As an Uber driver,
Gerald Ogden has sung along to Justin Bieber with college students, dressed up
as Captain Jack Sparrow to drive partygoers on Halloween and watched a man
vomit out the window of his meticulously clean SUV.
While being the only
sober person in a car full of drunk people might sound like a nightmare to
some, that’s exactly why Ogden does the job.
Ogden, a 32-year-old
Dallas personal trainer, began to drive for Uber in the spring after a friend
got hit by a drunken driver. He said he donated the extra money to a GoFundMe
page that raised more than $11,000 to help pay her medical bills.
Now, he says, he
continues to drive 40 to 50 hours a week not only to supplement his income but
also to prevent drunken driving. “We’re giving them an alternative,” explained
Ogden, who said he, too, was once hit — but not seriously injured — by a
drunken driver.
Ogden plans to take
Uber’s #PledgeToProtect, which asks its drivers to provide 50 trips in December
in an effort to prevent drunken driving. For the first 500 drivers who take the
pledge and the first 500 Uber customers who promise not to drink and drive,
Uber will donate to Dallas Challenge, a nonprofit dedicated to improving the
lives of the city’s youth.
An Uber spokeswoman
said several other Texas cities, including Austin, San Antonio and Houston,
will also participate in the campaign, which kicks off Monday.
Ogden sat in the
driver’s seat of his 2012 black Ford Edge last week, preparing for his first
holiday season as a driver. An Uber card hung from the rearview mirror. The
vehicle’s black leather seats were smooth, its floor mats free of crumbs.
Life’s daily clutter — crumpled receipts, a used water bottle, a spare red tie
— was hidden away, stuffed into the driver’s door storage area.
He said he gets his car
washed almost daily. He considers it a business investment.
On his cellphone, the
Uber app showed his location, a blue dot hovering alone on the map.
He waited to see if
someone would request a ride. No one did. It wasn’t a busy time: noon in the
suburbs during a holiday week.
But Ogden said he
regularly gets requests without leaving his Lake Highlands neighborhood.
“Anywhere they’re going to be drinking, people more and more are taking Uber,”
he said.
More often than not,
Ogden said, customers make conversation and ask him why he became an Uber
driver. That’s when he tells them his story.
He recalls the time he
and a buddy got sideswiped by a drunken driver on U.S. Highway 75, causing the
car to fishtail .
He tells them about his
friend Jenna, an actress in Los Angeles who was going to grab some food when
someone who was suspected of being drunk ran a red light and T-boned her
vehicle, leaving her in critical condition.
“It’s not just about
[the driver] and the risk they’re taking,” he said. “They’re putting other
lives at risk.”
Ogden was telling this
to a customer one night when she told him that she was, in fact, an Uber
employee and wanted to pass his story along to the team at the office. That’s
how Ogden became the local face of the company’s #PledgeToProtect campaign.
But Ogden said
recognition wasn’t what he was looking for when he signed up to drive for Uber.
He just wanted something to do, some way to make a difference.
“These things kind of
leave you feeling helpless,” he said.
Later that afternoon,
Ogden went in search of customers. As he cruised down Northwest Highway toward
Highway 75, his phone beeped over his Bluetooth. He had a hit.
“All right,” he said.
“Here we go.”
By SARAH MERVOSH
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