#lyft car

CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT AND ENTER THE CODE BELOW TO RECEIVE A FREE RIDE THATS WORTH UP TO $25-$30.

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.

I just put these on the car's shoulder belts last week. They make me inordinately happy. :)

One of the reasons I decided to apply to drive with Lyft instead of Uber is that Lyft seemed more fun, more accepting of individuality and quirks. I'm not interested in pretending that I'm normal, especially if I'm not even in an office setting. :) So, because I'm a science fiction/fantasy nerd, I decided to run with that as a theme to make my car fun and memorable. I covered the ceiling of the car in some midnight blue fabric printed with silver stars. To that I pinned paper cutouts of galaxies and nebulae. Then I added silver beaded fringe trim around the edges by the windows and windshields.

These are the results. I'm pleased and a number of my passengers have told me that they think the car looks cool. :)

Many people are familiar with "Luddites," those early 19th century British textile workers who vandalized modern looms and other innovative, time-saving machinery that they feared would put them out of business – or reduce the value of their work.

I’m not the first writer to notice the resemblance between the original Luddite behavior and the actions of angry Parisian taxicab drivers, who earlier this year vandalized a car owned by a driver for Uber, the innovative ride-share service founded in San Francisco. One Salon writer expressed concern about the rise of such competition and even quoted a Marxist professor defending Luddism.

But the rest of us know it’s hard to halt competitors with a crowbar. Uber, and other companies such as Lyft (the one with pink mustaches on cars) and Sidecar, are not exactly cabs. If they were, they would face an array of restrictions. Taxicabs are tightly controlled by the government, which is why it can cost $1 million in New York to get a "medallion" that authorizes a cab to roam the city’s streets.

I tried Uber recently outside San Francisco. (It operates in 34 countries and many U.S. cities, including San Diego.) A friend indicated on his app that he wanted a ride. Within moments, he had a text confirmation and was given the license plate of the car and a contact number for the driver. It was stress-free and the car arrived promptly.

The driver was friendly; the car was new. The fee and tip were deducted from my friend’s on-file credit card, so there was no fumbling with cash or card readers. Going back, we took Uber Black and rode in a Town Car. It was nice.

Basically, these "ride-sharing" services do an end-run around the taxicab cartel and their arrays of rules and limits, but American Luddites haven’t attacked cars. They have lobbied governments to limit the competition, which is designed to achieve the same result.

The cabbies’ mantra is safety – something that has gained ground after, sadly, an Uber driver killed a girl in San Francisco, although he didn't have a customer at the time. The CEO of an Atlanta cab company argued that tragedy was an example of "the obvious and overwhelming risks to public safety" as he advocated a Georgia law to regulate these ride services. But one need only search on Google, "taxicab" and "fatal crash," to see that accidents are not limited to "unregulated" ride services.

Actually, it’s wrong to use the word "unregulated." Uber and others are examples of how a market more deftly regulates things than bureaucrats. Note recent news about how federal safety regulators for years ignored dozens of reports about a potentially fatal flaw in some General Motors ignition switches. It took a few months after the tragedy for these ride services to institute new insurance "gap" rules covering drivers who might not be on assignment.

I’ve met nice cabbies with nice cars over the years, but that’s not always the case. You pay your money, leave the cab smelling like an air freshener and forget about it. Ride services require drivers to have nice, newer cars. They fire drivers whose online ratings fall below a certain level – and that inspires a high level of customer service.

Some riders have complained about Uber’s surge pricing. Isn’t it better to pay more during rush hour in a rain storm and actually get a ride than have a theoretically low price while standing in a puddle trying to flag a cab? Americans have become so accustomed to having everything regulated that they’ve ceased to see how freedom might operate – how a company eager to make money by pleasing customers can achieve better results. And if you don’t like Uber, use a competitor’s service or take a cab.

California gets a bad rap for its zeal to regulate. But our regulators have been reasonable with these new ride-share companies. After clamping down in 2012, the California Public Utilities Commission later voted unanimously to recognize them and has focused mainly on legitimate insurance issues.