Maskless woman banned from Lyft and Uber after caught on camera assaulting driver

An Uber driver is picking up the pieces after a confrontation with passengers who wouldn’t wear a mask.

He even offered to buy her one.

The passenger was caught on a now-viral video that showed her not only assaulting the driver, who is South Asian, but also coughing on him — and then, just for good measure, in a moment not filmed, she pepper-sprayed him. She also grabbed his phone and ripped his mask off, The Associated Press reported.

The woman was with two other women wearing masks when Subhakar Khadka, 32, picked them up Saturday in San Francisco’s Bayview District.

Three women can be seen in the back seat berating and cursing at Khadka as his car sits on a highway shoulder. At one point, the woman without a mask coughs on him, grabs his cellphone from the center dash area and rips off his face mask.

A passenger was caught video that showed her assaulting an uber driver.
A passenger was caught video that showed her assaulting an uber driver.

Khadka, who moved to the U.S. from Nepal eight years ago, said the incident was racially motivated, and in line with increasing attacks on Asians living in the States.

“I never said anything bad to them, I never cursed. I was not raised that way,” Khadka told KPIX-TV. I don’t hit people.I am not raised that way, so they were not getting out of my car,” said Khadka.

Police are investigating, and Uber has banned her.

The woman, on the other hand, has said she plans to sue Uber and vowed to take Lyft from now on. However, Lyft also banned her.

“Although this incident did not involve the Lyft platform, the unacceptable treatment of the driver in this video compelled us to permanently remove the rider from the Lyft community,” the ride-share service said in a statement obtained by KPIX. Driving in a pandemic is not easy. Please wear a mask, respect one another, and be a good person.”

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