Tag Archives: uberx

That Time I Was a Lyft Driver for Halloween

Ah, the memories… Even if I try to forget, Facebook always reminds me of the stupid shit I did in the past… And wrote columns about…

The increasingly blurry lines of driving for hire

By Kelly Dessaint

published on Nov 6, 2015

I was a Lyft driver for Halloween.

The idea came to me at last week’s barbeque. For some reason, driving around San Francisco, picking up fares with Lyft’s iconic trade dress on my cab, seemed like an absolutely hilarious prank. Even if I just caused confusion, at the very least it would be a noteworthy social experiment.

So that Saturday, once it got dark, I fastened the fluffy pink Carstache Lyft sent me when I first signed up to the grill of National 182 and attached the Glowstache I’d received as a top-rated driver to the dash.

I created a Pandora station around The Cramps, Misfits and Ramones.

To augment my trickery, I planned to tell my passengers I didn’t know where I was going and that it was 200 percent Prime Time all night.

I figured everyone would laugh and throw piles of money at me for having such a clever costume.

On 16th Street, a girl dressed as a spider flagged me down.

“Can you take me to Geary and Fillmore, please?”

“Sorry, I’m a Lyft driver,” I said merrily. “I don’t know where that is.”

“It’s easy,” she responded in all seriousness. “I’ll direct you.”

“…”

From Japantown, I crawled down Polk Street behind a beat-up white limo. A few cab drivers looked at me like I was committing the greatest sin by “rocking the ’stache,” as they say in Lyft parlance.

Trevor, the Street Ninja, impersonating Travis Bickle, cruised past me at one point cracking up.

“I’m a Lyft driver!” I yelled out the window. “Where am I? What street is this? Are we in SoMa?”

I stuck to the more congested parts of The City, where I knew my caricature would get the most exposure. Some Lyft drivers scowled at me. Others blew their horns or flashed their high beams.

The majority of my passengers, though, didn’t seem to notice or care. They just told me where they were going, and off I drove with my mouth shut.

So much for being a friend with a cab.

After dropping off a group of revelers at Bar None, I was heading deeper into the congestion of Union Street with The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” at full blast when a guy darted out of the crowd.

“You!” He pointed at my cab, laughed and jumped in the backseat.

Barreling down Gough, we talked about irony and thrash metal. When I dropped him off on Valencia, he almost took off without paying.

“Hey, I’m only pretending to be a Lyft,” I reminded him.

On my way to the Haight from the Mission with a fare, Other Larry pulled up next to me on Guerrero in Veterans 233.

“Nice fucking mustache!” he shouted.

“Look at me!” I jeered. “I’m a Lyft driver and I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing!”

“Does it ever get old?” the guy in the backseat asked.

“What?”

“Making fun of Lyft.”

“No.”

On a ride through the back roads of the Western Addition, I tried to explain to another guy the tension between the Smartphone Hailed Internet Transportation Services and cab drivers and why the Lyft mustaches on my taxi were so hilarious.

“You mean you can’t do Lyft in a cab?” he asked. “I always assumed you guys were all the same.”

The same?

Sure, the lines are blurry these days: Flywheel is an app and a taxi company; most Uber drivers are Lyft drivers and vice versa; decommissioned Yellow cabs are used as Uber-Lyft cars; Towncar drivers slap fake TCP numbers on their bumpers to access commercial lanes; out-of-town cabs come into The City all the time and pick up street hails; and now Uber-Lyft drivers are putting toplights on their Priuses.

According to a recent study from Northeastern University, the streets of San Francisco are congested with more than 10,000 vehicles for hire on average. During a holiday like Halloween, that number is considerably higher. But only taxicabs are required to follow rules and regulations. Everyone else is free to play make-believe all they want.

It doesn’t even matter if the portrayal is convincing. The general population just wants the cheapest and most convenient ride available. Who provides the actual service, whether they’re knockoffs or the real McCoy, is completely irrelevant.

Especially on Halloween.

____________________

Originally appeared in the S.F. Examiner.

Do You Remember Peer-to-Peer Transportation?

Leave a reply

lyft-glowstache-cab-window-san-francisco

Remember when UberX and Lyft were referred to as peer-to-peer transportation? Or what about Lyft’s former motto: “your friend with a car?”

When I first started driving for Lyft in February of 2014, it was all about pink mustaches and fistbumps. That’s long gone. Now it’s “rides in minutes.” Although they still refer to their drivers as being part of a community, we know that’s bullshit. Lyft has grown up. It’s no longer about competing with Uber and taxis, but also the bus, with their discounted LyftLine service.

Uber, which was never one to be confused with anything remotely associated with a community, refers to itself clearly and succinctly on their website as “on demand” transportation. Enough said.

But this rampant forms of convenience doesn’t stop with cheap rides in other people’s cars. There are the bus lines like Bauer’s, who bill themselves as “intelligent transportation.”

And there’s Chariot, the private shuttle service who uses the tagline: “Your commute, solved.” Apparently, Chariot offers riders the ability to crowd source the routes you want. And who doesn’t love crowdsourcing?

No, Taxis Are Not Doomed, and Here’s Why

2 Replies

yellow-cab-safeway-market-wrong-way

Last week, tech news sites were frothing at the mouth over some misconstrued details in a S.F. Examiner article about Yellow Cab filing for bankruptcy, which implied that Uber and Lyft may have have been a contributing factor.

This was cause enough for celebration as most tech writers were pleased as punch to declare Uber the victor in its prolonged battle against the dreaded taxi industry.

Here are some of the catchier headlines:

Forbes: Uber’s First Casualty? San Francisco’s Largest Taxi Company Filing For Bankruptcy

The Verge: Thanks to Uber, San Francisco’s largest yellow cab company is filing for bankruptcy

Quartz: The biggest taxi company in Uber’s hometown is on the verge of bankruptcy

Ars Technica: Uber, Lyft helped facilitate slow death of San Francisco’s largest taxi company

Gizmodo: Uber (and Lyft) Finally Bankrupted San Francisco’s Favorite Taxi Company

According to the actual story, however, Yellow Cab was hit with a multi-million dollar insurance settlement and, now that their coffers are emptied, they are filing for bankruptcy protection to keep their creditors at bay.

This is fairly standard business procedure. Not much to see here…

But the article also included a statement from Yellow Cab claiming they are not able to fill all their available shifts and they’re having a hard time retaining and recruiting good drivers.

The knee-jerk implication being that all the good drivers are going to Uber and Lyft.

Let the doomsday scenarios begin…

Slate’s senior technology writer Will Oremus got all riled up and posted an article with the very provocative title, “The End of the Taxi Era.”

He starts out:

Thanks to Uber, the entire industry is doomed.

Definitely committed to his half-baked thesis, he goes on to write:

It’s a battle the taxi industry appears increasingly certain to lose. The only questions at this point are how long it will take and what will be left standing in the end. It’s beginning to look like the answers will be: “not long” and “not much.”

Those are fighting words, and Mr. Oremus knows it. His entire article is the perfect example of the kind of lazy journalism that defines click bait.

I’m actually loath to comment upon his gaffe-laden drivel because I know it will only validate his bullshit Chicken Little premonition — You see, I pissed off a bunch of cab drivers. I must be on to something! — but his elitist viewpoint is so offensive, I can’t restrain myself.

No, taxi companies are not failing, just his reading skills.

