It turns out failing to wear your seat belt is a common drag on Uber rider ratings — it even hurt the rating of now-CEO Dara Khosrowshahi for a while.
While Khosrowshahi was interviewing for the top job at the scandal ridden ride-sharing company, he told The Washington Post, his rider rating was stuck at 4.73 out of 5.
"The board was not happy with that rating," Khosrowshahi told the newspaper. "I wasn't wearing seat belts in the back and I didn't even know that I was making the driver feel unsafe."
Just as Uber riders can rate their driver's attention to safety, drivers are encouraged to rate their riders on the same criteria, an Uber spokesperson told CNBC. And drivers frequently cite a rider's failure to wear a seat belt as a source of irritation — and also often a reason for lowering the rider's rating, the spokesperson said.
It's become a "social norm" to ignore the safety belt while riding in the back of an Uber, the spokesperson said, though the company's community guidelines encourage riders to buckle up "whether you're in the front or the back seat."
Riders often treat the service similar to a public bus, jumping in and out and sliding over seats — particularly now with features like Uber Pool that match riders to be picked up and dropped off at different points along a single trip.