Carsick in Uber :(
Unfortunately had an incident last night where I got sick in an Uber. I get carsick on occasion, usually just enough nausea that I get uncomfy. A friend and I had some drinks and a late, somewhat heavy, dinner after a shift and missed the last tube so called a car. A circumstance under which I had ordered Ubers in the past with no issue.
My friend was dropped off first. We talked for a bit, but the driver had a tendency to suddenly brake which started to make me queasy. I put my head between my legs and the sick feeling disappeared. Friend was dropped off and I raised my head to say goodbye before we continued on our way.
Head back down and I still felt fine. A few minutes later and suddenly blahhhhh. It happened so quickly I didn’t have time to ask the driver to pull over beforehand. He does when he notices and I step out of the car. He starts yelling at me, saying this will cost me a fortune, while I clean up the mess with napkins he’s passing me. I apologize but I get frustrated as he continues to yell and I start matching his energy, telling him it was accidental. I finish cleaning what I could and he repeats that he will send me the cleaning bill. I say “That’s fine. You do that. Leave me here, I will find another way home”.
Obviously I feel terrible and I will take on any cleaning fee the driver sends me, but would there have been a better way to handle this in the moment? I.e. offer to give him funds outside of the app etc? At the time I lacked the wherewithal to handle his anger while handling my own mortification while also cleaning his backseat, but a few phrases or questions at the ready might have gone a long way.
Also, should I have cleaned it up? I read that to submit cleaning claims drivers often have to take a picture of the mess. Should I have encouraged him to do so before I wiped up the majority of it?
I learned my friend also got sick later that night. Perhaps we both had a bad reaction to what we consumed and the timing of mine was unfortunately triggered by the car trip.