Doordash Drivers Safety Should Always Come First

Within every line of work, there is a case that can be made about the dangers involved. As a Doordash driver, the most obvious dangers that come along with the job are getting into a car wreck (Since we are on the road so much) and dealing with the dangers that we may encounter while delivering food. Yes, even though most deliveries are smooth and normal, there are some real weird, creepy and scary deliveries that dashers sometimes find themselves doing.

That is one steep hill! Please note, NOT actual footage of my dangerous Doordash experience. 

There's no doubt in my mind that any experienced dasher out there will be able to share a story about how they ran in to a situation that put their safety in danger. It's just something that is bound to happen. The question is how a dasher is going to react.

When there is a choice between a dasher's safety or completing a delivery it should be obvious that personal safety should always be placed first. The reason that this is on my mind and the topic of this post is because of a situation I ran in to a couple of months ago while out making a Doordash delivery.

My Doordash delivery that I didn't complete

This night was a rather slow night in my area, and there were not many calls coming in. It had been about 40 minutes of sitting around. Usually, I would not sit around that long, but I was into something on my phone that made the time go by fast. I was excited when a call finally did come in. The call was for Chipotle. To make it even better it was a $15 call and only four miles away. Fast and easy money was to be made!

I arrived at the merchant, and the food wasn't ready. At this particular restaurant, whenever food is ready, they place the food on a shelf, but it was not there. I told them that I am here to pick up food for so and so.

They say okay and that they are about to start preparing it. I might add here that there was no other customer's in the restaurant. The place was empty. I excused myself for a few minutes and told them that I'll be right back. I come back in five minutes and all of a sudden there was a line of about 20 people. Yep, the place suddenly got packed.

I sat down at a table and waited for my order. I am watching the girl at the cashier and she sees me sitting there. The other workers are suddenly very busy it seems as they just got bombarded with all of these customers.

After 10 minutes, I started feeling forgotten and very annoyed, so I finally go up to the workers and tell them something. What do you know? My order has been sitting behind the cashier girl for 10 minutes. The idiot never told me anything.

I finally leave Chipotle and was now on my way to make the delivery. I ended up in what seemed like a real rural area. There was no street lights or anything. With it being very late at night this wasn't a good thing as it was very dark. There are paved roads though and everything seemed fine.

Then, GPS told me to make a right. I did, and the pavement lasted for about 50 yards and then turned into a dirt road. I had no problem with this. In the region I work in, there are lots of areas that have dirt roads. I was not familiar with this area at all though so the plan was to just take it slow.

I was driving real slow on that dirt road when I noticed that it turned into a steep dirt road hill. According to GPS, I was supposed to go down this steep dirt road hill, drive straight for maybe 100 yards and then go up another steep dirt road hill. I've made a little amateur illustration in the pic here to give an idea of what I was supposed to do. 

That little car is me on the dirt road. I was supposed to go down this very steep dirt road and then go up the other side. If this was a paved road, it would not be a problem. To tell you the truth, if it was even a regular dirt road I may have done it, but the road started coming to a point where you wonder if it is even a dirt road anymore. The terrain was kind of rough and there was bushes growing all up in the middle of the dirt road.

When I say that the road was steep, I mean it was very steep. I gave the little illustration pic to give an idea, but I don't even that pic gives you the right idea of how steep this hill was. I was going to go for it, and my car had barely just made the tilt of starting to go down the hill when it started to slide for a moment.

Once that happened, I said screw this **** and decided that I was not going to do it. I wanted to get my car to the point where the headlights would be lighting up ahead to see what I would exactly be going up against on that hill, but I couldn't even get my car far enough on the hill so that I could see what was ahead.

I looked at the GPS and there was no other way around. It was dark as hell, the customer didn't answer their phone, but they did answer their text. They said to just go for it, everything would be fine. I was like yeah right, I'm done here.

Sorry to say this, but I would be lying if I said that all those Doordash customers out there put a dasher's safety first. Even though most customers are normal caring people, they often will not fully understand the dangers that a Doordash driver will sometimes have to go through in order to get them their food.

Don't ever let a Doordash customer tell you what is safe and what is dangerous

It was pretty annoying that this Doordash customer didn't seem to understand that it would be dangerous for me to go down that hill. I thought that once they knew the problem that they would come to where I was at and get their food. I was not very far from them as their house was just over on the other side o the hills. They didn't offer to do that though, and I could tell that there would be no effort on their part to help me out here.

This delivery was very dangerous and I would have been a fool to continue. I actually think that I should have stopped way before I did. A dashers life, in this case me, is more important than risking having your car slide down the dirt hill in the middle of no where in the pitch blackness of the night. If that would have happened, I probably would have been there in my car injured and bleeding to death with nobody around. A dasher should always put their safety first!

What to tell Doordash when you can't complete a delivery?

I actually called Doordash about the situation and let them know what was going on. I told them that I was returning the food to the merchant and that they shouldn't have another driver delivery this order due to the danger of it. I was seriously thinking about how I wouldn't want any other driver doing this delivery. It was just too damn dangerous, and I know that there would be some brave dasher out there that would have taken on the challenge and regretted it.

Doordash told me that they would not pay me for the order and to return it. I drove back to the area where Chipotle was at and knew I had a free meal for myself. Why? Because I knew that Chipotle would be closed.

Honestly though, even if they were open, that food was not being returned. With not getting paid and all, I was at least going to get something out of this. All in all, it was a big waste of my time. I didn't get paid and lost money during this hour, but oh well, all you can do is eat your problems away.

Other dangerous Doordash deliveries

I've had so many weird and dangerous Doordash deliveries throughout the years as I'm sure many dashers have. Most of mine have been more of judgement calls and not being at at the threat of somebody else.

I'm sure that some dashers have felt in danger because of other people while making their delivery, and that's why a dasher should carry some kind of protection with them. I'm glad to say that I have never been in danger or threatened by another person. Here is a few other links though where things did get scary and dangerous for me that I have written about.

This story is about an experience that was more frightening than it was dangerous

This story was very dangerous and had me running for my life

Live and let learn!