This has always seemed to me as a "doesn't understand one way streets" issue. Uber seems to offer the ride to the geographically closest car first, rather than the driving distance closest. While Uber may (rightfully) want to avoid computing a shortest path between you and the driver, it seems silly that they don't do at least something with one way streets.
Are you sure that Uber offers the ride to the closest (geographically) car? I've noticed that most of the time when I see close cars, they are not the ones that snag my ride, which can be frustrating when there are multiple cars 2 minutes away and the car that wins my business is 10+ minutes away (this has happened multiple times to me). The map doesn't seem like it understands one way streets, but it also doesn't seem to prioritize by geography either.
