I think a lot of people would love to take a cab or Uber and not feel obligated to chat with the driver, especially if they're going home after a long day in customer service. And I love the sentiment.

LOL - what aspect of the Chinese culture do you think you picked up sitting silently in a Uber listening to driving directions in Chinese?

Thanks, IA. You are correct, listening to other people talk is much better when you can't understand their language. I quit taking taxis because of a string of obnoxious male persons loudly talking into their cell phones as they were supposed to be driving. Thankfully they were not speaking English so at least I did not have to listen to their inane crap conversation.

If you make fun of people's accent when they're trying to speak english, and you only speak one language, you're a douche.

Rad? Ugh, please speak English.

I never chat with my Lyft driver; however, I always tip the driver. I'm sure they'd rather have my money than my conversation.

Bless you, IA. Your story serves as a good gentle reminder for all of us.

Lovely.

RAD sentiment! we need more of that.

Look at half these dingleberry comments already; yr cynicism is so cheap & easy. It’s a pointless, self protective measure used to disconnect from the tenderness inherent in genuine connection. Talk to your lyft driver, to the clerk at qfc, and your neighbor. Learn something more than the echo chamber of your own digital life. There’s a pulse out there somewhere. Find it.

@7, did you mean to say, "Don't speak slang" ? Because "rad" is English, you dingus.

@13:

But I'll be he thinks "gubbamint" or "edumacation" or "nuculer" are actual words...

Sarcasm and irony missed by a mile, @13 & @14.
Nothing against slang per se, though by definition it's not English, but jeeminy Orion, "rad" is one of those objectively icky words that is paints the speaker thouroughly as an ass. Of all the slang interjections anyone could freely choose, whether artisinally sourced first-wave SoCal skater from the 1980s, or twee post-ironic from every decade since, it's just awful. Worse than "awesome", though it's meant to be way better. "Whoa, RADICAL!!" Ugh. If I were the cabbie I'd have said, "Speak English or go back where you came from." Whence the sarcasm. Use "rad" in passing conversation referring to anything other than the stock prices for the Right Aid Corporation, Reactive Associative Disorder, or to a unit of absorbed radiation dose, and prepare to be judged as severely as if you'd said "nukuler". At least by me. Yick.

Nothing against slang per se, though by definition it's not English

Then why is "rad", among hundreds of other slang words, listed in all the English dictionaries? For somebody hung up on prescriptive use of language, you're awfully imprecise with it yourself. In this case I think you were going for "It's not standard or proper English".

objectively icky

I think you need to check the definition of "objectively".