The reasons why Uber and Lyft are having such a major impact on the earning potential of cab companies are real simple:

Uber and Lyft charge fares that are anywhere from 40-70% less than the regulated cab fares. (Unless it’s surging, of course.)
They don’t have to worry about buying and maintaining fleets of cars or operating clean energy vehicles.
Uber and Lyft don’t have to carry comprehensive insurance that covers drivers, passengers, public and private property, as well as any bystanders who may get hurt in the process. What their sketchy, off-shore insurance company will cover is still very much in doubt since they refuse to accept any responsibility for what happens with their “partners,” who are told to use their own insurance first (and commit insurance fraud in the process as personal policies don’t cover commercial activities). Even if they are in a no-fault accident, they are still required to pay high deductibles to file a claim with Uber’s or Lyft’s insurance companies. ($1,000 and $2,500 respectively.)
Uber and Lyft have no obligation to train their drivers beyond a few short YouTube videos, which emphasize giving out bottled water and snacks to improve ratings, seeing as how their driving skills won’t be doing them any favors.
Uber and Lyft don’t have to pay for city permits, which allow taxicabs the use of taxi lanes and taxi stands. But their drivers just use them anyway. Why not? They work for a company that encourages breaking any law they don’t agree with, so why not act by example? After all, those taxi lanes are super fucking convenient.
When it comes to SFO, Uber and Lyft drivers don’t have to queue with hundreds of other cabs in four parking lots, waiting hours to get to the front of the line to pick up fares. They just wait in the cell phone lot for a ping, drive up to departures and get their fares.
Uber and Lyft also consistently skirt ADA regulations, and by limiting their service to apps, they leave large parts of the population out of the equation.

The playing field between the TNCs and taxi companies is so astronomically uneven it’s criminal. Any sane person can see the lopsided advantage Uber and Lyft have over law-abiding taxi companies. But when you’re a click-hungry journo who only wants to sensationalize an issue, why delve any deeper than the shallow end? Uber is valued at 60 billion and Yellow Cab is in chapter 11. That means Uber automatically wins, right?

Uh, no.

If all Sir Flub-a-Lot knows about the taxi industry is what he hears in the back of some guy’s Prius or on a tech blog, then yeah, I can see how he could easily read about a cab company filing for bankrupcy and immediately jump to the conclusion that all taxi companies are doomed.

There are so many other factors at play here that Oremus is clearly missing due to his prejudice against taxis, and since I don’t have anything else to do this afternoon, let’s examine a few, shall we?

1. San Francisco has more than one cab company. Besides Yellow, the other two large companies are Luxor, who also has their own app, and Flywheel Taxi (née DeSoto). There are also numerous smaller fleets (Citywide, National/Veterans, Fog City, Super Cab, Union Cab, Town Taxi, Green, etc. etc.), many of which are restructuring on their own, moving into hybrid owner-operator models, downsizing fleets and embracing technology to compete with ride-hail services. Even more taxi-hailing apps are going to enter the market. As someone who writes about tech, you’d think Will would appreciate the myriad developments going on in the industry. But no, Mr. Doomsday only has this to say about cab companies’ apps:

If there were ever a time when taxi companies might have been able to leverage their market position to defeat Uber on its own terms, that time has long passed.

Way to be a bummer, dude. But did you know…

2. Uber and Lyft drivers are getting squeezed so tight, they aren’t making any money. Unless it’s surging, natch. But with so many drivers on the road in San Francisco, it never surges like it does in other cities. On New Year’s Eve, the super bowl of ride-hailing, the surge in San Francisco only went as high as 4x the normal rate, while in other cities it went as high as 8.8x.

And now, with the latest rounds of price cuts, Uber drivers are in open revolt. Many are quitting.

How low can Uber set the rates before only the worst drivers with the worst records will be running the Uber app?

Uber is gunning for the lowest common denominator so they can browbeat them into submission. That can’t be good for business in the long run. Throw in a few predatory leasing programs for good measure and you’re on the way to a new form of indentured servitude. Awesome, right?

Oh, Will:

But the fact remains that its business model is far more convenient and congenial to consumers than that of the taxi companies.

Hmm, so you think proudly gouging one’s customers is a solid business move?

I pick up reformed Uber users in my cab all the time. They are coming back to taxis in droves because they have grown weary of confused tourist drivers, the unscrupulous business practices of the bigwigs, surge pricing and just having to deal with an app when there are plenty of cabs available on the street.

…the forces that drove the [Yellow Cab] company to the brink reveals that the ground may be starting to shift faster than almost anyone expected. And it should be enough to unnerve anyone who’s still banking on taxis to avoid the fate of newspaper classifieds, movie-rental stores, or payphones.

3. Cabs are not horse drawn carriages, VCR players or any other ativistic technology people like to compare them to. They are vehicles for hire, just like Uber and Lyft cars. Sure, somebody’s personal vehicle is going to be much cleaner (at least for the first few months) than a taxicab that’s run 24 hours a day, but other than that, the differences between an Uber car and a taxicab are a paint job, top light and a bunch of permits.

Cab companies have to play by the rules while Uber and Lyft cars do not.

Even our boy Will acknowledges this gaping loophole:

Uber and Lyft enjoy different cost structures, fewer regulations, and advanced data analytics, not to mention billions of dollars of venture-capital money aimed explicitly at helping them corner the market without having to worry too much about the bottom line.

But…

Regulation looms.

There are very good reasons why cabs are regulated: to protect the drivers, to protect passengers and to protect society at large.

At some point, Uber will have to be regulated to ensure public safety and workers’ rights. The current exploitative system can’t last forever. Eventually, the numerous court cases against them will go in front of juries and Uber will get bitchslapped into submission.

It makes sense that San Francisco is on the leading edge of the market’s upheaval. The Bay Area’s newspapers were also among the first to hit the skids when the Internet began to disrupt the media.

Dude, take your Adderall. Why are you bringing newspapers into this?

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports, medallions are “barely selling at all” in Boston and Chicago.

Nice segue… (wrong).

4. Now that the streets are saturated with cars looking for fares, most Uber and Lyft drivers are starting to realize what cab drivers already knew: the number of available Ubers and Lyft drivers need to be limited.

The massive influx of Uber and Lyft drivers into the city creates epic gridlock and congestion well past the normal rush hours. On the weekend, it doesn’t end until the bars let out.

One way cities limit the numbers of vehicles for hire on the road is through a medallion system, which are essentially permits to operate taxicabs. This system helps avoid the chaos of too many cars searching for fares at any given time. It also ensures drivers are able to survive during lean times.

Of course, the medallion system is confusing to those who want to peceive it as a corrupt aspect of taxi companies, investor greed or worse…

Mr. Oremus shares in this confusion, based on this statement:

If you’re going to bet on an asset that requires substantial capital outlay, a shiny black car with a leather interior certainly looks more attractive at this point than a little tin plate with a number and an expiration date.

It’s always cute when people who know nothing about the medallion system make grand declarations about it.

But let’s not forget to keep bashing on cab companies:

…they make their money from drivers, who pay them to take shifts. Those drivers are highly sensitive to changes in the marketplace, making them prone to bolt en masse as it becomes clear which way the wind is blowing.

5. Nobody is making very good money on the streets these days. Experienced cab drivers, however, those who have been at this 20+ years, have a better shot at navigating the storm, but for most Uber and Lyft drivers, the situation is very grim.

This race to the bottom is great for the consumers, but horrible for the workers. Realizing this, many Uber and Lyft drivers are signing up to drive cabs.

Can you believe it, Will?

Yes, Uber and Lyft drivers are turning into cabbies.

Crazy, right?

There is much to dislike about the way Uber does business. It has been ruthless and at times unscrupulous in its bid to overthrow taxis and crush would-be rivals as the dominant provider of on-demand rides.

6. Uber’s endgame isn’t the disruption of taxis. They are looking to become the non-virtual Google, where passengers are marketed to while they’re in cars, as well as through the app. Uber is collecting a goldmine of data from users, which they are already using against passengers, though not as blatantly yet.

There are some decent reporters out there who are aware of these developments. Unfortunately, the senior technology writer for Slate is not one of them. He’s still caught up in that whole driverless car smoke screen:

It treats its own drivers as commodities and is actively working to replace them with robots.

7. Self-driving cars are not part of Uber’s business model. Uber has managed to become the world’s largest taxi company without owning a single vehicle, all the while maintaining absolutely no liability for what goes on in those cars. After all, they just connect drivers with riders.

