Lyft (and Uber) - First ride ever in Vegas, Now I'm a driver

I had such a nice experience when I took several Lyft rides in Vegas last year, then a friend started asking me to drive (we both get a bonus which is sweet), so I started a few weeks ago.

I drive in and around Nashville mostly which is awesome.

Just curious what everyone thinks about Lyft (and Uber) now that theyve become a bit more popular?

Does anyone stil take taxis?

Best of all I'm getting extra dough to save for my next Vegas (or Tunica) trip

 

I've been doing Uber for 6 months now. Summer season here is very good,slow now most business is on weekends. I'm strictly on the day shift also I dont drive at night and mostly stay home wiith the app on in case someone needs a ride.Good luck.

 

Good luck to you as well. I haven't signed with Uber, yet, but plan to. Wish they would offer a better bonus like Lyft does!

 

Do you like driving drunks home for short quick fares, or would you rather do long airport hauls, where you might not get paid to drive back?

 

Merlin,
So far I like them all
With the new driver bonus Lyft is offering to everyone (to my knowledge) , it rocks because I get paid on every ride immediately (ie don’t have to wait until X Number of rides)— I just get it on the spot, plus regular pay for the ride plus tips.

Overall, a ride is a ride and I’m happy to get any of them because it’s money in the account. The drunks are usually in a more festive mood and fun to talk to (and typically more entertaining ).
Airport (or longer rides in general) usually equal more $ overall and typically bring me to a more populated area where more rides will come anyway. So it’s a win win.

Do you drive for either of them?

 

No, I've used uber, never lyft as of yet.

 

I'll take the airport hauls anytime.make enough on them to drive home alone if I want. The area I'm in pays more also if I pick up at the shore here east of the Parkway ,the Jersey Shore premium or something. Toughest ones are into NYC,esp. Midtown . I dont get drunks mostly cause I dont work nights,could make a ton of money doing the clubs at night in the summer.

 

JG, how do you get reimbursed for tolls when driving to LaGuardia or JFK?

I have used Lyft in Nashville and Vegas, and although I feel badly for traditional cabs, I think about buggy whip manufacturers who had to adapt to the changing times.

I read that 46 taxi medallions were sold for an average price of $186,000 each in Queens, NY. At the top of the market they went for $1 million.

 

I also live in Jersey, do you drive part or full time with Uber? I’d imagine it’s hard to make a good living full time with Uber, but I could be wrong. I do work for a limo company, and we have some former Uber drivers. They’ve told me it’s ok on a part time basis, but not full time.

 

Don’t feel sorry for traditional cabs. They brought this on themselves. In most small towns they drive 20 year old death traps. The rates are high, and the service usually sucks. It’s been almost 25 years since I’ve used a local taxi company. They told me the cab would be there in 30 minutes, showed up aalmost 2 hours late. Fortunately I wasn’t going anywhere important. The last time I was in a NYC taxi was about 10 years ago. You are putting your life a risk the way those guys drive. They’re desperate to get to the next trip. As a professional limo driver, if I drove like that I’d be immediately fired.

 

Taxis might’ve been ok in nashville or other big cities years ago, but in our case south of nashville years ago you’d call a cab and same situation— shows up hours late or not at all

Lyft and Uber are a miracle

 

I haven’t used a cab in years and I’ve never had a bad experience in an Uber. I’d say about 40% of my cab experiences were subpar- same as you guys mentioned, those guys failed to consistently show up in a timely manner.

I’ve talked to some Uber drivers around here that said they can easily eclipse $1k/day on Ohio State home game days, Arnold Classic weekend, and big concert weekends. They all said other times can be hit or miss.

 

I drive for Uber in Portland. It's just a fill-in thing for me. I don't particularly NEED the money, but it's nice. I probably do 7-8 hours a week, but for the last couple weeks I've hardly done any....just too busy with other things.

Since I'm not doing it strictly for the money, I prefer to AVOID the super busy times like Friday and Saturday nights. I'd rather do airport runs during the day, or just drive people to and from work. It's not as busy, but it's a lot less stressful

 

I've thought about driving for Uber or Lyft especially since we just got them in this area about a year ago. But I always remember back in the day having to drive a friend of a friend home who was drunk and I was concerned about them getting sick in my car...

And my car now is only 2 years old I'd be concerned again about the condition of it...

Idk though may think about it...

 

I've used both before. It a genius idea thats for sure. And glad to hear you are a driver for Lyft as I think Uber is a bad company that no one should be supporting (go listen to the Uber episode of the podcast The Dollop for a hilarious take on how awful a company they are & thats before it leaked that they hid that they had customer personal data stolen a year after the fact iirc). Don't use Lyft a whole lot doe, but I like using it better than a taxi & I'll never use a taxi over any company like Lyft simply because its a more customer friendly experience in the foreseeable future.

Randomly whats the pay like with Lyft after expenses? How many hours can you work a week? I've heard some ex-drivers say its hard to make a living doing it, but seems like if you live in a big enough city & put in some hours at the right times of day you should do alright or else so many people wouldn't be doing it. But curious as to your experience.

 

I drove for both Lyft and Uber for a while in Memphis. It was fun for a while but the over saturation of drivers have made it hard to earn a decent wage. Last time I drove I made around $50 for eight hours on a Friday night. I haven't turned the app on to drive since. I will use Uber or Lyft for rides and I prefer Lyft over Uber.

 

I havent done NYC airports ,just EWR,ACY and Phl. The rider gets charged for the tolls. I'm PT whenever I'm in the mood.I have two vehicles I use ,clean inside always and I try to be courteus and have met a lot of nice folks.

 

I was pulling in around 5k/mo after gas when I drove Lyft between gigs in Seattle, but that was 2 years ago, and I was driving 80-85 hours a week not sure what the market is now

 

Like anything else you learn by doing and adapting to the area you live in. Its good to be in a high income place where you have lots of business travelers rather than low income urban like places where you get short rides thru congested crappy towns where people drive like maniacs and most of your trips are short 5-10 dollar rides. The nice feature about Uber is that if someone beeps you and is going over 45 minutes it shows up so you are more likely to go a little further to grab that. My sons buddy lives in a high income town and as soon as he gets in his car he's busy. During the summer I sometimes hang out in a park on the water on weekdays when I'm bored ,I call it my office. I get trips from there and if not looking at the water is fine for an hour or so.

 

Taxis are history with me. At home or in Vegas I take Uber.