Uber, Lyft passengers are too polite to tell drivers to be quiet

Even if you want to tell your ride-hail driver to STFU and drive in silence, most of us hold our tongues and let the driver prattle on.

Miss Manners would be pleased with the results of Gridwise's passenger and driver report out this week. After surveying 200 drivers and 1,500 riders in collaboration with the Migo on-demand ride aggregator app, Gridwise (a data analytics firm that tracks the ride-sharing industry) found 90 percent of passengers said they would never tell a driver to stop talking even if they're annoyed.

More than half of surveyed riders said they'd rather their driver stayed silent during the ride. More than 40 percent said their driver has annoyed them in some way, so it's not just constrained to talking too much.

The survey covered a lot of annoyances drivers and passengers deal with when ride-sharing in Lyft and Uber trips around the U.S. Yes, the irritation goes both ways. A strong 83 percent of drivers said they've been annoyed by passengers, too.

But like passengers stifling their request for a quiet ride, only 21 percent of drivers said they've actually confronted riders about annoying behavior like talking too much, talking on the phone, playing music, or eating in the car.

Passengers do more than spill their guts verbally, they also barf in cars. A solid 35 percent of drivers said riders have thrown up during a ride. That's IN the car. Hopefully none of those drivers have exploited the throw-up cleaning fee that prompted "vomit fraud" alerts last year. Drivers were claiming passengers vomited in their cars to receive clean-up money for nonexistent upchucking.

If you're too timid to ask your driver to be quiet, you could always cough up more cash to get the job done. For an additional fee you can request "quiet mode" in Uber Comfort and other premium rides like Uber Black and not seem as rude. For drivers, barf-free mode doesn't exist yet.