Well, if they invest in buying driverless cars, they will own all the capital, and the corresponding liability. That’s not their business model. In fact, that’s a lousy business model and — ahem — not much different from the current taxi model. I seriously doubt any VC with half a brain would want to invest in a company that plans to replace the current UberX model, which is their most profitable model, with something that would be a strategic nightmare.

At this point, any regulatory crackdowns will only serve to define the contours of Uber’s dominance.

8. So you say, but the day when an elderly couple from Missouri, who’ve saved up for decades to afford vacations to places like San Francisco, arrive at SFO and are required to purchase a smart phone and download an app in order to get into the city is the day we can officially say we have lost all touch with humanity.

There are plenty of people who rue that day. But not writers like Will Oremus, who seemingly loves Uber because it fits into his elistist worldview: like so many people in tech, he wants to force his perspective on the rest of us. Even if his perspective is skewed and fundamentally wrong.

If he can’t see that Uber and Lyft have a temporarily unfair advantage over taxis, which is why they are able to take up so much of the transportation market, then he is either stupid or an asshole. Either way, twisting the facts to meet one’s agenda is akin to the talking heads at Fox News.

Despite what millennials, those who have grudges against taxis and misguided pundits may say, the Uber/Lyft phenomenon is a novelty. It’s based on hype and hype alone, not profit.

Bloggers like Will Oremus play right into this hype machine. He and his ilk are like flies buzzing in our ears. They only want page clicks.

Like the Uber and Lyft feedback system they idolize, they’re after gold stars and high page counts to validate their self-entitled mentalities.

So, in this spirit, I’m sorry to say, I must rate Big Bad Willy’s ability to comprehend the complex world of public transportation one star.

In the Uber and Lyft world, this means we’d never be matched up again.

Oh, I can only hope to never have to encounter more piffle by this click-driven scribe ever again.

(with editorial assistance by Colin, Juneaux and Mr. Johnson)

A Power Couple Walks into a Sex Club…

Leave a reply

Her rating is 4.2.

I accept the ride automatically, like I do with all my Uber requests. The ping comes in and I tap the flashing icon on my iPhone as quickly as possible before it expires. I don’t even look at the passenger name. I’m too busy fighting traffic to reach the pinned location. But at a red light, I press the link in the Uber app that opens up the passenger info screen. That’s when I notice Julia’s rating.

In the four months I’ve been driving for Uber, this is the worst passenger rating I’ve seen. Even though very few Uber passengers have five-star ratings, they’re usually around 4.8 or 4.7. So as I approach Hyde and O’Farrell, I can’t help but wonder why Julia’s previous drivers had rated her so low.

I pull into a bus stop, hit the hazards, and look around. Nobody in sight. Maybe that’s the problem. Making your driver wait longer than a minute will definitely cost you a star. In the Tenderloin, two stars. At least. I’m lucky I have a space to pull into. Otherwise I’d be double-parked in the flow of traffic, getting honked at by spiteful cab drivers or possibly rear-ended by a disoriented tourist. I wait five minutes, watching my side mirrors in case a bus approaches. Just as I’m about to cancel the ride, my phone rings.

“We’re on Jones, between Eddy and Turk. Uber messed up our address.”

A likely story. Probably doesn’t know how to use the damn app. Inputting the wrong pick up location is another way to lose a star.

“Okay. I’m right around the corner. See you in a sec.”

Fortunately, I don’t have to circle four blocks on the one-way streets downtown. Just take a left at Eddy and a right on Jones. Pull up behind a double-parked taxi. A woman and a man wave at me. I unlock the doors.

“Sorry about that,” Julia says, as she slides across the back seat. The man climbs in next to her.

“No worries.” I pull into traffic. Glance at the cabbie eyeing me wearily. “The app can be a little janky at times.”

“McCallister and Baker,” the man tells me. “Do you need the exact address?”

“Nah. We’ll sort it out when we get there.”

I turn right onto Turk and head towards the Western Addition. I figure they’ll give me the silent treatment. Like most Uber passengers. Which, in the ratings playbook, is another lost point.

“How’s your night going so far?” the man asks.

“It’s cool. How you guys doing?”

“We just came from the Power Exchange,” he says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Do you know the Power Exchange?”

“A club?”

“A sex club,” Julia says with a hint of derision.

I can’t tell by her voice if she’s telling me because they’d wandered in by mistake or on purpose. “Really?”

“Yeah. But it was lame,” the man tells me. “We were the only couple there.”

“Just lots of dudes jerking off,” Julia says. “Following us around and asking if they could join in.” She laughs. “It was so gross.”

“There was that one woman giving a blowjob,” the guy points out.

“Ugh. But she was so fat and the dude was covered in hair… I had to turn away.”

At a stoplight, I glance in my rearview. They are an attractive couple. She’s made up like a three-alarm fire and he’s got the international man of mystery vibe down pat. In a club full of dudes looking to wank it to people having sex in public, I can see how they would be popular.

“Was this your first trip to a sex club?” I ask, since they seem inclined to converse and I’m curious.

“Oh yeah. And probably the last.” Julia laughs.

“It’s not like we were able to do anything,” the man says. “Whenever we started making out, the guys would swarm.”

“We left after twenty minutes,” says Julia.

“I guess that was something we needed to experience so we’d never have to try again,” the man tells her.

“I mean, if circumstances were different…”

“Oh, sure… but they’d have to be very different circumstances…”

Their voices go lower. It’s obvious I’m no longer part of the discussion. I focus on driving. Watch for errant pedestrians and wobbling bicyclists. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel at the lights. The Pixies are playing on the iPod hardwired into my stereo, but the sound is barely perceptible. I keep the volume low and faded to the front speakers when I have passengers in the car. Nobody likes rock music anymore. It’s all about deep house, EDM and dubstep, which I had to google after hearing the term mentioned constantly.

When I get close to the couple’s location, I ask which street they’re on, Baker or McCallister.

“Baker,” Julia says. “About halfway down on the right. Next to that streetlight.”

I pull over in front of an Edwardian apartment building and end the ride. “Have a good night.”

“You too. Drive safe.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I rate her five stars. Like I do with all my passengers. Unlike most Uber drivers, I adhere to the philosophy: live by the rating, die by the rating.

I go back online. Head down Divisadero and wait for another ping.

Originally published in Behind the Wheel 2: Notes from an Uber/Lyft and on Broke-Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website…

Image by Irina and Kelly Dessaint.

Uber Reviews: The Bad, The Ugly and the Even Uglier

1 Reply

Bitching about taxis is so 2012.

Not only has Uber disrupted the way people get around town, they’ve also given everybody a new target of contempt. And just as their name suggests, Uber isn’t your run-of-the-mill whipping boy. No, they are the ultimate shock absorber for disdain.

Continue reading on Broke-Ass Stuart…

When Will We Finally Hit Peak Uber/Lyft?

Leave a reply

Originally appeared on Broke-Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website

The hardest part of driving a cab in San Francisco is dealing with all the Uber/Lyft cars clogging the streets. I’m willing to venture at least ninety percent of these freshly minted drivers don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They double-park with reckless abandon, jamming up arterial thoroughfares and high traffic streets like Polk, Valencia and Castro. They rely on navigation to get around, which means they’re staring at their phones when they should be watching the road. They turn left off Market, take rights from left lanes and flip U-turns wherever they feel the need. They infringe on taxi lanes and stands. And when you try to correct them, they become violent.

At the front of almost any traffic clusterfuck is an Uber/Lyft car. It doesn’t matter what time of day or which part of the city, if there’s a backup of cars, chances are, an Uber/Lyft driver is to blame.

Willie Brown recently brought up the proliferation of Uber/Lyft cars in his column as he related a conversation with Dianne Feinstein:

Feinstein brought up all the “ride-share” services from buses to cars that have flooded the city, all without much of anything in the way of rules or regulations. She’s seen the numbers showing there are 4,000 to 6,000 ride-share cars operating in San Francisco, most of which seem to be tooling around in the core of the city.

