Whether it’s an emergency or regular commute to our workplaces, ridesharing has become an essential part of our daily lives. Especially due to their safety features, we can travel late at night without any hesitation even if it’s after 12am. But the blemish in ridesharing is ‘offline trips’, which has increased and become a major safety concern in recent times.
Understanding offline trips
Offline trips occur when a driver, rider, or both accept a ride in the app, access the location and contact details of the other, but then cancel the trip and complete the transaction outside of the app.
Drivers often request offline trips for different reasons, e.g., they’re experiencing app issues. They may also be requested by riders who claim to prefer offline trips, among other reasons.
For riders
Despite their potential appeal, offline trips put your safety at risk.
But by taking rides through the Bolt app, you have access to these safety features:
- Real-time tracking: see your driver’s location.
- Share your journey: share trip details with loved ones who can track your journey;
- Driver ratings: rate a driver after a ride, ensuring only the best drivers use the platform;
- Customer support: access our 24/7 Support team.
When trips are taken offline, you can’t access these features, and in the event of an issue, investigations are much harder to carry out.
For drivers
Offline trips may sound appealing as a way to cut corners, but it’s important to recognise the hidden dangers they pose.
Incidents that occur off the app are difficult to track and aren’t covered by ride-hailing company’s Safety team or ride insurance.
For Bolt, taking rides outside of the Bolt app is also a fraudulent act. Doing so will result in account suspension or deactivation.
It is high time that we understand that both riders and drivers risk their safety by taking offline trips. We should question ourselves – just to save a few bucks, is it really worth the risk?