Suit: Sleepy Uber Driver Gave Rider Wheel, Awoke To High-Speed Chase

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Published on January 12, 2017, 5:30 pm
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Now this was a low rider.

An Uber driver from Philadelphia who allowed his passenger to drive his car last year when he became tired awoke to find his fare leading police on a high-speed chase in upstate New York that ended only when the rider crashed the Uber driver’s vehicle, according to a lawsuit filed in Bronx County Court.

Corey Robinson, 44, of Philadelphia, filed his suit last month against the passenger, Juan Carlos, of Bronx, and Uber Technologies, for negligence.

According to the suit, Robinson drove a leased 2016 Hyundai “under the direction and acknowledgment” of Uber and payments for the car’s lease were deducted from his Uber paycheck.

On April 2, 2016, Carlos, then 20, hired Robinson to drive him two hours from Philadelphia to Bronx, the suit said.

At some point during the trip, Robinson “fell into peril” when he became too tired to continue driving and allowed Carlos to take the wheel while he napped, according to the lawsuit.

In an April 5, 2016 article from the New York Post that was attached to the lawsuit, Robinson told a reporter that he awoke from his nap because the vehicle was going so fast he “thought the car was leaving the ground.”

“I told him to stop the car and he said ‘The police are chasing us,'” Robinson told the Post.

The article said New York state troopers clocked Carlos driving Robinson’s car 21 miles an hour above the 65 mile-per-hour posted speed limit on I-81 near Binghamton and when they tried to pull him over, he allegedly sped up.

Carlos exited I-81 in Colesville, NY, where he “forcefully came into contact” with a guardrail and went off of the road into an “earthen field,” according to the lawsuit.

Robinson claims he suffered injuries in the crash that caused him to become “sick, sore, lame and disabled” and that nothing that happened that day was “due to any negligence or culpable conduct” on his part.

Carlos was arrested and charged with fleeing police and driving without a license.

 

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Jonas Bronck is the pseudonym under which we publish and manage the content and operations of The Bronx Daily.™ | Bronx.com - the largest daily news publication in the borough of "the" Bronx with over 1.5 million annual readers. Publishing under the alias Jonas Bronck is our humble way of paying tribute to the person, whose name lives on in the name of our beloved borough.