It’s clear that City Hall is not paying attention to what’s happening on the streets. It doesn’t even seem to care. There are no attempts at better traffic control, no crackdowns on double-parked service cars dropping off and picking up fares.

Remember when Lyft and Uber kept telling us they were helping take cars off the road? That was one of their selling points. Along with safety, reliability and all the other claims we now know are bullshit. In the year that I’ve been driving the streets of San Francisco, I’ve seen traffic get worse each month. In fact, the Bay Area now has the second worst traffic in the country.

To further solidify this correlation, Uber just announced they have 20,000 active “partners” in the Bay Area. And while a huge majority of Uber drivers also run the Lyft app, there are plenty of Lyft drivers who don’t drive for Uber, which jacks up the number of private vehicles for hire in the region.

Compare those figures with the 1900 taxi medallions issued by the SFMTA. Which, despite all the gross misinformation about the medallion system, simply means there can only be 1900 cabs in service at any given time.

Sometimes it seems like every four-door sedan on the road has a U placard in their window or a glowing pink mustache on their dashboard. Or both. And yet, Uber still emails me every day, reminding me of their bonuses for referring new drivers. Lyft continues to recruit drivers as well, including a recent campaign that offered a thousand dollars to existing drivers and their friends who signed up to drive. As you can imagine, it set off a feeding frenzy that comically blew up in everybody’s face.

Since Uber and Lyft seem committed to flooding the city’s streets with even more untrained and underinsured drivers to satisfy San Franciscans unquenchable need for frictionless transportation, you can’t help but ponder the unforeseen consequences. Beyond the traffic jams. Beyond the gridlock. Beyond the pyramid schemes. Beyond the tragedy of the commons.

Charm Pays in a Cab: The Taxi vs. Uber/Lyft Money Post

1 Reply

Originally appeared on Broke-Ass Stuart’s Goddamn Website

Ok, let’s talk about the money…

There is a common misconception that being an Uber/Lyft driver is more profitable than traditional taxi driving. The media likes to publicize reports, usually supplied by Uber and Lyft, that taxis are on the brink of becoming obsolete as these new app-based ride services continue to grow in popularity and take a larger share of the market. But if the taxi industry is really doomed, why am I making more money behind the wheel of a cab than I ever did with Uber and Lyft?

For over a year now, I’ve been driving the streets of San Francisco for hire. During that time, I saw my income go from around $800 a week (before expenses) when I first started driving for Lyft back in March of 2014 to $600 (again, before expenses) after Lyft and Uber went to war that summer and began enacting a series of price cuts. By the fall, my earnings had dropped to $500 a week (yes, before expenses).

All the while, Uber and Lyft kept sending me emails that claimed I was making more money than ever. I’m no mathematical wiz, but isn’t there a limit to how many rides a driver can even complete in a given time period? And if I’m giving more rides per hour while my expenses stay the same and, due to all the extra five-dollar rides, the wear and tear on my car increases, aren’t I really making significantly less in the long run? (Answer: yes.)

It was like being a factory worker in some dystopian nightmare where the foreman sped up the assembly line and initiated quotas. Then denied anything had changed.

“You just need to work smarter,” the company lackeys insist. “Not harder.” But how the fuck do you do that when the game is rigged against you?

Eventually, it got to the point that I only drove on Friday and Saturday nights. Sometimes Thursdays. The rest of the time it just wasn’t worth the effort of cleaning my car, driving across the bridge from Oakland and dealing with traffic for a bunch of five-dollar rides. I felt like I was losing money. Before the price cuts and massive recruitment campaigns, I made around $150 driving for six hours on a Wednesday. Afterwards, I was lucky to clear $50. Yes, before expenses.

The only way Uber/Lyft drivers make decent money is rider referrals (AKA, the bizarro pyramid scheme) and surge pricing. Some drivers are always trying to figure out how to hornswoggle the app to generate a false surge. It’s almost comical how devoted they are to gouging passengers, like funny little cartoon villains with pink mustaches.

As Johnny Rotten said that time he was in San Francisco, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Since I’ve been driving a cab, my earnings have increased from $700 a week when I first started to $900 a week after just three months of driving forty hours a week. That’s AFTER my gate fees, gas and greasing the palms of the window guy to get a decent cab. The only other expense I have is my annual A card permit. But get this, I’m still learning how to drive a cab. Cab driving is an entirely different beast from the Uber/Lyft experience, where fares only come from one place: the apps. In a taxi, they come from a multitude of sources: street hails, dispatch calls, voucher accounts, cab stands, the airport, regular clients and yes, even apps.

I guess I did start driving smarter and not harder: I stopped driving for Uber and Lyft!

So far, I’ve learned that a successful taxi driver does not just keep warm bodies in the seats. They get their fares to where they’re going as efficiently as possible and avoid traffic and other hazards of the road at the same time, all the while providing a pleasant customer experience along the way. I do this with aplomb. Always have. When I was a Uber/Lyft driver, I had a 4.9 rating with both. But positive ratings—even with glowing comments—weren’t going to pay my rent. Or cover my power bill. Shit, they couldn’t even support my daily cup of Philz coffee.

Now that I’ve taken my customer service skills to taxi, though, I get something much better than five star ratings: cold hard cash.

Tips make up at least 30-40% of my income. It’s not unusual to get a twenty-dollar bill for a ten-dollar ride. This happens multiple times each night. Even at standard tipping rates, a seven-dollar ride is a ten-dollar ride when the deal is done. And a ten-dollar ride easily becomes a fifteen-dollar ride. Once you get into the $30-$40 range, the bare minimum of 20% bumps up fares significantly. And there’s always the chance you’ll get a big spender who drops a C note on a $25 ride. (Yes, the lead picture is real. It happened during my third week as a cab driver.)

Occasionally, there are some passengers who don’t tip at all. Foreign tourists are notorious for not understanding American tipping culture. But over the past three months, I’ve only been stiffed a few times. The most egregious case was an older guy from the Midwest who gave me a twenty-dollar bill and a dime on a $10.10 fare. Confused, I asked how much he wanted back and he replied indignantly, “Ten dollars.” It didn’t occur to me until I drove away that I should have returned the dime with a snotty comment like, “You probably need this more than me.” But that’s not my style. Although, to be honest, I wish I could be more of an asshole sometimes.

When it comes to Uber and Lyft, it doesn’t matter how well you drive, how friendly you are or how accommodating you are to passengers, there is no expectation of a tip. Since Uber doesn’t allow tipping through the app, unless somebody hands you cash—which is extremely rare—you don’t get anything beyond the price of the ride. Lyft, on the other hand, has the option to tip, but very few people actually tip. And those who do tip maybe give you a dollar or two. You certainly never get enough to cover Lyft’s 20% commission. Never.

Out of desperation, some Uber drivers have been experimenting with putting tip jars in the backseat. Or taping signs to their cars. Or starting online petitions.

Without a doubt, most people who take Lyft and Uber are cheapskates. They only use these ride services because they don’t want to take the bus or pay for a real cab. (Or they just really hate taxis.) So what if they have to wait ten minutes for a driver to show up? Who cares if the driver has no clue how to get from the Mission to the Castro? It’s all about cheap rides. And if they’re using Lyft Line or Uber Pool, they’re only paying a few dollars more than the bus. Unless it surges. And then they just get in a cab.

“But my drivers tell me they’re happy all the time!” you might exclaim when confronted with the reality that Uber/Lyft drivers actually have needs too.

Well, I hate to break it to you, but they only say that because they don’t want a bad rating. Uber/Lyft drivers live in constant fear of deactivation. No matter what you tell yourself to feel better about supporting an exploitative business model, when you ride with Uber and Lyft, you are encouraging a system that takes advantage of people so desperate for money they are willing to use their personal vehicles as taxicabs. At half the price! And no tip!

