How do you feel about deaf ride-share drivers?

[unicorn]

Several days ago, we needed a Lyft from the rental car center at Providence's TF Green Airport. We picked an "XL" and were assigned a driver who, it was announced, was deaf, and it also sent a couple of sign language signs we could use. I previously had trouble communicating with another ride-share driver who was deaf, and this driver was 14 minutes away. Well, there was a Lyft Comfort driver who was 8 minutes away, so we switched, noting the long wait time. However, I feel that this is kind of a job in which ability to communicate with one's customers is important. Have you ever been assigned a deaf ride-share driver? How did you feel about the experience? Is it my duty to learn ASL so that I can get.a ride?

[Moses]

I'm OK with deaf drivers while using apps (have nothing to discuss with driver - everything is in app already). In some cases it is even big plus, when you don't want driver to hear your conversations, or you want to travel in calm and don't want any radio/music to hear. 

[PeterRS]

8 hours ago, Moses said:

In some cases it is even big plus, when you don't want driver to hear your conversations, or you want to travel in calm and don't want any radio/music to hear. 

My one problem with a deaf driver would be their inability to hear traffic noises around them. A crazy driver heading at speed towards your taxi from the left or right might escape his peripheral vision. 

[floridarob]

I had a driver that had listed he was deaf, come to find out he didn't speak English and it was his front to avoid having to talk to passengers.....  you know the scenes on TV or a movie,  where a lawyer drops a book or something heavy in the courtroom and the person with whiplash turns their head to look, I said to him at one point in the ride, "de donde eres" and he replied soy Dominicano, then he realized I tricked him and he came clean that he doesn't speak English and this helps him avoid doing so 😳

[PeterRS]

32 minutes ago, floridarob said:

 I said to him at one point in the ride, "de donde eres" and he replied soy Dominicano, then he realized I tricked him and he came clean that he doesn't speak English and this helps him avoid doing so 😳

Not quite in the same league and on a bit of a tangent, for years it was claimed that the day after the sinking of the Titanic the headline in the Aberdeen Press & Journal was "North East Man Lost At Sea." This was later easily disproved as a fabrication. The city does have one link with that disasterm however. The helmsman at the time the iceberg was hit was a man named Robert Hichins. Although neither Aberdonian nor Scottish, Hichins is buried in a graveyard in Aberdeen's Trinity Cemetery.

[vinapu]

20 hours ago, PeterRS said:

 Although neither Aberdonian nor Scottish, Hichins is buried in a graveyard in Aberdeen's Trinity Cemetery.

so I gather he is still dead ?

[vinapu]

20 hours ago, floridarob said:

 "de donde eres" 

you forgot to explain that in Spanish it means ' how big is your dick?"

[PeterRS]

11 minutes ago, vinapu said:

so I gather he is still dead ?

I haven't checked recently, but I think your assumption is probably correct! I wonder who puts flowers on the grave.

[floridarob]

46 minutes ago, vinapu said:

you forgot to explain that in Spanish it means ' how big is your dick?"

I figured he was Dominican from his looks, so that question wasn't necessary 🤷‍♂️

[unicorn]

14 hours ago, floridarob said:

I figured he was Dominican from his looks, so that question wasn't necessary 🤷‍♂️

That's rather talented of you. I sometimes try to guess where someone is from based on their accent, but I can't imagine trying to do so based on looks. One can learn something and break the ice with the right guesses. Once, while we were traveling, I heard a coule speaking Dutch in what I thought was a Flemish accent, and I asked if they were Belgian. I found out that while they were Dutch, they lived in the Dutch Province of Limburg, which is a finger of Dutch territory which pokes into the Belgian Province of Limburg. We had a laugh about it, and I called them "honorary Belgians." So now I know that if someone speaks with a Flemish accent, he may be either Belgian or from the Dutch Limburg Province. 

As for identifying Spanish-speakers by their accents, I would frequently pick out from my patients' accents that they were from a Caribbean country, and not from Mexico or Latin America (or Spanish, which is even more obvious). However, I could only say that the darker the skin, the more likely to be from the DR, then Cuba, then Puerto Rico being the least likely. The only thing I can say from regarding physical appearance is that for some reason I tend to find Colombians as the most attractive people from Spanish-speaking countries. However, I would never guess that just because I find a man hot, that he's probably from Colombia. I was very taken by a Paraguayan dude, and would have married him had he been an honest man. 

[Riobard]

From the looks of it seems like deaf drivers stay on course without wandering, relatively speaking.