RIDEGURU
Leonard Girsh (LG-PA)
Ride Apprentice from Southampton, PA
810 DriverActivity
Posts by LG-PA
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How low is too low (Passenger rating)
Had a Lyft request last night for a long ride. As I was pulling up to the train station in … -
Rideshare Insurance for Drivers
In time for the Thanksgiving I want to share with all of you my Rideshare Accident Checklist.I put this … -
Lyft’s scheduled ride passenger no show cancellation fee or lacke thereof
Second time in 2 weeks I scooped up a scheduled ride, was sent the ride. I arrived 5 minutes prior … -
Do lower ratings for drivers come predominantly from Pool/Shared rides vs. regular or spread is about the same
Any drivers able to pinpoint a trend of which type of rides hit drivers with lower ratings? i suspect pool/shared … -
Is anyone experiencing and issue wuth Uber not reimbursing drivers for all tolls?
Hi, Three times in the past three weeks I had to call Uber to complain that I was not reimbursed … -
Never ending Phone Mounts
Hi, Not sure if other drivers are blowing through phone mounts as frequently as I did, so I decided to … -
Driver survival Kit
What essential items do drivers have in the cars to help make rideshare driving easier?
Featured Answers by LG-PA
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On Uber platform Drivers have to rate passenger right away when ending the trip, so no way for the driver to know if passenger tipped or will tip, thus no ral way to penalize passneger for not tipping. On Lyft passenger can be rated up to 24 hours after the trip. If passnger did not tip on a long ride I usually go in and rate them 4 stars or less if they did something crazy like brough a child and did not bother buckling them in or bit their nails and left clippings on my floor
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Also, many students from Rider University go home on Fridays, so if you hang out by campus right off 295 you will most likley be shuttling them to Hamilton Train Station and that is not a bad ride on the highway,
even if you have to run right back to the university to grab more.
After Rider runs dry up, after your last drop off at Hamilton, head over to Love's Travel Stop in Bordentown, Friday is when long distance truck drivers go there (because of new regulations where they can only drive so many hours), park their rigs and often need rides home which could be miles away, and Bordentown in General has some riders. Hope this helps for Friday planning
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on Lyft there is a Scheduled Ride section (sort of like a job board) it displays avaialble scheduled rides probably with pickup somewhere within 10 mile radius of where you are at the moment of looking at that screen. On this screen you will see pickup and drop off locations and approximate fare, so that is an instance where drivers can see destination :) and of course in Destination filter mode, while you can't see destination exactly you do have an idea of general direction since ou are the one who entered the destination filter :)
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I decided to read up on this a bit.
So it looks like The FCC is aware of such problems and even set up a "Jammer Tip Line" for people to let the bureau know about people who may be selling or using a jammers.
Found here:
https://www.fcc.gov/general/jammer-enforcement
There is an app to help identify if a jammer is being used, here
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microcadsystems.serge.jammerdetector&hl=en_US
It appears to only work on Android
A quick search on line also revealed that there are Jammer detectors out there, such as on this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmXsKCEeP4o
Nipping in the ass a few of the assholes using them and reporting to FCC will hopefully help.
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When requesting pool one has to specify number of riders, driver confirms that at pick up on the screen. This enables the system to plan as to whether driver can pick up another couple or only a single passenger.
I had the happen to me. Rider requested pool for 1, but there were two of them at pick up.
I tried changing to two (system told me to make the rider add the second passenger (their friend)
it is $0.11 more for their friend, so I see why rider stated 1 initially vs. 2. (a lot of money - understandable), eventually she changed to 2, and almost immediately got an add-on passenger for a couple, since system figured I should have 2 more seats available. But for example if the same cheap passenger #1 requested pool for 2 but showed up with 3, and I did not force her to change, my next stop for the couple would not enable me to pick them up. SO it is driver's responsibility to ensure number of riders getting in matches the number Uber was told will get in the car. the screen to change number of riders is right in front during pick up.
Occasionally I may have 2 separate passengers already in the car, pool up to my next pool pick up, to find party of 4 who requested a pool, I roll down window and tell them basically I can't fit 10 pounds of passengers into my 5 pound car. I also ask them if they selected pool? knowing already they did and tried to cheat system. I ask them how many passengers they put in during request? (knowing they put in for 2 as system wuld not even let you pool as an option if you have 4 passengers in the single party. (because it would no longe be a pool if you r party of 4 took up all seats) of course the passenger claims they put in 2. Anyway I ask them to cancel, they do not want to cancel because they do not want to get hit with $3.75.
The point for me talking to them is not only to educate them, but to also milk time, so if they do not want to cancel themselves, by time I am done talking to them 2 minutes are up and I just hit NO SHOW and cancell myself, so I can collect my fee. Last thing I need is to drive to them for 5-10 minutes and not even get the NO SHOW fee, because the cheap asses were to cheap to book regular pool.