When I was an Uber/Lyft driver, I joined all the Facebook groups for drivers. I’m still a member of most, although I had to unfollow them after a while because I got tired of practicing my gag reflexes as the posts showed up on my wall. I still occasionally drop in to see what’s going on in Uber/Lyft land. Not much ever changes. Ratings are always on the top of drivers’ minds. Drivers seek sympathy for low ratings and post screengrabs of the positive comments they get in an email from Lyft each week. It’s kinda pathetic.

Money is the second biggest topic. And how to make it. Few seem to know what they’re doing. They just turn on the app and hope for the best. But there are some drivers who like to brag about making the big bucks. They claim to earn $1000 a week in 40 hours. This figure, of course, doesn’t factor in expenses, particularly unforeseen costs like major car repairs that not only require money but also time, during which they aren’t earning money. They also assume major insurance risks that could cost them thousands of dollars, and they deal with an unfair rating system that could end their ability to use the system. It takes just one self-entitled asshole on a power trip. And let’s not forget about Uncle Sam. He’s gonna want a cut too.

Meanwhile, a beginning taxi driver like myself who also works forty hours a week is making $900. Which is straight profit. Money in my pocket. (Minus taxes, of course… though with all that cash floating around, it’s hard to keep track of it all…) And as I get better at driving a cab, I expect my income to continue rising. Hell, baseball season just started this week. Summer is on the way. Tourists! Oh, bless the tourists and their cab-taking ways!

The way I figure it, if I can make $900 a week during the off-season, despite the alleged dominance of Uber, the future is looking bright for me in a cab. Plus, no insurance risks, no rating system and no car maintenance. And I get to use taxi lanes and cab stands, I can make left turns where it’s most strategic and I can cruise straight down Market Street like I’m a la-di-fucking-da…

So yeah… go ahead and believe the hype that Uber and Lyft are destroying the taxi industry. The propagation of lies is the only sustainable component of their business model. And they need all the suckers they can get.

My Uber Breaking Point

5 Replies

Originally appeared on Disinfo.com.

Hello Lyft, My Old Friend

It’s Wednesday afternoon. The sky is pissing rain. I’m swerving through the Marina on my way to pick up Tina, trying to avoid crater lakes and double-parkers. Turn onto Van Ness. With rush hour traffic from Lombard on my back, I pull into a driveway a few doors down from the pinned location. Tap the arrive bar on the Lyft app and tap again to confirm that I’ve actually arrived. Ian Dury comes on the stereo. While I wait for Tina, I bang my fingers against the steering wheel along to the beat.

Just as the song ends, a girl emerges from the high-rise apartment building and dashes through the downpour towards my car. I turn down the music as she jumps in the front seat.

“I tried to get as close as I could,” I say. “But this was the only driveway.”

“That’s alright.” She slides the seat all the way back with authority and props her Uggs on the dashboard.

“So we’re going to…?” I ask.

She doesn’t respond.

“Oh, right.” This is a Lyft. I’ve gotten so used to driving for Uber the past few months, I keep forgetting how the Lyft app works. Passengers generally input their address when requesting a ride. I close out another window. Expand the map screen to figure out her destination. “SoMa?”

Still nothing.

“Okay then…” I reverse slowly, watching traffic through the windows of a parked car.

I’ve just started driving for the day. Tina is my second ride. Despite loading up on Philz coffee when I began my shift, I haven’t got my head into the game of moving folks around the congested city yet. As aggravating as it may be, I usually drive rush hour. The traffic is horrible, but at some point, surge pricing, or prime time, in Lyft parlance, usually kicks in, which is the only time you’re guaranteed to make more than the bare minimum.

I decide to follow the suggested route in the app. Although I can’t read the street names underneath the thick red lines on the map, I can tell the app wants me to go down Broadway to The Embarcadero. Not my preferred route to SoMa from Russian Hill during rush hour, but I follow the app’s advice anyway. Lyft passengers always seem to want you to follow the in-app navigation. Even if it’s the less efficient route. Whatever. It’s their $1.35 a mile.

Tina coughs and snorts. I glance in her direction. Yoga pants, hoodie, thick sweater and a scarf wrapped around her face like a fashion-conscious anarchist. She stares into her phone, which erupts with a woman’s voice enthusiastically describing how to melt butter for the quickest fudge recipe on the internet. Then she watches another step-by-step video recipe. In between videos, she snorts, coughs and hacks.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m sick.” Hacks. “Sorry.”

As I approach The Embarcadero, I immediately regret following the directions in the Lyft app. What was I thinking? Rush hour is bad enough. Throw some rain in the mix and it’s a clusterfuck. Traffic is completely gridlocked. We’re barely moving. At twenty-seven cents per minute, I’m wasting both my time and Tina’s time. With the Bay on my left, the only way out of this mess is to take a right on Washington. But I’d still have to traverse the Financial District, where the streets are no doubt backed up as well. Fuck! I should have known better than to follow the directions in the app. Had I taken Hyde, even if it were just as clogged, I’d at least have a few more options. Now that I’ve screwed myself, I can only push through until I get to Mission Street.

Besides her constant coughing, hacking and sneezing, Tina is silent as she continues to watch recipe videos, send texts, write emails and listen to her voicemail. She makes a few phone calls on speakerphone so I can hear every word of her inane conversations. Apparently, a coworker smells funny. Her roommate leaves dirty dishes in the sink. A client doesn’t know how to use the print function on his MacBook.

I want to blow my brains out.

Why is this girl in the front seat anyway? Didn’t Lyft recently send out a press release telling users if they don’t want to interact with their drivers, they can just sit in the back seat? I guess she didn’t get the memo. It never ceases to amaze me how easily people will conform to the traditions of a gypsy cab service just to avoid taking the bus. Or paying a taxi fare.

Fuck, I hate Lyft. As I sit in suspended awkwardness next to Tina, feeling like we’re both going to explode from the tension, I begin to wonder if I really have reached my Uber breaking point. I thought I had, but now I’m not so sure… This isn’t the first time I’ve bailed on Uber. Except in the past, I’d do a couple Lyft rides, realize how exhausting it is pretending to give a shit about the people I drive for even less money and quickly flip-flop back to Uber. This time, though, I don’t have a choice.

As much as I’d like to say I quit driving for Uber because of their lies, the inability to protect passengers from physical and sexual assault while insisting that their background checks are superior to taxis (a claim that is being challenged by prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Francisco), the false promises to be a kinder Uber, the threats to journalists, the disdain for the disabled, the mistreatment of drivers or the general douchebaggery of their libertarian, cut-throat business practices, Uber made it easy for me to stick to my convictions by charging me $200 for a cracked iPhone 4S.

Back when I first signed up, Uber didn’t allow drivers to use the “partner” app on our personal phones. Instead, they issued us iPhones that ran the app (and only the app). And charged us $10 a week in rental fees. Whether we drove that week or not. Eventually they released a version we could download. Most drivers quickly returned the Uber-issued phones to avoid the rental fees. I was ready to send my phone back too, but I’d accidentally cracked the screen. One night, when I got home from driving, I left the phone on the bed and somehow managed to shatter the screen between my ass and the pillow top mattress. It was mind-boggling. I mean, I’ve dropped phones on concrete before and only ended up with a few scratches. Yet this one couldn’t withstand a little pressure?

Fucking Uber and their janky ass phones!

I posted a few queries on Facebook groups for drivers and emailed Uber asking what to do about the damaged phone. But as with all emails to Uber support, the response was as vague and uninformative as the opinions of other drivers on Facebook. I didn’t know what to do: take the chance and return the useless phone or spend eighty bucks and get it fixed myself?

With those ten-dollar charges rapidly adding up, the Wife was pissed to no end. She hates Uber. She hates their entire predatory business model. She hates worrying that we’ll have to declare bankruptcy if I get into an accident. She hates their exploitation of foreigners (which is rarely, if ever, discussed in the media — journalists prefer to focus on the part-time, middle class workers of the on-demand economy). She hates the Uber passengers who scuff up the interior of our car as they drunkenly climb in and out. She hates the plastic sleeve on the windshield that holds the Uber placard. And she especially hates their crappy phones.

