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I use a rideshare app when travelling between cities, which I often do. This saves money and is often very fun. People evaluate you as a driver, and it is important to keep a good score. I let 3 people go on the backseat of my relatively small car, which is usually not an issue. These passengers are usually complete strangers to me.

The app does indicate my car model, so people can see I drive a small car, even though I don't think they often look at it. I could also add this info in the description, but I'd rather not do so because that will likely get me fewer passengers and might still not be read by people.

I've had problems a few times with people who are clearly overweight, because they get fairly uncomfortable on the backseat, and then go on to give me a poor evaluation. They did have the option of looking for another ride with only 2 passengers on the backseat, and they could have reversed two places just for themselves.

Usually, the front seat is empty. But one time, a friend in a front seat offered to change seats with someone in the backseat so they'd be more comfortable. The "assigned target' didn't get the idea, let another passenger take the front seat and complained in the evaluation.

Besides that, the problem review-wise also happens when someone takes the front seat before I can do anything or there are too many overweight people such that having one or more of them in the back is unavoidable.

It is really important to me to avoid bad reviews, and I think I can do better if people would just take the front seat if that gives everyone more room.

When I encounter obese passengers on a rideshare, how to politely get them to use the front seat?

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    Hey Mefitico, I gave your question a small edit, as 'avoiding the bad review' isn't as on-topic on IPS, but we can hopefully help you with getting people to fit in your car, and thus maybe fix the review problem through that. I have a few questions, if you could answer them we might be able to give better answers: Is there always a friend on the front seat, or is the front seat most often empty? You say you 'asked' this specific person to take the front seat, can you include a rough approach as to what you said (was it really a question)? Did that person end up happily taking the front seat?
    – Tinkeringbell ♦
    Jan 9 '20 at 19:46
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    And one more, that didn't fit in the previous comment because character limit: Can you indicate on the ride share app that you have a small car that doesn't comfortably fit three large adults, and have you done so?
    – Tinkeringbell ♦
    Jan 9 '20 at 19:47
  • @Tinkeringbell : I appreciate the help, though I'm still thinking that "avoiding the bad review" is important to me. The app indicates the car model, so I's easy to check if you are going on a big or small car (people often don't do that), I can also describe in some text that the car is small, but while this is bad to get more passengers, people often fail to read info in that description. The front seat usually does not have a friend, and sometimes people hop in the car at different places, and because they're strangers I have no way of knowing who's overweight or not.
    – Mefitico
    Jan 9 '20 at 19:53
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    @Tinkeringbell : Thank you for being so helpful. That particular passenger was a recurring passenger (that's why I knew he was overweight), so he was also not allowed to evaluate me again on the app. But he dealt just fine with it, he didn't care as far as I could tell. It would have been a bad situation if I was assigning an unknown girl to the front seat, hence part of my concern. The part about the bad review ends up with: Obese people on the backseat are partially on fault. I understand them giving good but not perfect reviews but not low score reviews.
    – Mefitico
    Jan 9 '20 at 20:13
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    Okay, so if that person didn't give you a bad review and also wasn't a complete stranger, I suggest we take that entire example out, to focus the question on dealing with strangers. It seems you're doing fine with handling recurring passengers! :) Could you try and make that edit yourself? < click the link. I have to run for a few minutes ;)
    – Tinkeringbell ♦
    Jan 9 '20 at 20:16
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I think you need to make a decision here if you want to increase your chances for a positive review.

That is, accept only two people in the back seat.

I have a medium sedan, a Malibu, if I get 3 teenagers in the back who know each other, it will be a fun ride. If I get 3 adults in the back seat on an inter-city ride, and they do not know each other, it will be less fun.

How to resolve getting the larger person to your front seat, although some not-large person jumped to the front seat, or has been sitting there before the larger person has been picked up, it has to be like the hospitality business. You kindly request the person to change seats. Get out of the car of the car, open the front door and kindly ask to change seats. "I am sorry, would you mind please changing seats with the other person?"

Let's say, you have two men passengers in the backseat, sitting on the sides of the car and a lady is in between the two men, you still need to ask that they switch seats. It is not nice to be sandwiched in between to men in the back seat. If you want good reviews.

My brother has a rather large SUV and we needed to travel inter-city. In the back seat he had 2 large men, 3 men sitting in the back. One of them, the less large, could not move his arm after the long ride. Even though he has a large car, 3 people in the back can get uncomfortable. So your little car should not really get 3 people in the back seat unless it is a short drive.

I think the above would be common courtesy.

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