I do not do many pool rides anymore because of this hassle and dealing too much with cheap asses who request pool, do not tip (for most part), drag my ratings down (I bet the other two passengers in my car already would leave a lower rating because it too longer) and then cheapskates try to beat the system even further by trying to save $0.11 by not declaring all people in their party, find another driver :)
Oh yes all that on top of Uber paying drivers less per mile and minute for doing a pool ride vs. regular. So more work (more hassle) = less pay - makes total sense :)
Yeah, with most drivers being part timers who actually scooped up passengers (which on any other day I would not picking up) while on way to/from work will just leave apps on to legitimately deduct the miles on taxes but will just not bother to actually pick the passengers up. On my 10 mile commute I frequently got matched up with the same passengers for short rides, which I did not mind doing even if it only put $4.00 in my pocket which covered gas for the day (occasionally these rides would ping me when I am still 10 minutes away from the passengers), meaning there are no drivers in the area. I can easily survive without the $4.00 / $8.00 per day as I did before I signed up. Because I feel being robbed I will no longer do these rides, which means these passengers will feel even longer wait times, and will start switching to Lyft. Once they switch there is rarely a turning back point. So not only will passengers get hit with longer wait times, they will actually leave Uber for good in some cases.
Drivers, even new ones will quickly figure this out. though close to 70% of new drivers will quit within 6 months of signing up, And for new drivers that do stick around a bit longer the novelty quickly wears off.
Taxes are not an issue as mileage expense pretty much covers it one for one.
If/When Lyft follows in Uber's footsteps with this taxation of their Destination Filter rides, I will stop picking up their passengers also :)
Whn I come out for a full day (like Sunday) I rarely use the filters but am sure some full time drivers who commute to/from population centers from rural areas relied on the filters a bit more than me.
So dear divers: per Uber at least your first and last ride of the day will be taxed 30% - if you are taking advantage of the feature we built into the app for your convenience ---very nice :)
For fun I took one destination ride today
Got robbed by Uber
Guess this is the first and last Destination Filter ride I will ever do during the week on way to/from work. Good luck Uber on reducing wait time for your passengers, especilly in suburbs during Rush Hour (idiots)
Perhaps Uber can start taxing driver's next trip (after cancellation) 30% as a penalty, regardless of cancellation reason (even if the passenger did not show up for 5 minutes and did not pick up the phone), sort of like what they just rolled out with destination filter trips. Sarcasm added
Got same notice in Philadelphia.
They are basically saying, Ok we are going to rob drivers on at least two rides a day of 30%
Sort of like the stupid Soda tax they implemented here, to tax sodas more. You do not just pick a certain industry and tax them more.
Uber's justification is that riders are waiting longer due to increased use of filters, but I think this will now only increase wait times, since I for example will just refuse to pick up any passengers on the Destination Filter while going to/from work. Or I may show up at passenger, tell him of the robbery, cancel the ride and ask them to re-request with me sitting there.
Many part time drivers who during the week use the filter to pick up passengers while heading to and from work will now simply not pick up the UBER passengers. I often get matched up with the same passengers even sometimes taking them to work and from on the same day using the filter. As a driver I will still have my both apps on and just ignore Uber destination filter requests, will still be able to write off my miles. So we started with two filters, went to 6, then back to two and not to garbage. I am sure Lyft will follow Uber in this idiotic decision, but angering drivers prior to IPO for Uber was probably not the smartest thing.
If I was Uber I would retract this after a week and to save Face would say that it did not work. Lyft should capitalize on this decision and not implement such cut to Destination Filters
I agree with the vacuum thing 100%, I actually carry a portable, battery operated unti in my trunk just for small mess like this (crumbs, sand, etc) helps me out very good.
With help of GPS, specifically Waze I look like a pro in any city, lol. occasionally I will take a wrong turn here and there but usually am spot on.
Many drivers are from non English speaking countries, but that is what this country was built on. I take my hat off to people who do not speak much English yet are hard working and are trying to work to provide for their families instead of standing in line for Welfare checks which I see quite often is actually done by the folks born in the US :)
I typically will have 150 miles worth of gas in my tank at a minimum. If a passenger requests a long ride which will take me close to that or longer, I will stop by and get gas on the way. there is nothing wrong with that. Mostly on a long ride like that a passenger will ask for a pit stop anyway so that is a perfect time to fuel up. Happens rarely but it could
Driver is a contractor, Uber nor Lyft can punish you for driving for competitor. Driver opens up both apps, whichever send him a ride request first and if driver chooses to accept it, then driver accepts that ride and quickly closes the other app
When I first read the heading, I thought driver slammed brakes too hard :)
I wonder if this was possibly because the pickup was in NJ and drop off in NJ though it routed trip via PA? As oppose to sending driver on NJ side of the border?