Whenever she saw the thing with its screen smashed into a splintered web of disappointment gathering dust on my nightstand, she reminded me, with increasing annoyance, that I shouldn’t be paying $10 a week for something I didn’t use. “Fix the damn thing or send it back already!” When the nagging got to be too much—Er, I mean, when I realized she was right, as always—I returned the phone to Uber. Cracked screen and all. Fuck it.

That weekend, disgusted by how Uber is handling the Sophia Liu case, now that the driver has been charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, I made one of my many grand declarations to never drive for Uber again. I was done! How could I affiliate myself with a company that refused to accept even a shred of responsibility for the death of a six-year-old child? With all those billions and billions, they can’t break off some for a little girl’s life? Yeah, I know it would set a precedent and they’d be on the hook for all the other misdeeds perpetrated by Uber drivers. And yeah, the guy fucked up. He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going. On those congested Tenderloin streets, you need to keep your eyes on the road. But the way an Uber spokesperson said the driver had no business even looking at his phone when the accident occurred, since he was in between fares, rubbed me the wrong way. As any Uber or Lyft driver knows, the entire process is about looking at a phone. You look at the screen for requests. You look at the heat maps to see where it’s surging. You look at the phone to make sure you’re online when you go a few minutes without a ride.

As devastating as the situation is, Uber makes it worse by doing everything they can to distance themselves from what they created: an app-based taxi service for non-professional, unregulated and underinsured drivers. It’s obvious Uber doesn’t care about anything but world domination at the expense of whatever or whoever gets in their way. Whether it be state and local laws, protesting drivers or small children. They are barely concerned with their passengers, much less the public at large. And they don’t give one iota of a shit about the drivers.

I just couldn’t be a part of their rapacious practices anymore. After putting off the inevitable for too long already, it was time to implement my exit strategy and move on to driving a taxi. As soon as I earned enough money for taxi school, I would finally be done with Lyft and Uber. Then it’s the cabbie’s life for me!

In the meantime, I started driving for Lyft again. Which wasn’t an easy sacrifice to make. At least with Uber there’s no expectation of conviviality. The Lyft experience is so pedestrian. Lyft tries to hold your hand the whole time. It’s excruciating when you know what you’re doing and just want to get the job done. That’s why Uber is killing Lyft in the ride-hail wars. They are the bridge between taxis and limos. A premium service at a cut-rate price.

With Uber, there are no illusions. Unless you’re an idiot — or believe corporate shills like The Rideshare Guy — you enter the life of an Uber driver knowing damn well you’re going to get fucked up the ass. Lyft, on the other hand, is all about a false sense of community and inclusiveness. As long as you play by their rules. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more jingoistic, flag-waving group of kool-aid drinking cheerleaders before I discovered the loyal drivers in Lyft’s Facebook driver lounges. These private groups have since been disbanded, as if John Zimmer, the CEO, happened upon them one night and, after perusing the infinite flow of asinine comments by a chorus of gossip hounds and glad-handers, murmured into the glow of his computer screen, “Exterminate the brutes.”

Lyft may portray themselves as fun and quirky and the “friendly” alternative, but they’re just like Uber. Except when they cut rates and tell drivers it’s for their own good, they never fail to mention how we’re part of a a community. Which makes their version of ass-rape so appalling.

I like my evil pure and uncut, thank you very much.

Of course, community comes in handy when you get in an accident and you’re forced to crowdsource the $2,500 deductible to get your car fixed. Cause you know, in the “sharing” economy, money if just another underutilized resource. (Seriously, search “Lyft” on GoFundMe and be prepared to feel disgusted by what “ridesharing” has wrought.)

GoFundMe might as well be a subsidiary of Lyft. Since you don’t get as many rides as you do with Uber, you don’t make as much money. Yeah, it’s great passengers can leave a tip through the app—unlike Uber, which strictly forbids tipping. But hardly anybody tips. And those who do tip maybe add a buck or two to their total. At the most. Occasionally, you get somebody who leaves more than twenty percent. But that’s rare. It’s demoralizing to receive my Lyft totals the next morning and see how little I’ve made and how much more I could have made if I got at least twenty percent in tips to offset Lyft’s twenty percent cut of my meager profits.

Each time I get into my car to drive for Lyft, I have to suspend the disbelief that it’s a viable occupation. I never feel like I’m really doing something productive. More like participating in a newfangled pyramid scheme.

Sure, there are some great moments with cool and interesting passengers, but that happens with Uber too. The majority of my passengers talk to me. I think my long hair, tattoos and glasses put people at ease. I’m chill and articulate. Everybody assumes I’m a student. I love to bullshit and discuss San Francisco history and lore. I’ve had some great conversations while driving for Uber and Lyft. Unfortunately, confabulation doesn’t translate to a living wage.

Yet.

When it comes to Uber and Lyft, charm doesn’t pay. But I hope that once I get behind the wheel of a bonafide taxi, a charismatic personality will be an asset. And I can unshackle the reins of a tyrranical rating system. It’s exhausting trying to make people happy so you can get those five stars.

Based on what I’ve noticed at the Whole Foods on California, despite the strain of losing fares to these apps, taxi drivers seem more relaxed. Unlike ride-hail drivers, who always look squirrelly and overworked. Maybe all that flexibility isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. As Uber and Lyft lower their rates, claiming this tactic will lead to more rides, drivers are working harder than ever to make up the difference.

And compared to Uber, Lyft is way more labor intensive. It’s all about Lyft Line these days, the cheaper service where different passengers share the same ride going in similar directions. About seventy-five percent of my rides are Lyft Lines. Which means I’m driving more, doing more pick-ups and more drop-offs, all the while making less than if I were just giving one decent Uber ride. While Uber wants to compete with taxis, Lyft seems to be competing with the bus. It’s a race to the bottom. And drivers are rats on a sinking ship.

After a few days of doing non-stop Lyft Lines, I began to feel like a soccer mom: Pick up one passenger here. Pick up the second over there. Drop off one. Then the other. Repeat. Over and over… The process is rarely easy. The algorithms that determine who gets dropped off first don’t always make sense. And despite choosing to use Lyft Line, riders can be impatient with the procedure. I had one woman tell me when she got in my car that she was running late to catch the Caltrain. As she sweated me about it all the way to pick up the next passenger, I pointed out that she really shouldn’t be using Lyft Line when she’s in a hurry. Another night, this bossy girl insisted I pull over on Kearney and call the guy I was supposed to pick up next and ask him to walk three blocks to meet us because she didn’t want to drive into Union Square. Granted, it would have been a nightmare — this was during Christmas — but while on the phone with him, I got the sense he didn’t know his way around the city very well. Sure enough, he got lost. While we idled in a tow-away zone for twenty minutes waiting for him to find us, the girl kept saying, “Why doesn’t he just use the navigation in his phone?”

As annoying as Lyft Line is, the Lyft app is the worst aspect of driving for Lyft. I can’t believe some commenters think the Uber and Lyft apps function the same. They do not! Uber has the superior app. If there’s one thing Uber is willing to spend their billions on other than marketing and lawyers, it’s app development.

When it comes to interacting with the app, Lyft is like a needy child. You have to tap when you arrive at the pinged location, tap again to confirm you’ve arrived, tap when the passenger gets in the car, tap to find out the destination, tap once you’ve reached their destination, tap to end the ride, tap to rate the passenger, tap to go back into driver mode… Tap, tap, tap… All the while dealing with passengers and traffic. The Uber app is a little more intuitive. There’s still a lot of tapping, but the process feels simpler.

During my second week driving exclusively for Lyft, I complained about the app to a passenger who happened to work as a software engineer for Lyft. He seemed to be soliciting a critique, so I pointed out all the things I found problematic. His defensive response was typical of how most people who work at Lyft respond to criticism. If anybody wonders how Lyft manages to stay in the ride-hail game, despite Uber’s dominance, it’s their cult-like stubbornness to admit they are doing anything but the “Lord’s Work.”

