Ten Reasons Why Your Uber Driver Hates You

Ten Reasons... a Buzzfeed listicle.

Ten Annoying Questions I Get Asked as a Lyft Driver - The Listicle

I made a listicle on Buzzfeed from an old blog post: the ten most annoying questions I get asked as Lyft driver in San Francisco.

I'm so 21st Century.

Chasing the Surge; Or, Tip Your Uber Driver, You Cheap Bastards!

Most rideshare drivers chase the surge. There are Lyft and Uber driver groups on Facebook seemingly devoted to posting screengrabs of high-ticket fares during price surges. Drivers click “like” and make comments like, “Lucky you!” or “I wish I weren’t already in bed or I’d get in my car right now!”
I’ve always been ambivalent about Uber’s surge pricing and Lyft’s “prime time.” I get the concept of supply and demand, but I’d much rather let the passenger decide how much my service is worth with an actual tip.

Surge pricing forces generosity from people who would otherwise not give you a penny more than what is required. And since Uber discourages tipping, the only amount required is whatever comes up on the app. Surge pricing is the only time drivers get more than what the app determines. So it’s no wonder drivers revel in it and respond to high fares like they just won the lottery.

While Lyft at least has the option to tip in the app, Uber is sticking to the no-tip rule. They even discourage drivers from accepting cash tips when passengers offer them. There are even some drivers who follow that rule.

Regardless of what Travis Kalanick thinks is a better model for transportation, driving is a service-based task. Only assholes stiff service workers on tips.

So, you may be wondering, who cares if passengers have to pay more — or a LOT more — when demand is high? Doesn’t the extra money make up for all the times they didn’t have to pay extra for the luxury of being driven around town, oftentimes receiving water and snacks along the way?

Perhaps, but telling riders they don’t have to tip and then forcing them to tip when it’s busy is ass backwards.

Why did Uber take tipping out of the equation anyway? It’s not like we’re getting paid more than taxi drivers. You wouldn’t stiff a cabbie on a tip, so why do it to rideshare drivers?

The no-tip rule is an absurd aspect of Uber’s business model. It may seem like a good idea to the consumer during normal times, but when they’re looking at a $400 dollar fare, like the unfortunate festival-goers at Outside Lands this year, all of a sudden, tossing a few extra bucks to your driver doesn’t seem like that big of a deal anymore.

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Outside Lands & The Rideshare Feeding Frenzy

Before the Outside Lands festival was even over, numerous articles started popping up on sites like ValleyWag, SF Weekly and SFist about ridiculously high fares due to Uber’s surge pricing. Each night after the event let out surge pricing got up to 5 times the normal rate. Online, everybody freaked out over a couple pics of some pretty high fares. Uber was portrayed as the bad guy, ripping off decent festivalgoers that just wanted to get home.

Yeah, it’s easy to hate on Uber. And plenty of commenters lambasted the spoiled passengers who couldn’t be bothered to take public transportation. Or walk. Or ride a bike. Though if they’d seen the mobs around the bus stops on Geary, they might have held back on some of that criticism. Those poor saps weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Still, is it better to be a sucker? No. But another factor that’s being overlooked in all this brouhaha is that these high fares were not just the direct result of surge pricing. They are also a consequence of drivers coming into the city to work event and not knowing how to navigate the streets.

Top Ten Questions I Get Asked as a Lyft Driver

UPDATE: I turned this post into a listicle on Buzzfeed.

1. How long have you been driving for Lyft?

2. Do you like driving for Lyft?

3. Is this your full time job?

4. Where are you from?

5. Do you live in the city?

6. What’s Oakland like?

7. What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened while driving for Lyft?

8. Has anybody ever thrown up in your car?

9. What song is this?

10. Where’s your mustache?

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It's Not About The Mustache... Except When It Is

The Pink Mustache

Okay, let’s talk about the pink mustache. First, you have to earn the fucking thing. They don’t just give ‘em away. You gotta give thirty rides before they mail it to you. It’s not hard to give thirty rides—by my third day I’d done almost forty. It took another week to arrive, wrapped in plastic in a fancy cardboard box. They included a phone mount and a charger. I think that’s it. I left it all in the fancy box and threw it in the corner of my living room with all the other boxes. So what’s the big deal? Why don’t I“rock the ‘stache,” as the die-hard Lyfters say in the official Lyft Driver Lounge on Facebook? Or at least place it on the dash, where it looks like what you’d find on the floor after a fluffy convention?

When passengers ask me about it, my answer varies. It depends who’s asking. I’ll say I forgot it at home. Sometimes I say it’s dirty. Or if it had been raining, I say I took it off so it didn’t get wet. Or I just came back from the airport. Once I told these two drunk girls that I’d attached it one day, drove over the Bay Bridge during a wind advisory and never saw it again. After which I pointed out that the mustache came with explicit directions: don’t drive over 40 miles per hour. Which of course is impossible to avoid if you live in a city with a freeway.

The real reason, though, is that the pink mustache, despite its nauseating ugliness, has become the perfect symbol for the backlash against all “ride-share” services, not just Lyft, but Uber and SideCar as well.

