They are reflected quite well in my opinion. Here is a blog post detailing the system they implemented in March 2012 http://blog.uber.com/2012/03/14/clear-and-straight-forward-s.... They also have useful notifications for when surge pricing ends. Not sure what happened in this situation though.

In fact, they've changed and improved the system since then. Now you have to confirm surge pricing by typing in the multiplier.

Recently they made it so you have to not only agree to the surge pricing, but also type in the surge amount, e.g. "1.75".