With such a high passenger rating - what is your typical wait time for a driver?
I noticed increase of the Selfie requests that coincided with my lower acceptance rate :)
They definitely know when we are moving, while dropping off a passenger in NY, I decided to check my ratings on uber while slowly getting out of NY to NJ. Their app prevented me from going to ratings screen with a message on the bottom (Unavailable while in motion) it has to be a NY thing as I can still flip between screens in NJ and PA
Uber is just testing out this feature to see how quickly driver reads and pools over. They will then roll this alert out to tell us we need to sign the service animal policy along with a Selfie every few days lol:)
XL or two Uber X,
If you are scheduling in advance, not sure you can reserve an XL, but can Uber X
Though the film is Driver's property :)
If driver needs to prove passenger puked, driver reaches for the camera. If driver did something unsafe during ride, no passenger can mandate the driver fork over the film :)
No, there is no guarantee.
However you are much better off scheduling the ride with Lyft vs. Uber. Here is why:
When you schedule a ride with Lyft (as long or as little time in advance), Lyft immediately publishes all scheduled rides on what I call a virtual job board (basically a separate section of the driver application).
The ride is displayed on phones of all drivers who happen to be within approximately 10 mile radius of the pick up location and are looking at that section of the driver app.
Rides that offer better payout are snapped up by drivers in seconds after they come out, These drivers will be happy to wake up early and be there to pick you up on time. vs a ride in my example where all I would make is $4.00 - $5.00 (I am not even going to scoop up this ride as I have to be on line long time before they send me that ride as you will learn further down, that it makes absolutely no sense fo ra driver to add such a ride to their que.
The scheduled rides screen (on driver app) looks like the one I posted below. It shows Date and time of pick up, Approximate pick up location; Drop off location; estimated earnings. If a driver likes what he sees, they will click the "View Details" and then "Confirm Pickup" button and will be told if the ride is still available (as while the driver was contemplating whether to add the ride to their que or not, some other driver could have grabbed it and by time original driver gets around to clicking the Confirm pickup button the ride is history, lol). At this moment the driver whoever got to it first will be able to add it to their virtual que, where it will tell the driver what time the driver has to be on line to get the ride pushed to them. Typically driver has to be on line 30 - 10 minutes before scheduled pick up time (to give driver time to get to the pick up location in time. Passenger is given a 15 minute window for the pick up).
Once the driver in on-line at specified time the scheduled ride is pushed to that driver with a banner "Your scheduled ride" so we know it is that very ride and not some other request.
Drivers: If you scooped up that lucrative $80.00 ride originating in say NJ, and you are on time at specified time, say only 5 minutes away but on the PA side of the border, you are not going to get that ride sent to you, get yourself over the border into pick up state and magic happens, you will get that ride even as soon as you are in the middle of the bridge between the two states. That is what I noticed in my market, may be similar in yours. If you remain on wrong side of the border, Lyft will bombard you with text messages saying "Go on line, accept your scheduled ride..." You will be sitting there and saying to yourself, "I am on line where is the damn ride", well you are on the wrong side of the river :)
In my below example most likely the driver would be told to be on-line and ready to receive this ride request sometime between 11:20 am - 11:40 am. Note: that as a passenger (in below example) your pick up window will be displayed on your phone as 11:50 am - 12:05 pm (so by having driver be on line at 11:20 am) Lyft gets themselves almost 45 minutes to try to find you another driver if the original driver is not on line or is in the middle of another ride, removed the ride from their que, etc.
This way if your ride is a far one (the driver who is scooping it up from the job board knows ahead of time where he will be taking you).
If you do not schedule in advance and just try to request a car 30 minutes prior to your needed pick up, your ride request will go to closest available driver with a banner 45 Minute plus (this banner typically shows up on rides that are about 40 minutes in duration and on. Available driver who decides to accept your request still does not know your destination (only that a ride is potentially long), now that driver gets to you within 10 minutes, realizes you need a ride from PA to JFK and politely tells you , sorry I do not go to NY. Now you have to start from scratch requesting another driver, and will certainly be late. So if you are forced to request a long ride without scheduling it (call the driver immediately after they accept to ask if he will take you where you need to go, in order to save the 15 minute wait time to learn that the driver will not take you there after all). Remember drivers who are using a registration city other than your destination may end up outside of their market and not be permitted to pick up another passenger until they get out of that zone. PA and NJ drivers are not allowed to pick up passengers in NY, so you can see why some drivers will not want to take you to JFK as then they have to backtrack all the way to NJ on their own dime and that ride can be an hour long if they are backtracking via Manhattan trying to avoid (Verazzano bridge tolls) as that toll will not be reimbursable
I remember getting the scheduled ride (that I added to my que in advance) be pushed to me while I was still 27 miles away, which made me late to get the passenger by 10 minutes, but because Lyft could not find any other driver closer they did not remove the ride from my que and still sent it my way.
