Uber to put Bop It game in the back of its cars to stop drunken passengers attacking drivers

The company is also installing mirrors in cars as a way of calming people down

Uber is to leave the Bop It game in the back of its cars, in an attempt to subdue its drunken, aggressive passengers.

The smartphone-enabled taxi app is trying a range of new measures to try and harmonise relationships between its drivers and their riders. And that includes pacifying them with the busy 90s game so that they don’t distract their driver.

“If you use the Uber app in Charlotte, North Carolina you might find a Bop It toy in the back of your driver’s car,” the company wrote in a post about its new efforts to monitor drivers. “Folks there have found it’s a great way to keep drunk riders entertained so they don’t distract their driver.”

Bop it is made up of a stick or handle, with a series of buttons and other input mechanisms. The game will shout at its player to operate any one of those, and will keep doing so increasingly quickly until they get it wrong – at which point they lose.

By keeping drunken passengers distracted with the game, the company hopes that they’ll ignore the driver in front and allow them to concentrate.

The company has also installed mirrors in some cars in Seattle, according to The Guardian. That aims to calm people down since people are more likely to moderate their behaviour if they can see their reaction, according to the company.

Attacks on drivers by drunken passengers are becoming increasingly common as the service gains in popularity. YouTube is full of videos of drivers being harassed and hassled by their passengers, as The Guardian points out, and is becoming one of the major risks for Uber drivers.

The company has actively marketed itself to drunken people as a way of getting home safely, and so is unlikely ever to ban or restrict them from the service. It has run advertising campaigns at busy drinking times like New Year to encourage people to take taxis rather than driving themselves.