Or overthinking...taxi driver

[mamajong]

Taxi home late at night, im tired not too chatty, driver asks if the taxi is warm enough, i said yes, especially as its cold outside. He says hopefully your house is warm - is anyone else at home? I thought it an odd question so just said that the heating would be on. He said again 'is someone there at home? To put it on?' So i said yeah my dh, even though i dont have one. Aibu or is that an odd question for a taxi driver to ask a solo female passenger travelling home late at night??

Trust you gut instinct, he's made you feel uncomfortable and I can understand why.
I would be ringing the company to let them know how he's made you feel. He's probs done this multiple times. Please call them.

Agreed. You did the right thing to invent a house sharer.

If a taxi driver asked me this,I'd be very suspicious! I would have said exactly the same in your position.

You did the right thing by making up a DH. I’ve done stuff like that loads of times, including waving to an imaginary person in my house when I get picked up by a cab so they don’t think the place is empty, that sort of thing. Getting dropped off round the corner from where I actually live etc

The driver shouldn’t be asking passenegers if they live alone. FWIW, I would probably not take this any further not because he doesn’t deserve to be brought up on this but because he presumably knows where you live and I would worry about that. I know that’s a bit of a cop-out but my safety is my priority.

Unless he has been living under a stone he should know that asking a woman, who he driving to her home, if she lives alone is 100% inappropriate. Or any woman really - there seems to me only one reason to ask that's to see how vulnerable they are.

I am torn between @shitshow1976 view that you should call the office, at least to say they should remind all drivers not to do this and @Beekman caution that as he knows he said that and he knows where you live - it might not be a good idea.

Maybe call and ask which driver took you home and make a note of his name so you can ask not to have him drive you should you use that firm again. I did that many years ago with a cab firm I used frequently (so the controllers knew me) and when I next booked a cab and said I didn't want that driver, they told me he'd actually been arrested for a serious crime.

Creepy. I'd have done the same as you.

@Lurkingandlearning that is chilling!

Yes it was. I decided there couldn’t be that many drivers like that around and I’d had my “close shave “ and carried on using cabs. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get around as I needed to late at night / early hours.

Sorry this happened to you

If they are at all chatty in a cab, I always mention the DH. I don't have one.

It genuinely puts me off going out these days - I do have a local taxi firm that I use but I have met a couple of drivers who gave me a bad vibe.

sorry, but that was a very odd comment for him to make.

@mamajong excellent answer. I would have said exactly that. Be safe.

He could have meant it completely innocently in the context of someone being home to put the heating/fire on so you'd be walking into a cozy house, or he could have been prying to establish that you'd be alone and vulnerable, or that there wouldn't be anyone there to be suspicious if your taxi didn't arrive on time. It's not worth the gamble.

I only use Uber, and have it set to automatically share my ride with my partner and sister. The driver sees that too.

Thanks all, appreciate the comments and reassured that I'm not alone in finding it odd.

Even if it was an innocent question (which it 99% wasn't) he'd have to have the highest level of ignorance to think it an appropriate or reasonable question. And he asked it twice.
Please phone the company; the sleazebag should be off the streets.

It might be an innocent comment from someone with a total lack of awareness of how he would sound to a lone woman or it might be a creepy comment from a creepy man.

Either way, it's worth reporting to the taxi firm, especially after John Worboys.

Totally inappropriate and worrying. If he had asked only the initial question then it might have been a weird small talk and not thinking (the might is working overtime) but when he asked again, there is no excuse.

This is kinda what i thought too

I'd raise it with the taxi company, but say you are raising it as you do not want him asking this of people who do live alone. As in, don't mention that you currently do.

It's totally wrong behaviour from them.

My local taxi company, when booking a taxi late at night, will ask if I'd prefer a female driver, which I totally appreciate. I took have had a few drivers that have made me feel uncomfortable, and some I've fake living at a different address and gotten out early.

I wouldn’t like it and would have mentioned my husband is waiting. YANBU.

A good idea in this situation is to fake call your fake DH and fake chat to him asking if he’s tracking your location so he can have a drink on for you when you get home. I’ve done this when I was in a very dodgy cab and he immediately stopped doing what he was doing.

Or such like.