The term “ride-share” itself is such a completely and utterly outrageous misnomer that it would be laughable if so many people weren’t buying into it. The entire concept of the shared economy is based on deception so the founders can avoid regulation. Everybody knows it. The companies know it. They call themselves tech companies, not transportation companies. Particularly when the shit hits the fan. The taxi drivers who protest the loss of their monopoly know it. The state legistlature knows it. This whole sharing economy could easily dissipate like a puff of smoke from an e-cigarette with one pen stroke. But instead, they set up what’s called Transportation Network Companies to give them a name more appropriate to the paid service they provide. Venture capital firms, of course, don’t give a shit. They’re just gambling on whether unfavorable laws will be upheld or reversed. Like betting on the ponies, but with politicians and lobbyists. Not to mention that Mayor Lee likes tech. Some of his detractors claim that Big Tech has him in their pocket. He certainly hasn’t done much to reel in the tech companies that have begun to infringe upon the rights of San Franciscans. Mayor Lee has pissed off a lot of people.

A few months ago, I began noticing RECALL MAYOR LEE bumper stickers on cabs. It’s not clear whether they are protesting the surge of ride-share vehicles or just his policies in general, but it’s undeniable that the cab companies and drivers have been hit hardest by the emergence of Uber and Lyft. Cabbies make about 30 grand a year. They lease their vehicles from the cab companies and usually start their shifts 100-150 bucks in the hole. Faced with a major threat to their livelihoods, they have been fighting back. And despite being regarded as less significant than Uber, the Lyft pink mustache is usually on most of the placards waved during protests outside City Hall. Circled and crossed out.

The fact is undeniable: the pink mustache is the ultimate symbol of an unregulated, scofflaw challenger.

Before I drove for Lyft and was just a passenger myself, I got a ride from a guy who had a pink shirt tied up to look like the puffy monstrosity on his dash. He said a taxi driver had ripped his mustache off the grill of his car. Since becoming a driver, I’ve read several posts on the Lyft Facebook group about cabbies yelling at Lyft drivers and taking pictures of their license plates to report them to insurance companies, or so the posters speculate. No matter what the motives of these cabbies are, it’s understandable that they would be upset. And I can hardly blame them. It’s one thing to know that these rideshare companies exist, but the pink mustaches most definitely add insult to injury.

That’s the thing about symbols: they can go either way. They mean one thing to the supporters and another to the opposition. There are a lot of Lyft drivers who happily drink the Kool-Aid and parade around town dressed in pink, waving their pink mustaches in the air as a counter protest to the cabbies. They defend their right to not just drive for Lyft but to promote the Lyft brand by brandishing the mustache at any opportunity. It boggles my mind how grown adults can be so proud of something so ugly. Do they not realize how stupid they look on cars? I’ve spent my entire adult life avoiding the need to wear a uniform and look like a jackass. I see no reason to start now. And the way I see it, I started driving without a mustache, so why not keep going without one? Passengers have a picture of my car and my face prominently on their phone. They know who they’re looking for. I can see them and know who I’m looking for. I greet each person that gets in my car by name. Most passengers do the same. There is no need for a mustache to enter the equation.

In fact, I’d say that 90% of the people I’ve talked to in my car about it say they prefer cars without mustaches. There will always be drunk girls who feel cheated when they get into a car that doesn’t have one, but they are easily distracted by something else shiny or bright.

“If you don’t want to rock the ‘stache, then maybe you’re on the wrong team.”

I’ve seen this comment in the Driver Lounge as a response to queries on whether to use the mustache. These Lyft drivers have no qualms about adhering to a group mentality. Most are also major sports fans, as evident in their profile pics and comments during major sporting events. So it makes sense that they would root-root-root for the home team.

But maybe they’re right. Maybe I should drive for Uber. Their drivers use a subtle neon blue “U” that illuminates oh so elegantly from their windshield. I have to admit, they look classy as fuck. But I’m sure my car would qualify. I’ve heard they have stricter limits on which cars are eligible. My Jetta is four years old. But it’s still in great shape and it’s the California Edition, so it has leatherette seats, a spoiler, 17” alloy rims, an iPod jack build into the dash. There’s a chance I could pass their requirements. But I’m lazy. And I don’t deal well with change. Also, the owner of Uber is supposed to be a real asshole. Maybe if I were to get called out for not using the mustache, or the mustache becomes some requirement—that is, if they are able to program the app to detect one on your grill—then I might switch services. I have absolutely no loyalty to Lyft or any other corporation, regardless of how they want to frame their corporate image.

That’s why I don’t use the mustache. Because I am the mustache.

Your Uber Driver Hates You

YOUR UBER DRIVER HATES YOU... 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 HERE? THEN CHECK OUT THE LISTICLE

Where would the sharing 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 other peer-to-peer platforms 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. Rideshare services rely on background checks and driving records, which aren’t foolproof either. 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.

A Rideshare to Perdition

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 their servants anyway? Would you chat with your server at a restaurant? 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!

Rideshare Drivers are People Too

Recently, 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 if that brief window into the reality of passenger ratings might finally alert 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. After six months of driving for Lyft, my rating is a paltry 4.85. My Uber rating is better: 4.93. But I’ve only been driving for Uber regularly a few weeks. I’m sure it’ll sink lower as I deal with more passengers.

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 recent 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? 

The fact of the matter is 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 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.

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(Please note: screen grabs of passenger profiles have been modified and do not represent actual passengers. Obviously. An even more obvious fact is that the opinions expressed herein are my own. I do not profess to speak for any other Lyft or Uber driver.)

The First Lyft Zine: Behind the Wheel: A Lyft Driver's Log

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Piltdownlad #10 – Behind the Wheel: A Lyft Driver’s Log

From the trenches of San Francisco’s sharing economy: A Lyft Zine. 

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