I scheduled a professional car service -- for a non-emergency medical transportation. I would be coming out of heavy sedation and needed point to point transportation with no hassles. It didn't quite turn out that way.
The driver arrived at the other end of the medical plaza, several buildings over, and texted me they were "here", while I am sitting outside in this Arizona July heatwave -- in a wheelchair, in front of my doctor's office -- where my driver was supposed to be. The medical staff had to track her down to come to actually pick me up instead of having me chase after my ride under sedation.
When the car finally pulled up, it was not the Sedan I was expecting, and had ordered; instead, an SUV pulled up. Granted it had Lincoln plastered all over it. I asked about where the car I ordered was and she argued that this car WAS a sedan. Uhm, no. Google it. There's a big difference between the two types of cars.
The driver decided to take a different route home from Glendale to Ahwatukee due to traffic delays, but said nothing to me about it. Nothing looked familiar, and I kept asking, "Where are you going? What are you doing? This is not the way there. Where are we?". It was very confusing in my condition, and it was freaking me out a bit to realize I was in this car and unable to communicate with a driver that was driving a route completely unfamiliar to me. She kept saying something back but her accent was too thick for me to decipher in my state. She finally just yelled back to look at the GPS on my phone.
The driver was determined to maintain her 70 mph on the highway by tapping her foot on the gas, the brake, gas, brake, gas, brake. It doesn't do much to a driver holding a steering wheel -- but in the back seat, I was in a constant state of forward, back, forward, back, forward, back... I said something. She said she "has to brake when she drives" -- totally missing what I was saying. The second time I asked her to "just find a lane and put it on cruise control for a smoother ride". She responded saying the car had no cruise control. That has to be the first car I've ever seen in this century having no cruise control at all.
The point of hiring a 'professional' car service was so that I could lie down, rest, with peace of mind, confident the professionals would do their job in getting me home safe. There would be zero rest or comfort on this trip with limited communication. I felt like an idiot holding the pillow I brought with me, thinking I'd have a restful ride home.
I got home safe, and that's about it. When sedation brings your skills to basically nothing, it is more difficult to climb up into an SUV, rather than slide into a lower riding Sedan. Equally, trying anything technical on my cell phone was problematic, so I never got to check the gps she yelled back at me. The car was nice, the driver dressed up all spiffy -- and that's what I paid for.
I felt I was completely vulnerable to this driver ... as I most definitely was.
I took Lyft to get 'to' my appointment. That ride was 1/3 the cost, and was 5X more pleasurable, than this experience was.
I would equate this experience to that of a jacked up price for a meh Uber ride.
I had planned to chalk this up as a series of unfortunate events, and that be that, but I called AVT to let them know what happened. The manager was polite, let me say everything I needed to say and then simply said,
"Thank you for calling.". And that was it.
Wait! He also decided to argue that an SUV was the same as a Sedan. He was more interested in defending the car selection than the driver & my experience.
I had to get prior approval from the medical facility in order to use AVT for my medical transportation. They gave approval based on the elaborate AVT website & my urging. I am straight up forwarding this review to my doctor. They take transportation for their patients extremely serious. I won't speak for them, but I'd be surprised if they ever gave approval again for any of their patients -- but it won't matter. I won't ask approval for AVT ever again. read more
