How Old To Use Uber

Andrei Stoica, an xviii-year-old from Portland, Ore., got banned from the ride-hailing app Lyft his sophomore year of loftier schoolhouse.

"It was the last mean solar day of schoolhouse," Stoica told MarketWatch. He ordered a car to get home, and the driver asked if he was 18 before he got into the vehicle. When Stoica said no, the driver told Stoica non only that he couldn't drive him but likewise that he would report him to Lyft LYFT, -2.79% , which has a policy confronting minors using its services.

Most 45 minutes afterwards, Stoica saw his Lyft account had been suspended.

Neither Lyft nor Uber UBER, -2.68% allows people under 18 to ride without a guardian. Uber declined to annotate on how often drivers enforce the age policy, only a representative said the company looks into reports of underage passengers, and drivers who give rides to minors risk losing admission to the app, as do under-age riders. Lyft did non respond to a request for comment.

Merely some teens and parents who are regular users of the apps said they either had no idea about the age requirements, or rarely saw them enforced.

In fact, Uber is currently wrapped in controversy for not post-obit its own rule.

On January 10, 12-yr-old Benita Diamond died by suicide early in the morning at a airtight parking garage in Orlando, Florida. She got in that location in an Uber subsequently using her mom's phone to download the app and paid for the ride with a gift card she got for Christmas, her family said. Her parents blame the visitor for their girl'south decease and appear concluding calendar week that they're considering suing. They say the driver should have asked her age given the company policy. An Uber representative said the company is investigating the incident.

Uber'south age policy isn't piece of cake to find

Several teens told MarketWatch they can hands utilise Uber without a guardian and take never been questioned about their age.

When you create a rider contour on the app, the visitor asks for a proper name, an e-mail address, a phone number, and a password — but non for a birth date. Fine print under the "Sign Upwardly" button reads, "By clicking 'Sign Upwardly,' yous agree to Uber'southward Terms of Apply and admit you accept read the Privacy Policy." Users must click on a link to encounter the 5,500-word Terms of Apply, which land that riders must be 18 years former to accept an account.

"I had no thought there was a minimum age requirement," Neal Patel, an xviii-yr-erstwhile who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, told MarketWatch. He said he first started taking Ubers on his own when he was 15, mainly to local restaurants or to the train station and then he could get into the city. He's never been asked his historic period, he says.

Alexandra Lachmann, an incoming get-go-year at New York Academy who grew upward in a New York City suburb, had a similar story. She's been riding in Ubers and Lyfts alone or with friends since she turned 13. She's never been questioned about her age and had no thought she was supposed to be 18 to arrive an Uber alone.

Some parents who rely on Uber said they had no thought minors aren't allowed

Parents besides told MarketWatch they were unaware of the policy.

Dina Brewer, a lawyer and female parent of three in central New Jersey, said she did not know passengers had to be 18 to ride in Ubers solitary. She lets her kids have the cars and thinks parents, not ridesharing companies, should be able to decide "whether their kids can use Uber at 15 or at 18."

A number of other parents said they were aware of Lyft's and Uber'southward age restrictions just piece of work to avoid them out of necessity — and most drivers don't resist.

Lydia Wilbanks says she will permit her sixteen-year-sometime daughter make it Ubers lonely as long as she can rail the machine's location on her phone. "I'm aware of the rule," she told MarketWatch. "Only what does a working single mom like me do when I accept a conflict in my schedule? I live in Atlanta and cabs simply aren't an selection."

"'Since I can't be everywhere all of the time, information technology has helped me quite a bit. I honestly do not know what I would do without Uber.'"

— — Single mom Jennifer Rice, Knoxville, Tenn.

Another single mom, Jennifer Rice, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, and works every bit a publicist, said she sometimes refers to Uber every bit her "co-parent." "Since I can't be everywhere all of the time, information technology has helped me quite a fleck," Rice told MarketWatch.

She'll often ship her kids to schoolhouse in an Uber. She told MarketWatch that a few drivers take asked for her kids' ages then canceled the ride, but that's "rare." And whenever it has happened, she's simply waited a couple of minutes and called another machine.

"I honestly practice non know what I would practise without Uber," she said.

Some drivers aren't clear on the age policies

Rideshare drivers who spoke to MarketWatch said information technology'southward unclear whose responsibility it is to verify a rider'southward age. The historic period policies for both Uber and Lyft state that users must be 18 to sign up for an account — though users don't have to enter their nascence date when they sign up — so presumably anyone using the app is of legal historic period. Drivers can ask for ID if they suspect a rider is under-age, but they're not required to by either Uber or Lyft.

Dylan Himmerich, a Lyft and Uber driver in Berkeley, Calif., said, "Many parents order rides for their kids and expect drivers to take them," referencing what both Rice and Wilbanks do regularly. Himmerich will question these kids near their age and deny them a ride if they aren't 18, but he says his approach isn't common. "Plenty of drivers just go confronting the policy and accept them anyway."

Dylan Himmerich, who drives for both Uber and Lyft, says he's denied rides to nether-age users.
Dylan Himmerich

Chad Stevens, an Uber driver in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said he knows he cannot drive anyone under-age and he has asked passengers to present ID before. But he's "not certain if Uber requires this."

He thinks creating an Uber account should exist more hard than it currently is for minors. "You lot shouldn't exist able to create an account if you're underage, but I just created i for my eleven-year-old son, then deleted information technology," he said.

"A driver's license browse would be a uncomplicated fix to this," Himmerich said. Scooter companies, like Bird and Lime, are already doing this to verify their users' ages.

Shares of Uber have been upward four% since the visitor's May IPO and shares of Lyft have fallen 22% since its Apr IPO. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -two.82% is up 12% year-to-date and the S&P 500 Index SPX, -two.77% is up 15% during the aforementioned period.