2026 August - Emerald Coast Woman Magazine - Magazine - Page 32
Over a few days, I rode with four different
women, each from a different culture and
background, each with her own reason
for being behind the wheel. None of them
will be named here. But their stories are
worth telling, because together they say
something true about how women are
quietly building lives around each other’s
needs.
By Nicole Thompson
T
here is a particular kind of humility
that comes from needing a ride. Not
a 昀氀ight, not a night out, just the ordinary
errands of an ordinary week. Work in the
morning. Groceries to pick up. A doctor’s
appointment that cannot be rescheduled.
For most of us, a car is so woven into daily
life that we forget it is a privilege until it
isn’t there.
That was the season I found myself in this
summer, after my husband’s car accident
left him healing and my own car in the
shop for repairs. Suddenly I was the one
waiting on the curb, watching a small dot
move across a map, trusting a stranger
to get me where I needed to go and back
again, safely.
It was during that stretch that I 昀椀rst noticed
Uber’s Women Preferences feature, listed
in the app simply as Women Drivers, a
setting that allows women riders to request
a woman driver. The company rolled it out
nationwide earlier this year, after years of
feedback from women who simply wanted
more choice about who they rode with. It
is a small thing to tap on a screen. It turned
out to be a much bigger thing to sit in the
passenger seat and actually talk to the
woman driving.
32 | More Than A Ride • Emerald Coast Woman
One woman drove between shifts at her
regular job, squeezing in rides during the
hours most people are commuting or
running errands themselves. For her, the
income was not the whole story. It was the
ability to control her own schedule, to say
yes to a ride when the timing worked and
no when it didn’t. There is a kind of dignity
in that 昀氀exibility, one that a traditional
hourly job rarely offers.
Another was retired, or
mostly retired, and drove
because she wanted to stay
engaged with people. She
had raised her children,
built her career, and
now found herself with
time on her hands and a
genuine curiosity about
who might climb into her
back seat. Driving gave her
conversation, purpose, and
a small supplement to her
昀椀xed income. She told me
she liked meeting women
who reminded her of her
daughters.
A third drove for the same
reason so many of us make
any decision about money:
to help cover the gap
between one paycheck and
the next. Her main income
came from elsewhere. Uber
was the buffer, the thing
that made a tight month
