How many people haven't had to handle asshole drunks at some point in their lives?
Plenty. And many of them called the cops rather than face off against a belligerent drunk.
I should specify that I don't mean "handle" as in physically. I mean as in tolerate their presence and/or prevent anything bad from coming of it by social means - negotiation, clever suggestion, etc. I don't drink, have never been drunk, never been involved in any sort of party culture, never had much of a social life, and don't have the type of friends who are prone to getting drunk and stupid. And even I have had to manage drunk friends/family getting troublesome on occasion. It seems really far fetched to me that this isn't something most people have successfully coped with without involving police. And I don't like how we're culturally trained to believe that it's somehow different and much more dangerous as soon as it's a stranger.
And as an uber driver, if some intoxicated individual started shit with you and decided to get physical, what would your response be? Just "handle it"?
Getting physical can mean a lot of things. Most likely not seriously dangerous things. If I'm being assaulted with blows or weapons, I'm not calling the police at that point. That will be after the fact. If I'm not being assaulted as such, like they're forcefully trying to take something from me or whatever, there's little reason to call the police, unless whatever the disagreement is or protecting my wallet or whatever is worth the other's life to me, and still likely not possible anyway as the incident is occurring. If it's about verbal threats, fine, but you still have to weigh the possibility that police will show up and simply shoot the first person they see, and I'm not being hyperbolic there. You are rolling a life or death die at that point based on a threat, for both yourself and the other.
And in any other sense, the possibility of violence is so fucking small. This idea that anyone who's "on something" or acting strange or looking a little disheveled or whatever is likely to respond violently to any reasonable attempt at interaction is 100% fear culture imparted on us by sensationalist media.