Rideshare Chump

I’m idling in the bike lane on Valencia with my hazards flashing. For the past five minutes, I’ve been pulled to the right as far as I can so I’m not disrupting the flow of traffic anymore than I have to. I cringe each time a bicyclist has to swerve around my car. I watch a cab pull up to a couple. They climb in the back and the driver takes off. He glances in my direction as he passes me. He’s probably thinking, what a chump! And he’d be right. Rideshare drivers are total chumps! No self-respecting cabbie would wait longer than a few minutes to pick up a fare. If the passenger isn’t ready to go when they show up, fuck em! I’m inclined to split, but I’m giving Glen the benefit of the doubt. Cause I’m a chump. I just called him and he assured me that he’s on his way out. So I wait, like a chump, grateful I’m not in a worse position.

What’s wrong with this guy? I swear, some passengers can be real assholes. Not only do they request a ride and then make you wait, they don’t want to take more than a few steps to get in your car. So you have to make sure you get as close to their pinned location as possible while you block traffic waiting for them to mosey outside. Otherwise… otherwise, what? They rate you low. 

Uber passengers are definitely worse than their Lyft counterparts. Uber passengers make you flip a bitch to pick them up on the opposite side of the street. They send you into awkward driving situations without a single concern for what it’s like to drive a car in this city. And they make you wait. It’s an epidemic.

Fuck you, Glen! You fucking scumbag dickhead cocksucking motherfucker!

Oh, is that him with the girl?

I look at them imploringly. Please be my passenger...

They walk past me.

Fuck! I fucking hate Glen! I wish I hadn’t called him and had just canceled. Now, because I’m such a chump, I keep waiting. Another Uber car pulls up behind me. Hey, fellow chump. I wonder how long you’ll have to wait.

Well, fuck! His passengers are ready to go. Lucky bastard.

Just as I’m about to hit “cancel-no show,” dickhead Glen shows up with his chick. They climb in the back.

“Sorry for the delay,” the girl says.

“No problem.”

As I take them downtown, listening to them discuss their lame-ass jobs, I hate myself just as much as I hate them for playing along with their self-entitled douchebaggery. 

I think this is the last time. From now on I won’t wait longer than two minutes. Three at the most. Maybe four, if it’s not a busy street.

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Driving in San Francisco is the Worst

I’m an LA native. Say what you want about LA, but at least we know our way around a traffic jam. Driving in LA is a part of life. We take it seriously. Newcomers have a learning curve, but they quickly get indoctrinated into the LA style of driving or face dire consequences. LA drivers are like wild animals trapped in cages. If you poke at us with your crappy driving, we will strike back viciously and get you in line. Road rage is the equivalent of an ape throwing his shit at a contemptible visitor to the zoo.

LA drivers know all to well the primal animosity that surges up through your body and overwhelms you to the point of violence when you have to deal with some moron’s shitty driving. I once stopped my car in the street, got out and banged on this asshole’s window for tailgating me when I was looking for parking. The terrified look on his face may or may not have been worth the potential assault charge, but it made me feel better.

As a Lyft and Uber driver in San Francisco, I traverse almost the entire city over the course of a weekend. It’s a small place. That doesn’t mean it isn’t perilous. The narrow streets of San Francisco are full of buses, bicyclists and pedestrians. They're much more difficult to navigate that LA streets, which are just clogged with other cars. Many passengers ask me how I’m able to deal with driving in San Francisco. I tell them it’s like mastering a video game. You’re always trying to get to the next level. But honestly, it’s really not that difficult. The hardest part of driving in San Francisco is San Francisco drivers. They are the absolute worst.

I have a list of grievances I log daily in my Moleskin. I don’t know if longtime residents drive as crappy as the new transplants, if it’s just the tourists who are to blame or what, but these are the most egregious examples of horrible driving I see on a daily basis:

1. Always asleep at the wheel when the light turns green.

What the fuck? Pay attention! You’re in traffic! Be prepared to drive when the light turns green. Step on the fucking gas! I wanna get through the light too. It never fails, if I’m three cars behind the one at the light, I know I’m not going to make it.

2. Four way stops.

Some basic shit here, folks. The first person to stop is the first person to go. It’s not every man for himself. As you approach the four way intersection, pay attention to who gets there first. Look at their wheels. Have they stopped before yours? Yes? Then let them go. If not, you go. Two people stop at the same time? The one on the right goes. Three people? The one on the right still goes! This isn’t rocket science! I know throwing pedestrians into the mix makes it a tab bit confusing. But even though I have to skip my turn to let somebody cross, I’m still in the queue, goddamn it!

3. Merging.

Okay, the concept of two lanes of traffic merging into one seems to be mind-boggling to everybody. Even though, like a four way stop, there is a basic rule: one car from one lane, one car from the other lane. Like folding cards into a deck. This method keeps the flow of traffic moving and ensures everybody gets where they’re going without creating complete chaos. It’s fair and it’s the fucking law. But while drivers in every city fuck this simple method up, I have never seen cars in a merging lane perpendicular to traffic until I started driving in the Bay Area. East Bay drivers in particular seem to treat merge lanes as a free-for-all. And nobody respects a solid line! Solid means you can’t change lanes, asshole!

4. Double parking.

Sure, they’re nowhere to park in San Francisco and when you’re ridesharing, you have to pull over to pick people up and let them out in awkward situations all the time. But there are certain streets, namely the arterial thoroughfares, where double parking is not just impractical, it completely interrupts the flow of traffic. And yet it’s completely avoidable. Pull into a driveway. Let the person out on the corner. Do ANYTHING but don’t stop in the middle of the street. Arterial thoroughfares are the closest things we have to freeways in San Francisco. They are the quickest ways to cross the city. So don’t fuck it up for everybody else because you can’t be bothered to find a safe place to pull over.

5. Blocking intersections.

Again, it’s a simple rule of the road: if the car in front of you has not cleared the opposite crosswalk, don’t enter the intersection. You are going to block opposing traffic. Do you enjoy feeling like an asshole stuck in the middle of the intersection as traffic backs up waiting for you to move? You know we hate you, right?

6. Changing lanes on the freeway.

Do you really think that changing into the lane that is moving slightly more than the one you’re already in will get you where you’re going faster? If so, you’d be worng. And an idiot. Once you and all the other moronic drivers move into that lane, it will slow down the rest. There is no escape! Just accept the futility of traffic and don’t make it worse for the rest of us!

I could go on and on… I swear, the only thing worse than driving in San Francisco is dealing with San Franciscan pedestrians.