As a passenger you should know that once the driver shows up to pick you up within your pick up time window, they are only mandated to wait for you for 5 minutes before cancelling.
So in my above example if you r pick up time is 11:50 am and driver gets there at 11:50, by 11:55 am he can mark you No Show, collect his $10.00 and move on. Thus, do not assume that because your pick up window is 11:50 am to 12:05 pm that driver must wait for you for the entire 15 minute window. Most drivers will try to call you to see what's going on before cancelling (I actually even think we must attempt to call the passenger on a scheduled ride first before cancelling). The reason we do not want to cancel is we invested all this time to get to you on time and all we are making is the $10.00 cancellation fee. Basically form 11:20 (the time we had to go on line) until 11:55 am (( your scheduled pick up time + 5 minute wait time) we were not able to perform any other rides, and now also have to back track to some area on our own dime for another 10 - 30 minutes while waiting for some other fare (so be considerate of that). However, if the area where your pick up was to occur is pretty remote and driver is there, and sees light in your house is on, thus assuming you are indeed going to eventually come out, and you are not picking up the phone, a driver will cancel after 5 minutes to get the $10.00 fee and drive off about a block, knowing that passenger will frantically start requesting a Lyft ride immediately after realizing the driver cancelled despite seeing the driver was just sitting out front just 5 minutes ago. Passenger still needs to go where they need to go:). Guess what that is going to get your request now, yep the very driver who just got $10.00 cancellation fee will happily accept :) as that driver is the closest available driver.
While a passenger can also schedule a ride on Uber, drivers have no prior visibility as to where, how much they will make, etc ahead of time. Uber just sends the request out like any other request to the closest driver and hopes they accept.
Morale of the story is, anytime you need a long ride try to schedule it ahead of time, even if you schedule a pick up for 30 minutes form your needed pick up on the same day, you are eliminating the issue of having the driver show up and tell you "Sorry I am not going there" :)
Passengers are not aware of the splits. Just like you just assumed 4.5 - 5.0 is good, well let me tell you. Here is from one of my recent ride, was driving a woman, she was talking about how she just wants a safe ride and she would not accept a driver with a rating lower than 4.00. I asked her how many times did she have her ride request accepted by a driver rated 4.00 or below, she said never, she assumed she just was lucky with good drivers (she rides very seldom). She, just like you , and like any normal person would think a 4.00 is not a horrible rating. Let me open up a secret. The reason she never got a ride request accepted by a driver with a rating of 4.00 or lower is because when drivers fall to 4.6 or just under that, they are at risk of being canned form the platforms, so there are very very few drivers out there with such a low rating.
Thus, to answer your question, 4.5 is considered Red line to even remain a driver on the platform, average drivers are around 4.8. That is why I gave you the split at 4.88 and higher :)
Now, I realize many drivers who are lower rated are probably rated low unfairly by bad riders, especially on pools and shared rides, basically for reasons outside driver control, but for you to distinguish a good from potentially bad driver you can use the 4.88 - 5.00 as getting a good ride, and anything lower potentially lower quality ride. I know this is unfair to drivers, but that is the best advise I can give you at the moment. I hover around 4.93, and all it takes is a few low marks to sink me, that is why I would immediately stop doing pools if my ratings sink, until I can bring them back up. So for all passengers out there, if you had a good ride in a clean car, rate the driver 5.00 by default, that is what we drivers (most drivers) do to passengers, we just want to click "5" and move on to next ride request.
What women who feel threatened need is not a woman only rideshare platform, but only ride drivers with high rated drivers, say 4.88 and higher. (typical driver is 4.8)
Request a ride, driver accepts (male or female driver),
look at rating, 4.88 or higher, let the driver give you a ride.
4.87 and lower cancel and re-request
Phone may be on silence :)
No, that is bizzare and unprofessional!!!
Not only will you not get a considerable tip, you will get no tip and definitely a low rating, get a few of those and you are booted form the platform.
You can't hold a passenger responsible for your potential loss of income on the way back.
On a long ride, you are notified by a banner stating it will be a long ride. Call the pax and ask them to tell you where they are going, say you need to determine if you need to fill up prior to pick up, or whatever excuse you want to use. This is where you can decide to cancel the trip or take it. Passengers would laos be happy to know whether you are willing to drive them to their destination as soon as you accept vs. waiting for you 15 minutes to show up , start trip, find out destination and start complaining.