The Rideshare Guy: Blog And Podcast For Rideshare Drivers

by Harry Campbell on June 6, 2014 4 Comments

Friday Rideshare Roundup: Is Uber Safe For Women?

The news hasn’t been good for Uber this week as there have been two separate stories of riders getting kidnapped and/or punched by Uber drivers. Now I know some passengers can get pretty annoying but that doesn’t mean you can punch them! And it goes without saying that they shouldn’t be kidnapped. But in all seriousness, these stories do bring up the larger issue of safety and rideshare. We know that every driver has to pass a background test but that doesn’t mean some whackos don’t slip through the cracks.

It gets worse for women too since generally males are the perpetrators in these types of incidents. I know there are thousands of rides that go down every night without incident but when that one kidnapping or punching happens, it makes us all look bad. And of course the media is going to sensationalize it and make it seem worse than it is so it’s up to the rest of us to put a good name out there for rideshare drivers. We have to go above and beyond the call of duty any time some dumb ass driver does something stupid.

Here are all of the newsworthy rideshare stories of the past week: [Read more…]

by Harry Campbell on June 4, 2014 16 Comments

I Signed Up For Sidecar

Last week I told you guys how I was up in SF and Sidecar was everywhere. Well this week, I decided to sign up and to be honest the process couldn’t have been simpler. I signed up on a Tuesday and I was approved to drive on Wednesday, now that’s a quick turn around time!

Here are the logistics of getting set up with Sidecar and what you’ll need to register.

Sidecar Requirements

Here’s everything that you’ll need to drive for Sidecar:

A registered vehicle that you are insured to drive
A 2 or 4-door car in great condition built in or after the year 2000
A California driver’s license, if driving within California
A valid driver’s license for more than one year
Be at least 21 years old

As you can see, out of the big three, Sidecar definitely has the most lax requirements. I think it works well with Sidecar’s business model though because passengers get to choose their car based on price and distance. If a passenger is willing to take a beat up 2000 Toyota Corolla because it will save them $10 then you can do it with Sidecar. [Read more…]

by Harry Campbell on June 1, 2014 19 Comments

RSG001: What’s Your Passenger Pick-Up Strategy?

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Welcome to the first episode of The Rideshare Guy Podcast. I’m super excited to be working on this site and especially the podcast. I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting this first episode so I hope you guys enjoy it.

In this episode, we’ll talk all about passenger pick-up strategies and ways to maximize profitability, efficiency and more. At the end of the show, I’ll also share with you 5 awesome tips for getting the best passengers.

You can find a transcript of the show here and a big thanks to our awesome listener Carolyn for transcribing the podcast!

Summary of the Show:

Intro

My first podcast for The Rideshare Guy
Why I like podcasting so much

How does the passenger pick-up/request system work?

The secret behind Lyft’s passenger pick-up algorithm
Why do you get calls from passengers that are 20 minutes away when there are closer drivers?
How to reset your passenger pick-up radius
Future tweaks to passenger pick-up algorithm
Is it better to move around or stay in one spot?

[Read more…]

by Harry Campbell on May 30, 2014 10 Comments

Top 10 Ways for Rideshare Drivers to Get Bigger Tips

One of the best feelings you can have as a rideshare driver is opening up your driver summary and seeing those big tips. A lot of people have their own methods to scoring the big tips but I wanted to share what I do.

1. Don’t Ask for It

Every passenger that gets into your car knows how tipping works. For drivers, no matter what you do or how nice you are, there are always going to be people that won’t tip. Forget about those guys, you want to focus on the people who do tip. The one thing that turns me off most as a passenger is when drivers ask for five star ratings or remind me to give them a tip if they liked the service. Dude I know I’m supposed to tip, you don’t have to tell me!

2. Make it Easy to Accept Tips

One of the big problems with the Lyft app is the tipping feature, nobody can figure it out! I’ve had people ask me how to tip and I’ve even had one guy show me that he tipped me but then I never got the tip. I think he forgot to confirm the tip or something like that. As drivers, we can’t do much about the functionality of the app but we can do everything in our power to help riders figure out how to tip.

Once in a while you’ll get a rider who wants to tip in cash and personally, I have no problem with that. Until Lyft figures out a better way to give tips, I’ll take cash and say thanks. I’ll pretty much accept anything, I’ve even had a passenger buy me a beer once we got to our destination. [Read more…]

by Harry Campbell on May 28, 2014 2 Comments

Have You Heard of Sidecar?

Last weekend I headed up to San Francisco to celebrate my bachelor party with 17 of my closest friends. The weekend also happened to coincide with Bay to Breakers so needless to say it was a pretty fun time. I don’t remember much but since none of us were able to drive, we spent the entire weekend taking Ubers and Lyfts around the city. I talked to pretty much all of our drivers and they were some of the nicest and happiest people I’ve ever met. It probably has something to do with the fact that San Francisco is one of the best cities in the world to be a rideshare driver.

Since the three major rideshare companies originated there (Lyft, Uber & Sidecar) and there are less people with cars than in other cities like Los Angeles or Orange County where I drive, it’s pretty much a rideshare driver’s heaven. I talked to one Uber driver who told me he quit his 95k a year software engineering job a year and a half ago to drive full time. And a lot of the drivers I talked to said that they actually drove for Lyft, Uber and Sidecar – the trifecta!

I’d heard of Sidecar before but never taken a ride since it’s not nearly as popular down here as it is in SF. While we were there, we didn’t actually take a Sidecar but a lot of the Uber and Lyft drivers we rode with had great things to say about the company. [Read more…]