Something gone wrong with the booking process here, and presumably the driver doesn't know the difference between 'pet-friendly' and the assistance dog rules.
Good photo of the dog, though
Sheffield woman describes row with Uber driver over assistance doghttps://www.thestar.co.uk/community/she ... og-4958595A Sheffield woman has slammed Uber UK after becoming embroiled in a row with a driver in Sheffield who she claims refused to accept her booking because she had an assistance dog.
Ceri De’Ath said she was shocked when her Uber driver arrived to pick her up but refused to accept her support dog, Romi.
Footage Ceri filmed on her mobile phone showed the taxi driver involved in a row with the 39-year-old.
“It was incredibly demeaning,” Ceri said. “I sent a string of messages to my husband just saying ‘help’.”
Ceri has epilepsy and Romi is her loyal support dog who assists her everyday.
The Batemoor resident was heading into Sheffield city centre for a work meeting and had booked a ‘pet-friendly’ Uber ride for January 22, 2025, the previous day.
She said: “I opened the car door and the driver started screaming at me that he wasn’t ‘pet-friendly’. I said that’s fine because she is an assistance dog.
“He got quite shouty. He wanted me to put Romi in the boot unrestrained and provide evidence of her being an assistance dog, which doesn’t exist, and proof of my disability.”
Ceri managed to catch parts of the encounter on video, in which German Shepherd Romi could be seen wearing her support dog uniform.
In UK law, taxi drivers must accept guide dogs or assistance dogs, like Romi, unless the drivers have a medical exemption certificate.
“He completely disengaged from me and wouldn’t speak to me,” Ceri said. “My husband came down and told him that he needed to take me. He also told him to speak with me, but [the driver] didn’t want to speak with me.”
Ceri, who works as a legal advisor for people with hidden disabilities, said the driver then cancelled the taxi booking, but since the ride was pre-booked Uber automatically started the process of sending another car for Ceri’s journey.
“Then the driver tried to get me to cancel the replacement booked,” she told The Star. “I would have got a £17 fee to do that so I wasn’t going to do that.”
A now-very late Ceri said the driver - after cancelling her initial booking and telling her to cancel the replacement - decided he would take her to the city centre after all.
“He started to drive up the road and it took me screaming at him to stop the car for him to let me out,” she said.
Ceri explained that she had been worried about being in a stranger’s moving car with no official booking after their earlier exchange.
She said incident left her feeling shaken and angry.
“The amount of stress he put me under could have sent me into a seizure,” she said. “Uber needs to provide training to their drivers and add more points of protection.”
The Star approached the Uber for a comment and asked what kind of disability training the company offered drivers, but no response has been provided so far.
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