Blind man in Colorado says Lyft drivers refuse service because of seeing eye dog

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – A colorado man who is blind says he’s been denied Lyft rides because of having his seeing eye dog with him.

Lyft is respodning to the reported issue, saying they take these situations seriously.

Refusing someone a ride because they have a service animal violates Lyft’s policy and goes against the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Terry Garrett says, he goes almost everywhere with his seeing eye dog, Venus. He says, he informs drivers of his dog prior to them accepting the ride.

“I put a note in the app that says I am totally blind and I will be riding with my service dog. That gives Lyft drivers the option to look at that note to see if there’s anything that they need to do to accommodate me,” Garrett says. He gave one recent example of a driver refusing him, saying “The driver showed up and all he would say was ‘no pet, no pet’ and I tried to explain to him this is my service dog, you can’t refuse me service, and he just drove away.”

Garrett says the past two times drivers refused him, they also refused to cancel the ride on their end of the app, forcing Garrett to cancel on his end because he cannot request a new ride until the previous one ends.

“If I cancel, then it looks like I refused them. They are not penalized then for refusing the service,” Garrett says. “With increased refusals, it messes up my schedule. This last one I was left out in the rain, so that was a bummer.”

Emily Shuman, Director of the Rocky Mountain ADA, says drivers cannot refuse a rider because of having a service animal. She says rideshare giants have had this issue before.

“Both Lyft and Uber have been in trouble for this. They’ve gotten complaints filed against them and the department of justice has sued them and there’s been settlement agreements with both Lyft and Uber around access for people who have those service animals,” Shuman says.

Shuman says drivers can only ask riders two questions to confirm the legitimacy of a service animal.

“There are two questions that are allowed under the law: Is the service animal required with this disability? And, what work or task has this animal been trained to perform? … There is no service animal registry. There’s no certification card or any sort of proof that is legitimized under the ADA,” Shuman says.

After 11 News reached out to Lyft with Garrett’s experience, the company responded to Garrett saying in part, “We contacted the driver and have educated them on Lyft’s Service Animal Policy. If the driver in question violates Lyft’s Service Animal Policy again, they will be permanently deactivated.”

Lyft also sent the following statement:

“Lyft has a strict Service Animal policy that requires all drivers to accommodate passengers traveling with service animals, and we take any allegation of this nature very seriously. There is no place for any form of discrimination on our platform and we ask that riders report issues immediately.”

Garrett says he hopes shedding light on his experience leads to better driver education and stricter penalties within all rideshare services.

“I want to try to educate them so that that way we can get this issue under control and we can have better rides for everybody.”

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