A woman says things took a scary turn when her Uber driver suddenly cancelled her ride and began driving in the wrong direction over the weekend.
She filed a police report and is hoping to bring awareness to prevent similar situations in the future.
"This guy tried to cancel our trip and take us somewhere else out of the way of where we were going. That's attempted kidnapping," said Elyse Madrid.
The 22-year-old said she ordered an Uber to her home in Belmont Cragin around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, hoping to get her and her friend to a late-night spot before the bars closed.
"I looked up, and I saw that where we were, and I was like, 'Okay, this doesn't look right.'"
She says they were supposed to be heading to Stardust Karaoke Bar at 710 N. Clark Street. She said she watched the driver hit the red button to cancel the ride.
"I was like, ' Excuse me, what are you doing? Why did you cancel our ride?'"
She says that was the first red flag. The second — his response.
"'Oh, my phone! My phone's acting weird. My phone's acting weird, or my sister canceled the ride,' and I was like, 'Your sister?!'"
Her Uber app shows a location on Hubbard as the drop-off address, but she says they were able to finally get out of the car on Randolph Street near the Kennedy Expressway.
She said the man kept saying that his phone was "acting weird" and said he could take them to their destination, but Madrid told him to pull over and let them out.
"When we got out the car, he sped off like in a panic."
She says that was the third red flag.
"He sped off at like 40-50 miles per hour ... when he turned a corner, I saw a police cruiser go after him."
The whole ordeal was not only triggering after she said she was assaulted in a cab last August, but it also has her worried about other riders that could end up in this driver's car.
"God forbid this was somebody else's daughters or, you know, their child or their siblings or say somebody's mother."
She says she didn't think she needed to use the Woman Drivers option that Uber rolled out earlier this year because she wasn't alone. She added that she could have used their SOS feature, but looking back, it would have delayed her from getting out of the car and escaping when she did.
Madrid said Uber provided a link where she could submit her police report, and it appears the driver's account has been deactivated.
CBS News Chicago reached out to Uber to see where they are in this investigation. A spokesperson for the rideshare company said in a statement, "What has been reported is deeply distressing. We have removed the driver's access to the Uber platform and are continuing to look into this. We've reached out to police, and will support their investigation in any way we can."