Later that night, when I finally got sick of the Lyft Lines and the shitty app, I switched over to Uber. It was like putting my aching feet into a pair of worn-in slippers. I was able to see where I needed to go easily on the map, which is larger and has translucent lines over the boldly labeled streets. The passengers sit in back. Interaction is minimal and mostly respectful. Hardly anybody uses UberPool, their version of shared rides. And when people do request a ride through UberPool, nine times out of ten, they aren’t matched with another rider.

I only gave a few rides with Uber that night, including one to SFO, but the following week I didn’t get a payment summary. I went onto their website and blanched when I noticed my account was negative $168.00. I emailed support and, after five or six exchanges, was finally informed I was being charged a “deposit” on the cracked phone. Plus a few rental charges from the weeks I didn’t drive before I returned the phone.

That was the deal breaker.

At the current rates, it would take me several days to pay off the debt. All the while, shelling out what little cash I have left for gas, car washes and bridge tolls. There was just no way I could justify the expense. I kept thinking of all the things I could buy with $200. Like a couple used tires to replace my bald Michelins. Or a cheap break job before I have to fix the rotors as well. Both of which I desperately need. The squeaking is getting louder each day. And I’m one particularly sharp rock away from a blowout on the rugged streets of San Francisco. What I make from driving for Uber and Lyft, with the constantly diminishing rates, barely covers my bills, much less necessary maintenance on my car so I can keep driving for Uber and Lyft.

When the Wife found out Uber was charging me $200 for a piece of shit iPhone 4 (which goes for about $80 on eBay), she was livid. Absolutely forbade me from driving for Uber again. I swore up and down that I wasn’t that stupid. But stuck in the car on The Embarcadero during a torrential downpour with Tight-Lipped Tina sulking in my passenger seat, I have to admit the thought crossed my mind.

After a grueling fifteen minutes, I’m $3.20 richer, but no closer to her destination. I notice a few taxis go by in the far right lane. I get behind a Yellow cab like a running back following a linesman towards a first down and hope for the best. I learned long ago to always follow cab drivers. If I’m on a street and there are no taxis, I know I’m on the wrong street.

Eventually other cars get hip to the possibility of escape and we continue crawling past Market. As soon as I can, I weave into the right turn lane and head down Mission. Fight my way onto Beale Street, trying not to get stuck in the middle of the intersection. In my infinite list of grievances with Bay Area drivers, the tendency to block intersections should be a crime punishable by public flogging in Union Square. And yet, here I am, my front end past the crosswalk as the light turns yellow and the car in front of me has nowhere to go. Not to be a hypocritical asshole, I drive straight and flip a bitch in the middle of the block. Crowd my way back to the corner. After four green lights, I finally make the turn. I get into the left lane so I can bypass the freeway traffic.

In between phone calls, tweets and Facebook updates, Tina keeps coughing and hacking. As I head down a glorified alley under the Bay Bridge, she starts making groaning sounds.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I haven’t eaten today. I’m a little nauseous.”

“Sorry. I’ll try not to drive so fast.” But what can I do? I cut through Bayside Village to Brannan. Then down a side street to Townsend. I take the turns easy, but all the other cars on the road are being aggressive. A dickhead in a BMW rides my ass. I have no choice but to fight to make it through the lights. I just want to get this girl out of my car!

When I finally reach her destination and she dashes out into the drizzle, I take a deep breath. End the ride. But Lyft’s having server problems. The ride won’t close out.

Fucking Lyft! I curse the app as I keep clicking the “wait” button until the command finally goes through. Certain I’ll get a low rating from Tina, since I didn’t have the Moses-like ability to part traffic, I rate her three stars. Go back into driver mode. Instantly, I get another request. 5th and Townsend. Postmates HQ, the delivery startup that used to be in a second floor walk-up on Valencia before moving to a slick new office space across from Caltrain. As bad as it is to be an Uber or Lyft driver, from what I’ve read, driving for Postmates is worse. There seems to be no end in sight to the exploitative business models of the emerging peer-to-peer economy. Or suckers to participate in their mercenary schemes.

Tom is just as reticent as Tina. He sits up front too.

Kudos to Lyft for effectively brainwashing these kids into acting like they’re really supposed to be friends with their drivers. But they’re all just so… awkward. I wonder if they even have friends in the real world. Maybe if we were communicating through FaceTime it would be easier.

In my never-ending plight to neutralize awkward situations, I fancy myself a bit of a techie whisperer. I ease Tom into a conversation.

“My company has a deal with Lyft,” he tells me, in response to my query about whether he also uses Uber. “We get a certain amount of free rides each week.”

Lyft emailed me about this new program called Lyft for Work when it launched, in case I worked for a company that would benefit from the service. Oh sure… Like I would drive for Lyft if I had a real job to fall back on! But I guess in the so-called “sharing” economy, we’re all supposed to be rubbing each other’s backs. Only problem is, these days, I’m steady rubbing backs and there’s nobody to rub mine.

Traffic through SoMa is as bad as it was on The Embarcadero. But the rain is letting up. I weave my way over to 7th Street. Cross Market and head through the Tenderloin. Tom lives in Nob Hill. Stopped at the light on Bush and Taylor, a block and a half from his destination, I suggest he might want to walk the rest of the way.

“That’s alright,” he mumbles

Whatever. Twenty-seven cents a minute is better than nothing, I guess.

I ask Tom about the pizza place on the corner. I’ve always wondered about Uncle Vito’s. “It looks legit,” I say. “Do you order from there?”

“No,” he tells me. “They’re not on Eat24 or Postmates.”

“But the number’s right there on the window. It says, ‘For delivery call.’ You should just put it in your phone.”

“Yeah. I guess.” He makes no effort to take his phone out.

“Man, that’s the kind of place you don’t even look up on Yelp first,” I declare after a few minutes of silence.

Tom grunts. Between us, there is only a gear shifter and a center console. But the distance is wider than the San Francisco Bay.

Several green lights later, he finally says, “I think I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“Might as well,” I say with a slight chuckle. “I’m not going anywhere any time soon.”

I end the ride. Fortunately, Lyft isn’t having server issues this time. And hey, I scored 25% prime time on top of the regular fare! I give Tom five stars. Now I just have to hope he doesn’t rate me low because of the added charge… or the traffic… or talking… or the weather… or for any of the other reasons Lyft passengers rate their drivers low.

I stay out of driver mode since I’m stuck in traffic. No point in trying to pick up a passenger until I can actually move.

At least the rain has let up.

For the next several green lights, parked in front of Uncle Vito’s, I watch the pie maker toss dough and bang my fingers on the steering wheel along to the Cramps. Turn up the volume and hope there’ll still be some prime time left once I get out of this traffic jam.

Top photo by the author, taken on my way to the Bart station after passing the New Taxi Driver exam. Since Uber HQ is next door to the SFMTA, I couldn’t resist a little homage to Ai Wei Wei.

Your Uber Driver Hates You

6 Replies

But Your Lyft Driver Thinks You’re The Bee’s Knees
(Unless You Act Like You’re in An Uber – Then They Hate You Too)

TOO MUCH TO READ? THEN CHECK OUT THE LISTICLE

This post originally appeared on my previous blog on July 21, 2014

Where would the peer-to-peer economy be without trust?

Nobody in their right mind would give a complete stranger the key to their apartment or get into a random person’s car if they didn’t have faith in the safeguards enforced by the companies that function as intermediaries. Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit and Lyft use Facebook accounts and/or cell phone numbers to authenticate the identities of their users, but miscreants can always find a way around those barriers. Ride-hailing services rely on background checks and driving records, which have been proven over and over to be far from foolproof. Then there’s the feedback system that’s supposed to ensure a quality experience for both parties, though it’s just as easily skewed.

