Uber drivers are thrilled with the company's plan to bar passengers with low ratings

"It's great, because some people are just unpleasant to everyone for sport and it makes the rating system inaccurate," Barb, a driver in Colorado, said.

Finally, bad passengers might be reprimanded.

"I applaud it," Patrick, a driver in Los Angeles, said. "A lot of passengers act like there are no repercussions to the way that they behave in my car. I think that if they knew that a low enough rating would get them banned it might help. Riders having a bad day will take it out on the driver and that makes the job worse than it needs to be."

Read more: Uber and Lyft drivers reveal the most annoying things that passengers do during rides

The news came just days after terrifying video surfaced of a Lyft driver in New York being beaten by a passenger. A union that represents 6,000 drivers in the city came out in support of the new passenger rules:

"Holding riders accountable for their behavior on the Uber platform is an important safety measure to protect drivers as well as fellow riders who may book shared rides," a spokesperson for the Independent Drivers Guild, said in a statement.

"While most riders are respectful, banning riders who threaten driver safety, spew racist rants, and disrespect or damage our vehicles is the right thing to do. For too long there has been one-sided accountability and this is a positive step toward correcting that."

"The banned passenger will get a new phone number and a pre-paid debit card and will be back in the saddle again," David, a driver in California, said. "I had a driver who attacked me arrested, that made me feel better than any ban."

Uber and Lyft explicitly prohibit passengers under 18 years old from taking a ride, but it doesn't stop many parents from requesting rides for their children, or teenagers with phones and cards from making accounts.

"If Uber can't even keep under-aged kids from creating accounts, how will they stop low star passengers?" Brad, a driver in California, said. "It's all fluff."

"A lot of times it's not the passenger who's the troublemaker," Andy, a driver in Boston, said. "Many times it's someone in their party. How are they going to ban them? This is a step in the right direction but, like most things Uber does, it's a halfhearted step."

"This is absolutely a great plan," Ellis, a driver in Dallas, said. "It seems like Uber/Lyft are doing a lot to protect passengers but not the drivers. Drivers are required to have a profile photo, but often we do not have any idea of whom we are picking up. We only have a name to go by. It puts drivers in a compromising position when arriving to pick up an unknown passenger when there are multiple people standing around."

• Uber's first quarterly earnings report as a public company tops Wall Street expectations
• People are freaking out about Uber's plans to bar riders with low ratings, comparing it to a dystopian 'Black Mirror' episode and China's social-credit system
• Uber will bar passengers if their ratings drop to a certain level. Here's how to make sure you don't get booted.