SpaceLyft: Chronicles of a Lyft Driver

Stop it. Really. You’re breaking federal law and making the rest of us look bad.

A friend of mine with a guide dog has not only been refused rides by two drivers in three days, but both times the drivers called the police on her for asserting her right under the ADA to be treated as any other passenger.

Look, I know some people are allergic to dogs. I even understand that some people’s allergies are severe, or defy medication. But that does not absolve you of treating your passenger with courtesy and decency. If you really can’t share airspace with a dog for medical reasons, apologize to your would-be passenger and do your utmost to help pax and dog find a driver who can accommodate them.

In mid-August some dolt with a rented moving van backed into the front end of the parked Squeemobile and, with one stroke, rendered me unable to earn my living. Not only did that throw me into a tailspin while I scrambled to figure out how I could make money to pay my share of the bills, it also left me unable to participate in the back-to-school renaissance of Boston-area Lyfting. My fellow drivers on the Facebook drivers' lounges have been crowing about how good business has been since the beginning of September, and I have been missing out on it. :(

There was a long saga of dealing with insurance, and it's not over yet. Suffice it to say that I'm retaining a lawyer this week to help me figure out how to claim loss of use and loss of wages. This guy has particular experience in dealing with taxis and livery, and he's only charging a $400 flat fee for handling all paperwork and, if necessary, appearing in small claims court with me. 

In the meantime, we've had to come to terms with letting the Squeemobile go. Though the amount of damage from the accident probably wouldn't have completely totaled it, it had become clear that any money received from insurance would be better spent toward purchasing a newer vehicle with fewer underlying issues. Even if all accident damage were fixed, it still needed all new struts and links, new tires for the winter, and new brake pads within 4-6 months. If this accident had not occurred, we would have had to figure out how to make those repairs; with the accident, it just all became too much. So, with some trepidation, we took the initial insurance payout, got an offer from an auto salvage operation for the Squeemobile, and took the $200 my dad had given me for eventual struts/links repair, and used all that as down payment for a 2007 Toyota Matrix XR.

It rained all day today, and I got on the road relatively early for me, resulting in the best mid-week driving day I've had in like 2 months. I was busy most of the time, with occasional bio-breaks.

A couple of those rides were ridiculously short, like the one where I drove 15 minutes or so to pick up a guy from the JFK/UMass T station, braving the lack of safe spot to pull over, only to end up driving him all of 0.6 miles. Seriously, he could have walked there in less time than it took for me to reach him! It was hardly even raining at that particular point. Oh well, what are you gonna do? :-} Then I picked up another guy at the Wollaston T station for what turned out to be ride of only a mile or two, but my passenger turned out to be the guy who sold me my new phone at the T-Mobile store in Central Square. :)

Last Tuesday I Lyfted during the day, then went to a contra dance, and afterward intended to see if I could pick up a passenger on the way home. However, I turned on the app only to find that the app required updating, but that I could not update it through the Google Play store.

To make a long (and very irritating) story short, the issue was that the updated app required an upgrade from i06 to i07 for the iPhone and an update to at least v. 4.2 (Jellybean) for the Android, and my 2-year-old phone was running v. 2.3.4 (Gingerbread). Moreover, my phone, which worked just fine and which I really liked, damn it, was incompatible with the newer Android OS, so I had to replace it. I chose a new Samsung Galaxy S4, which I have to admit is a pretty splufty piece of technology. You can actually control certain aspects of its operation with above-screen hand gestures and eye movements. Truly, we live in the future. How the fuck did we send people to the moon 40+ years ago when entire rooms of computer banks had less processing power than devices we stick in our pockets today, with multi-gigabyte memory cards small enough to stick up our noses? :)

On top of that, we updated our T-Mobile plan and now we get 1GB extra of data per month for $20-30 less than the previous iteration of the plan. (Though with the amortized cost of the new phone, there's no real net change in the monthly mobile phone bill. That's okay. The extra data alone means we come out ahead.)

There's a known glitch with Kit Kat, though (the latest Android OS version): Something about it breaks the downloading to external storage. To make another long story short, I had to unmount the microSD card, do the update, and then remount the card. Now it works, but jeez, what a pain in the ass.

It took a little time and the resolution of a little glitch, but K. and I got our $150 new-driver bonuses yesterday! Thank goodness. I could really use the extra cash.

Do you live in or near Boston? Are you possibly interested in becoming a Lyft driver? If so, Lyft really, really wants you.

Well, they may also want you if you live in other cities with a Lyft presence, but the one where I know for sure they want you is Boston. Especially as the beginning of the academic year approaches.

A few weeks ago I referred my friend Karyn, and she filled out the form at https://www.lyft.com/drivers with her contact information and my referral code (LAURIE198). She received a call from a Lyft mentor just a few hours later, wondering when she might be able to start. Seriously, if you have a good driving record and a 4-door sedan of model year 2000 or newer, they will do what they can to get you on board as soon as possible.

In the last few days I gave out my referral code to three riders who indicated they might be interested in joining our ranks. I hope they do! And if you are interested and you use my code (again, that's LAURIE198 ;-) ) get accepted and complete 20 Lyfts within your first month, you and I will both receive a $150 bonus. What's not to like?

At the beginning of the summer I wondered how my business would fare once most of the students had left town. The answer is that there have been ups and downs. At the same time that activity has slowed down, I've also been making more money lately than in previous months.

In the last month I've found that my best days for daytime driving are Mondays and Fridays. I get pretty steady work all day. As for Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, those have generally been pretty slim pickings. If I get 2-3 rides on those days, I count myself lucky.

I think my improved earnings have a lot to do with the fact that Lyft isn't taking commissions over the summer, to balance out the cheaper summer pricing. It seems to me a tacit admission on Lyft's part that summer ridership is pretty low compared to school-season ridership. But hey, I'm not complaining! Gotta work it while it lasts, as I assume the company will resume taking a commission at some point.

Two places that really suck for picking up passengers:

Harvard Square

Boylston Street going toward Fenway/Longwood

Life got in the way for a while, but I'm hoping to resume blogging here now.

Lots of stuff happening lately. I blew through another 100 Lyfts and passed the 200-ride mark! My son turned 3! The city of Cambridge started debating the idea of passing stupid regulations that would hamper rideshare companies and favor taxicabs! (Note: I'm not against the idea of regulations for Lyft, Uber, etc. I am, however, against what Cambridge initially proposed, which was a blatant giveaway to the taxi companies.)

My view on today's taxi protests and what it means for the sharing economy - Vice-President of the European Commission

A 6-Lyft day, with an early afternoon gym break in between. Interesting mix of folks today. One guy I took to the airport told me about the year he spent in Brazil, parts of Africa, and parts of southeast Asia researching how indigenous peoples approached medicine and healing. I took two students, one man and one woman, from their dorm in Boston to a club where they were going to watch the opening game of the World Cup, and the guy was hilariously excited to watch the game. We were running slightly late and I swear he was almost about to explode, but when we arrived at their destination, he took my hand and kissed it. :)