In theory, the rating system used by Uber and Lyft allows riders to anonymously inform future passengers what to expect from their driver. As a driver, unless you’ve only given one ride that day, you never know which passengers rate you what. Like internet comments, this anonymity gives riders complete freedom to rate and comment without fear of reprisal. And they take full advantage of this liberty, which is reflected in most drivers’ low ratings. It’s almost impossible for a driver to have a 5 star rating for more than a day or two, unless they are in line to be sainted by Jesus Christ himself.

The rating system is supposed to convey trust, but an unintended side effect seems to be taking hold. Uber and Lyft drivers are using the same rating system to secretly warn other drivers about problematic riders. And they are just as unforgiving as their passengers.

Surprise, surprise.

As a passenger, you know your driver’s rating. It pops up when they accept your ride request along with their picture and car details. But you never see your own rating. If you did, you might be surprised to discover how the people who drive you around town actually feel about you.

While Lyft drivers tend to get along well with their passengers, Uber drivers, for the most part, think their riders are assholes.

Uber vs. Lyft

Uber and Lyft distinguish themselves by how passengers interact with their drivers. Lyft’s “friend with a car” vibe encourages passengers to sit up front and chat with the driver during the ride. Uber, on the other hand, wants their passengers to feel like they have a personal driver, so they sit in the back and rarely say much besides hello and their destination. Who converses with servants anyway? Your flunky should be seen and not heard, right? Would you chat with your chambermaid while she’s cleaning your potty? Of course not!

Many rideshare customers, especially in San Francisco, use both platforms depending on price surging, availability or what kind of experience they’re in the mood for. I’ve had numerous passengers tell me that when they’re going to work, or in work mode, they take Uber so they don’t have to deal with any annoying conversations. But on the weekends, or if they’re going out, they take Lyft because it’s more fun.

Price wars are also a factor.

As a driver for both Uber and Lyft, you can easily tell which passengers use Lyft regularly and which passengers prefer Uber. And not just by where they sit or whether they talk to you, but through their ratings.

Most Lyft users have 5 stars with the occasional 4.9. Those with a 4.8 rating are generally the ones who sit in back and stare at their phones. These are your Uber passengers, reluctantly slumming it with Lyft. They get in your car and immediately say, “I’m not going to do the fist bump, so don’t try it.” They express contempt for the pink mustache and seem relieved I don’t have one. They make it clear that they are only using Lyft out of necessity. I find this attitude amusing, though based on their rating, Lyft drivers have no doubt rated them low in the past for not playing along with the Lyft modus operandi.

Since the main difference between the Uber and Lyft experience is the talking, and the passengers with less than 5 stars on Lyft tend to be incommunicado during the ride, it’s not much a stretch to conclude that drivers hate being treated like a “personal driver” and they rate passengers lower for being unsocial. Regardless of which platform they are on.

Now, you might be thinking, aren’t Uber drivers supposed to just get you where you’re going and keep their trap shut?

Sure, but they’re still humans with feelings. So while you sit in the back seat, browsing Facebook to keep you distracted, your driver is seething with animosity at your entitled and unfriendly attitude. The only recourse he or she has is to use the feedback system to rate you accordingly, and that’s a 4 at best.

Very few Uber passengers have 5 stars. In fact, the percentages are completely reversed with Uber. From what I’ve seen so far, 95 percent of Uber passengers have 4.9 or lower. Those users with 5 stars have all started conversations with me, which makes it clear how they got their elusive 5 stars. In fact, after carting around a bunch of people for Uber who barely say hello and thanks, getting a talkative passenger is like finding a fellow countryman in a foreign land.

Face it, Uber users, when it comes to being a passenger, you suck!

Drivers are People Too

Last year, somebody figured out how to hack the Uber site to get passenger ratings. Twitter lit up with people posting the link and their ratings. Only a few had 5 stars. Some thought it was funny how low their ratings were, though most were chagrined by what they found.

Uber quickly put the kibosh on the leak, but I couldn’t help but wonder at the time if that brief window into the reality of passenger ratings might have finally alerted passengers that they’re not immune to criticism just because they take advantage of a frictionless payment system.

Bidirectional ratings are just that: they go both ways.

Nobody likes negative ratings. Drivers complain about their ratings all the time. It’s not easy making people happy. Even when a ride has gone perfectly, there is never a guarantee that the passenger will be satisfied.

While I always rate passengers 5 stars, even when I’ve had to deal with some real stinkers, my passengers haven’t been as generous with me. Like other drivers, I’m always shocked when my rating goes down. Lyft considers a 4.8 rating “awesome,” but it still hurts to think that I’ve failed to do my simple task of driving a car, something I’ve been doing in cities across the country going on twenty-five years now.

When I get my weekly summaries from Uber and Lyft, I wrack my brain thinking of how I might have messed up or disappointed the passengers who rated me lower than 5 stars. It usually happens after a good night too. Nobody ever gives any indication they are dissatisfied with my driving. Which is why I’m convinced the passengers who converse with me must think I’m some kind of freak for talking about art, literature, architecture, geography, the history of San Francisco and the way the city spreads out across the sky from the top of Potrero Hill. And they hate my music: that dreadful rock and roll nobody listens to anymore.

For every person who finds me entertaining or interesting or feels a kindred spirit with me, there are those who rate me less on my ability to get them from point A to point B and more on an inscrutable formula that only makes sense to them. And while I can usually navigate the city from memory, avoiding traffic jams and unpleasant streets, and maintain a relatively intelligent conversation along the way, in the new San Francisco, that’s only worth three stars. Four at best.

The More You Know…

Maybe if passengers knew what their ratings were, they might want to protect them as much as drivers do. Perhaps it would make them a little less demanding as well. So I missed a turn. Big deal. So I went in a direction that had too many stop signs. Whatever. So I want to tell you how my cousin’s girlfriend has the same name as you when you’re in the middle of reading an email. Get over it! After all, it’s easy to be judgmental when you’re the one with the gavel. Flip that shit around and it’s not as much fun.

The Uber ratings leak also raises the question: why don’t rideshare companies show passengers their ratings in the app? Don’t they want passengers to improve?

Could it be that Uber and Lyft don’t want customers to know their ratings because they mean nothing? The only real consequence is that some drivers won’t pick up passengers with low ratings. Otherwise, what’s the likelihood that a paying customer will be kicked off the platform for having a low rating? Not bloody likely!

The rating system is only there to keep drivers in check. You drive with the constant fear that if your rating slips too low you’ll be deactivated. Thus, it’s no wonder drivers have begun using that same system to strike back at what they don’t like about their own experiences. Even if the passengers never find out.

So the next time you take an Uber or a Lyft, why not ask your driver what your rating is. You might just be surprised how big of an asshole you really are.

Hey!

Don’t want to be a shitty Uber passenger?

THEN READ THIS AND DO THE OPPOSITE: TEN REASONS WHY YOUR UBER DRIVER HATES YOU

—-

Uber & Lyft Drivers Are This Year’s Surge Price Whiners

1 Reply

It’s New Year’s Day. When pissed off Uber passengers usually storm Twitter to express their outrage at surge pricing and post ridiculously high fare summaries from their rides the night before. But this year, it’s the drivers who are doing all the complaining. Sure, some folks around the country got hit with some high ticket rides, but at this point, we all know they were asking for it. These people also probably complain about every aspect of their unfortunate lives on Twitter. So fuck them.

The drivers, on the other hand, dutifully went out last night, encouraged by Uber and Lyft with promises of high ticket fares, and they were left hanging. Of course, the fact that Uber also sent messages to passengers basically telling them not to take rides, proves, once again, that Uber and Lyft do not know what the fuck they are doing. Yeah, they know how to make apps and utilize unbridled ambition to push their way through government regulation. But they have no clue how to perform like a company that actually wants to perform a service.

(Read my full NYE coverage here.)

These are mostly from Bay Area and LA drivers. Click on any image to view as sideshow: