Sunshine Coast rideshare driver Kayleen Fleming confesses she’s been on an emotional rollercoaster in her first year behind the wheel, across more than 3000 trips.
The Mooloolah mother-of-two, who is about to turn 49, has been told passengers’ innermost secrets, heard heartbreaking and uplifting stories, and received copious chuckles along the way.
She can tell intuitively within a minute or so whether her new Uber passengers are up for a chat as she covers the length and breadth of the region and beyond. And, generally, they are, as they settle into the front or back seats of the red Mitsubishi Outlander.
From girls asking her advice about Tinder dates to university researchers sharing breakthroughs in their field of study, Kayleen unavoidably plays amateur psychologist, confidante, mother figure, friend and shoulder to cry on.
“It’s like people get in that seat and it all comes out,” she laughed.
“Maybe they’re thinking they’re never going to see this driver again. I don’t know, but I get all the stories and I love listening to them. I find it so fascinating.
“It’s amazing what people share with a complete stranger, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe they feel like you’re a common-ground person. You’ve got nothing to judge.”
Uber began operating its rideshare service on the Coast in late 2015.
In her eight to 10-hour shifts that can take her from home to Noosa, into the hinterland, perhaps even to Brisbane and the Gold Coast and back, Kayleen often finds herself acting as a sympathetic ear – like the time she picked up an 18-year-old girl who needed to get home to look after her little brothers.
“Her mum had mental illness, her father was in jail. She was going for custody of her little brothers because her mum was unable to look after the kids anymore,” Kayleen said.
“Her youngest brother was on the (autism) spectrum.
“She was telling me her dad had served in Iraq and he had to have his leg amputated and had become addicted to painkillers. He then went to a life of crime and ended up in jail.
“I just thought, ‘This poor kid. Eighteen years old and she’s become the head of the family’.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever got out of the car, walked around and given a hug.
“She was such an inspiration. I just thought, ‘How awesome is she?’.”
And then there was the time in Nambour when she picked up a man with a German shepherd service dog to help with his epilepsy.
“He was going to the 7-Eleven or something like that,” Kayleen said.
“He said, ‘I’m going to take the dog for her last ice cream. She’s going to be put to sleep tomorrow’.
“I sat there bawling.
“I said, ‘Do you want me to wait and take you home?’ and he said, ‘No, my wife’s going to meet us and we’re all going to have an ice cream together’.”
And Kayleen will never forget one woman on holidays from Sydney.
“She said, ‘I’m up here having a little break. My husband and I always wanted to come here’.
“I said, ‘Oh, is he enjoying it?’ and she said, ‘He’s not here. I buried him two weeks ago. He was 34. He had a brain tumour. I came on my dream holiday by myself’.
“I had to pull over for a little while and compose myself before I could drive again.”
After a Saturday night on the town, by contrast, her passengers can be the source of much mirth and laughter.
“One of my funniest moments was very early in the piece,” Kayleen recalled.
“I’d only been driving for Uber for a couple of weeks. I got an Uber XL request, so I knew there was going to be lots of people getting in the car because it’s a seven-seater.
“I pulled up at The Drift Bar at Caloundra and all these people were standing there. They all piled in the car. It was pouring with rain. They were going to Pelican Waters.
“We got to the destination and they all got out. But I looked right behind the driver’s seat and there’s a lady sitting there with her head down, sleeping.
“And I went, ‘Excuse me. It’s time to get out’. She just went ‘erhhh’.
“I quickly wound down the window and yelled out to the people: ‘Your friend’s still in the back’. And they went: ‘She’s not with us. She was just standing at our table. We just thought she was going on to the next destination’.
“This lady was drunk. Sound asleep. I was trying to ask her questions like where she lived.
“I thought, ‘It’s very late at night. It’s pouring rain. I’m not putting this lady out on the side of the road. I’ve got to get her somewhere’.
“I had to go into her bag and find her licence for her address because I couldn’t wake her up. It was the only thing I could do.
“Maybe it’s not the right thing to do but I had to do it and I had the next ride already booked to go to.
“It ended up she lived over at Little Mountain. So, I got her home, knocked on door and a man came to the door. I said, ‘Is this your wife?’ and he said, ‘Yes, it is. Thank you’.
“The ride was unpaid but off I went. I did my Good Samaritan thing. It’s good karma.”
Kayleen said that apart from the question: “Has anyone ever vomited in your car?”, she was often asked whether she had ever felt unsafe at any time while driving.
With a “panic button” on the app that switches straight through to 000 emergency assistance or her “follow my ride” family member, and with no money kept in the car, Kayleen is confident of her safety.
And she believes her age is her secret weapon.
“Quite often, I’ll get a group of young guys in the car and they’ll go, ‘Oh, it’s like our friend’s mum is picking us up’.
“They feel comfortable with me and I feel comfortable with them.
“Sometimes they push the boundaries. I had a young guy using vile language. And one of his mates said ‘Hey, don’t speak like that in front of a lady’.
“It didn’t faze me and I appreciated that young boy speaking up to his mate because it’s not appropriate, especially the C word.”
Kayleen also wins over the younger passengers by allowing them to plug in their own music for the ride.
While she already thought she had a good appreciation of music styles, even she admits her knowledge and range has been widened (though she is still not a fan of gangsta rap).
One band’s tunes on high-rotation in her car is now Fremantle foursome Spacey Jane, whose single Booster Seat took out the No.2 spot on the Triple J Hottest 100 of 2020.
Kayleen was already a fan, and had added the group to her Uber Spotify playlist only three days before she lucked out and picked up the band members the night before their gig at NightQuarter, Birtinya.
“I pulled up and looked at the guy and thought, ‘Oh, he looks a little bit familiar. Maybe I’ve picked him up before?’,” she said, as the party prepared to head out and explore some local bars.
“They got in the car and started talking about their gear arriving and they were tired from the previous gigs. And I said, ‘Obviously, you’re a band’. And they said, ‘Oh, yes, we’ve just played five nights at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. We’re in Spacey Jane’.
“That led to a conversation about Enmore Theatre. I said I was there as a 15-year-old to see The Angels live, and, fun fact, my dad as a 14 or 15-year-old boy used to play violin at the Enmore Theatre at intervals when it was a movie theatre.
“You always find that common ground to have a conversation with people.”
From some of the suitors of The Bachelorette Australia TV series having a night out in Maroochydore’s Ocean Street precinct to sex workers at brothels at the airport and Kunda Park (“They’re absolutely lovely and have got good stories”), Kayleen has driven them all.
And it was through a suggestion of one passenger that she added condoms to her list of free mints, water, deodorant, masks, tampons, hand sanitiser and vomit bags (thankfully, never used) on hand on every ride. She even has a sewing kit in case of last-minute wardrobe malfunctions on the way to a big date.
The rides have varied from the shortest at 1km (so some Caloundra girls on a night out didn’t get their hair wet on the way to the bar) to a two-and-a-half-hour journey to the Gold Coast hinterland (after a father went on a mission for bacon and eggs the morning after his daughter’s 18th birthday party and was nabbed for drink-driving on the spot but still needed to get home for work the next day).
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Another memorable long trip went from the Coast to Yarrabilba in Logan City.
“This young bloke had just broken up with his girlfriend, so he was going back to his dad. I drove him and his life’s belongings back to Yarrabilba,” Kayleen remembered fondly.
There’s really been only one passenger she’d rather forget: a disrespectful, swearing, misogynistic backseat driver Kayleen encountered on only her third shift, driving in unfamiliar territory on a dark and rainy night.
After putting up with the drunk man’s rude behaviour and comments for long enough, Kayleen kicked him out 2km from his destination, told him he could wait for a male driver and reported him.
He got out, slammed the door, and “flipped her the bird” as a parting gesture.
“You do get people like that but it’s not very often,” Kayleen added.
“That shook me and I had to finish for the night. He upset me.”
One couple also had a nasty verbal fight in the back of the car that unnerved her but Kayleen said most people appreciated her driving them from Point A to Point B without incident and with little fuss.
As a result, she also drives for Shebah: women drivers only for women, children and the family unit.
“We can take dad and the kids, mum and dad and the kids, just mum but not just dad,” Kayleen said.
“We do a lot of school pick-ups and drop-offs.”
Kayleen started rideshare driving on the suggestion of a friend after she initially had started an aged care course.
“My dad was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago and I kind of put my life on hold to help look after dad,” she said.
“It was like I was meant to do that (course) to help look after dad.
“He eventually had to go into a nursing home.
“Dad passed 18 months ago. Emotionally, I couldn’t go into aged care. It was too raw for me.
“I said to my husband Casper, ‘I just want to do a happy job’.”
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After finding the right car, securing her bank loan, doing all the Main Roads Department paperwork, undergoing a medical clearance and police check, and completing her online inclusiveness training and other requirements with Uber, Kayleen was finally ready to start her new job. Then COVID-19 hit.
She was sidelined from April to June last year.
“It didn’t really affect me because I hadn’t been out and about then. Obviously, I had a car loan that I had to pay, but I was just lucky I had enough money (to get by),” Kayleen said.
“When they announced that things were going to start opening up again, I thought, ‘Oh well, it’ll be quiet. I can go out, learn the app and how it all works and get the gist of it’.
“Well, I turned it on – it was a Thursday afternoon, exactly 4pm – and my first ding came. I was so excited and off I went.
“It hasn’t stopping pinging since.
“I do remember the first ride: her name was Chan and she was a medical student. She was so lovely.
“She went from Chancellor Park to Kawana.”
Kayleen said she enjoyed being her own boss and the flexibility of working hours she had as a rideshare driver, allowing her to turn the app on and off to ensure she never missed the important things in life.
She has even started writing down memorable moments in a journal.
“It enriches your life. You think, ‘That person changed me because of their story’.
“One of the things I really love and I appreciate is the comments people leave on my Uber app.
“People have said some really lovely things. They’ve made my day and I’ve obviously made their day.
“I go back and look at the comments. They’re still on there.
“I had a young bloke leave a comment that said: ‘You’re such a MILF’. Uber removed it but I took a screen shot. I had to show my boys to say: ‘See, your mum’s still got it.”
