Forcibly Removing Student From Car For Cursing

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Lyft Driver Seen Physically Removing A Girl From His Car

A University of Albany student had an extremely unfortunate experience recently after her Lyft driver allegedly attempted to physically remove her from his vehicle after he overheard her curse on the phone while talking to a friend.

19-year-old Pilar Carrera was trying to travel from her dorm on campus to the bank, but her ride ended abruptly after only about three minutes when the Lyft driver–identified as only Todd on the ride-sharing app–became angry.

“Being from the Bronx, cursing is just in my vocabulary. Yes sometimes we have to learn to turn it on and off, but WE ALL occasionally swear,” Carrera tweeted. While she says she didn’t recall what word she used, she explained that her language caused the Lyft driver to turn around and yell at her. He allegedly screamed at the student that she would not curse in his car, which caused her friend on the phone to ask her what was going on in the car.

“And I was just like ‘listen this man is buggin’ [the f***] out,’” she tweeted, recalling the incident. That’s when Carerra said the driver turned around again and yelled at the young woman to “get the [f***] out.”

The young woman tweeted that she asked the driver to cancel the ride and she would get out of the vehicle, which is allegedly when he exited the car, and she started to record what was happening on her phone.

According to Carrera, she was only able to capture four-second clips because she had Snapchat open at the time and that was the camera she could quickly access during the confrontation.

After attempting to remove the 19-year-old physically, the driver returned to his vehicle and told her he was taking her to the police station. “I said I would’ve simply left if he canceled my ride and we dealt with it as such. He took matters into his own hands to forcefully remove me. I decided it is no longer worth my life to stay in this car. He throws $5 at me for the ride and says [get the f*** out]!”

Lyft provided the following statement to Yahoo Lifestyle, saying: “Safety is our top priority and there is no place in the Lyft community for this behavior. We have been in touch with the passenger to offer support and permanently deactivated the driver,” the company said.

Carrera wrote on Twitter that she called 911 after the altercation and was transferred to the University Police Department, which she claims did not take her incident seriously. Following some backlash, The University at Albany Police Department released a statement on Twitter, explaining that they encouraged the student to file a complaint.