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Can You Believe It? Taxis Are 200 Times Cleaner Than Uber/Lyft Vehicles

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dirty uber lyft rides

Can You Believe It? Taxis Are 200 Times Cleaner Than Uber/Lyft Vehicles

Ride shares apps like Uber and Lyft are nowadays one of the most popular forms of transportation. But on your next ride, you’re better off bringing along some hand sanitizer, because these vehicles also have an incredible amount of germs.

A new study by netquote.com, an online insurance agency, showed that ride-shares contain more than three times the amount of germs in rental cars and over 200 times more germs than taxis.

For the study, different surfaces were swabbed to see how many colony-forming units (CFU) of micro-organisms were present. The highest concentration of germs in ride-share vehicles was present on the window buttons, where more than 5 million CFU per square inch was recorded. Seat belts also held high levels of bacteria at 1 million CFU per square inch.

To get a better idea of how dirty ride share vehicles are, just compare them to a toilet seat. Ride shares have 5-thousand times the amount of germs.

So do yourself a favor and don’t touch too many things while your seating in that Uber or Lyft. Also avoid touching your face and mouth and wash your hands as soon as possible afterwards.

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DDG
DDGhttp://dannydealguru.com
Based in NYC. Points/miles enthusiast for years and actively writing about it for the last 6+ years at Danny the Deal Guru. I'm always looking out for deals. Making a few bucks is always nice, but the traveling is by far the best part of this business.

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13 COMMENTS

  1. I’m glad you explained that the cleanliness study tested multiple areas like window buttons and seat belts. My friends and I will be travelling out-of-state for a fan convention soon, so I want to figure out the details of our airport transportation before too long. Thanks for sharing this article and convincing me that using an airport taxi service would be the safer option for our health!

  2. Rubbish, BS, call it waht you like. Talk about making sweeping statements. Has anyone at MTM been in a NYC taxi lately. Sometimes I think I am in Mumbai or Lahore. Absolutely disgusting.

    • That would be my guess. The taxis probably have a legal guideline of cleaning protocols etc. where as ride share cars do what they want etc.

    • I find it to be opposite rideshare normally take much more pride in trying to keep the vehical clean and maintained because its there personal and work vehicle paid for with their own money, in most cases they are still paying it off, therefore they tend to care for it 1000 x better then a taxi driver that is using a company car who could care less about the car of the day he was stuck with.
      This is just a pointless study with twisted results most likely paid for by taxi union in attempt to be a scare tactic to help taxis regain customers. They took a micro drop sample in an unknown location and those results should just magically apply worldwide to every taxi and rideshare in any condition? Give me a break!! Who falls for that kind of published nonsense, fake news 🙂

      • Vacuuming the car out and wiping it down with germ killing cleaners are two different things though. That would be my guess.

  3. Their sample size says 9 vehicles total, that’s not a study. There’s NO WAY the average Uber/Lyft can have 5,054,000 CFU on the window controls and the average taxi can have only 23 CFU.

  4. The study does not show is who paid for it? I assume it the taxi companies play trying to get more business. The study sample data is not shown where were Taxis, UBERs & Rentals tested, what part of the city, what time of day etc… It all makes a huge difference. Or did they sample Uber’s during NYC rush hour and brand new Taxis that rolled off the lot in a small rural town? So many ways to twist results to publish the way you want to shock the consumer. In my option its hit and miss I been in UBERs that were old barley running old and dirty and others that the driver had OCD super clean cars with leather seats cleaner then my own car. My experience with Taxis they are usually somewhere in the middlee as the drivers do not own the cars they tend not to care about how clean the car is.

  5. I call BS on that study. I’m not saying rideshares are clean, but to imply that taxis are is ridiculous. Who funded this?

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