A man visiting Washington, D.C., claims he was taken for quite a ride by an Uber driver on Tuesday.
Was just kidnapped by an @uber driver in DC, held against my will, and involved in a high speed chase across state lines with police #Crazy
— Ryan W Simonetti (@rwsimonetti) July 8, 2014The man, Ryan Simonetti, is the CEO of a company called Convene, based in New York. He and his colleagues called for an Uber after finishing up some meetings while in D.C.
As they got to the Uber, they noticed a taxi inspector speaking with the driver, The Washington Post reports.
They got in the car. The Uber pulled away, and they saw that the inspector turned on his lights and began following them.
That's when things started to go wild.
"It was like an episode of 'Cops,'" Simonetti told The Post. "We've all seen the 'Cops' episode. This only ends two ways. Either the car crashes or the guy jumps out and runs. And he had plenty of opportunities to slow down and jump out and run, and he wasn’t doing that."
They continued driving for around 8 to 10 minutes, sometimes at very high speeds. The driver said that if he pulled over, he would be fined $2,000 by the inspector, Simonetti said.
A spokesperson for the D.C. Taxicab Commission confirmed that there was an incident on Tuesday, and that it's being investigated. According to the spokesperson, the inspector saw that the Uber had Virginia license plates and wanted to make sure that the passengers used Uber's app, rather than hailed the car off the street, which is illegal in DC.
"Uber became aware of a potential incident involving an UberBLACK trip in Washington, D.C., [on Tuesday] afternoon," Uber spokesperson Taylor Bennett told Business Insider. "Rider safety is our No. 1 priority. We will cooperate with authorities in their investigation and have deactivated the driver pending the outcome."
The driver has since been "deactivated," according to The Post.
Thanks everyone for the concern. We're safe. @uber and law enforcement are dealing with it now.
— Ryan W Simonetti (@rwsimonetti) July 8, 2014For its part, Uber performs "rigorous" background checks on its drivers, including county, federal, and multi-state checks.
SEE ALSO: Here's the infographic Uber sent its drivers to explain the new price cuts