Uber Driver Who Helped Stranded Teen Passenger Offered New Job for His Kindness
- DaVante Williams and his passenger had been sitting inside his car for over five hours before he managed to break from a traffic gridlock
- He later booked a hotel room for his teen passenger so she could sleep for a couple of hours as soon as the highway was cleared
- The act of kindness swiftly made national headlines as social media users praised Williams for going above and beyond his duties
- Uber, which gave Williams a shout out on its Twitter account, later contacted him to reimburse him for the teenager’s hotel room
- The biggest surprise came when the CEO of Alto, an upscale ride-sourcing service, offered Williams a part-time role supervising and training the company’s drivers
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An Uber driver, who was among many motorists stranded for hours along a portion of a highway in Virginia, USA has been hailed for his determination to get his rider home safely.
Source: UGC
DaVante Williams was praised and even offered a new job after going above and beyond to make sure his teenage passenger got home safe after hours of gridlock traffic.
After all the attention following the traffic incident, a report by Fox Detroit showed that Williams was offered a part-time role as a "lead driver" for Ride Alto.
In the new job, Wiliam's will supervise and manage other drivers for the upscale ride-sourcing service that currently operates in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and D.C.
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"It is an office job... we are working out the logistics of it," Williams said..
Receiving many requests
Williams, who works as a full-time realtor and property manager in Washington, D.C. while driving for Uber and Lyft on the side, said his ordeal started after he woke up from an evening nap.
He set out and picked up three different riders before picking up the teenager who was trying to head home to Williamsburg, Virginia — some 150 miles (241 km) away.
The girl was originally going to take a train, but it was cancelled due to a derailment, so she turned to Uber.
Williams said he picked her up at Union Station, they got onto I-95 and about 20 miles into their journey, near Lorton, everything came to a stop.
He made some attempts to get off the highway but was ultimately directed back to the standstill traffic on the interstate.
"I did not even see anything about the road being closed. I did not get any kind of alert on my phone. There was nothing," Williams said.
Stuck in traffic gridlock
Sitting there with nowhere to go, both called loved ones and friends.
Williams said he had drinks and some snacks in his truck and that his vehicle is good on gas — but he did start to get concerned about fuel as the clock ticked.
According to him, his young rider was very emotional after first having attempted to get home on a cancelled train ride, only to become stranded on the highway.
He said he spoke to her parents to let them know he would take care of their daughter. Ultimately, Williams found a way to exit the freeway around 7:30am the next morning.
Booking a hotel room
Exhausted from sitting in traffic all night and still a long way from home, he booked a hotel room for the young rider to get some sleep and make alternative travel plans.
He had even offered to drive her the rest of the way home once the roads were clear, at no charge but a family friend was able to pick her up and drive her safely home
"I’m happy it was me that was her driver. Any other driver, I’m not sure what would have happened. And based on her energy and presence, I felt I was put there for a reason," he said.
Story shared by Uber
Williams’ story was later shared by Uber that day in a tweet, which read: "Not all heroes wear capes."
An Uber representative later called him thanking him as one of their drivers and asking for a receipt of the hotel room to reimburse him.
Many stories have come to light after the I-95 shutdown. Another Uber rider was hit with a $600 bill, which was ultimately refunded by the company.
Some were captured helping their fellow drivers during the unfortunate circumstance, including a Baltimore bakery truck driver who passed out bread to stranded drivers.
Back at home, a distraught Embu Family is looking for a taxi driver who went missing while driving clients to a different town.
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Naa Ayeley Aryee Naa Ayeley is a creative writer with over ten years of experience in journalism and media. She started writing for YEN in 2017 as an editor on the entertainment desk and later became a monitoring editor.
Aba Afful (Copyeditor) Maame Aba serves as a copy editor at YEN.com.gh. She naturally enjoys working with words and has an eye for quality content. She has a keen interest in cyberspace and wants to see YEN.com.gh produce more impactful, thought-provoking, and error-free content. Aba has five years of experience as a content writer, blogger, author, and proofreader. She graduated from the Ghana Institute of Journalism in 2017. She joined the team in 2021.
