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Managing Curb Space for Rideshare Drivers

Picking up and dropping off passengers on busy streets is a major complaint, particularly for drivers in busy cities or highly trafficked tourist areas. If there’s no easy place to pull in to wait/drop off, drivers are put in an awkward position of navigating curbs and loading zones. In his recent analysis, Bruce Schaller from Schaller Consulting focuses on how curb space affects everyone and how cities and TNCs could work together to find a reasonable solution.

It doesn’t take long as a rideshare driver to encounter your first situation where you arrive at the passenger’s destination on a busy downtown street and there is no legal or safe place to pick them up or drop them off. What do you do?

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Burnt Out Talking To Passengers? Deliver Food With Caviar!

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6 Tips To Contact Uber Customer Service For Fastest Support

New to Uber?

Click here to sign up to ride Uber as a passenger

Here’s How to Earn an Uber Driver Sign Up Bonus

Top Ways for How to Contact Uber Customer Service

Sometimes I like to joke that one of the reasons this site is so popular is because Uber and Lyft are so bad at customer service. As a driver for Uber, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to contact Uber with a question only to get a completely stock reply that often doesn’t even answer the original question.  I’ve gotten really good at asking only one question at a time and making sure that I keep it super simple for those guys.

I will give Uber some credit though, because even though the answer isn’t usually what you want to hear, or even what you asked about, at least they respond pretty promptly these days (within 1-2 hours in my experience). Lyft, on the other hand, sometimes take up to a week to get back to me. And sometimes, driver’s emails get lost in a black hole somewhere up in San Francisco, never to be seen again.

Uber Customer Support for Drivers and Passengers

Clearly Uber and Lyft haven’t mastered customer care yet and that is one of the reasons why I work so hard to answer all of your questions that come in. I can’t respond to every Tweet or Facebook comment but I do respond to every question I get via email. Just make sure you do a little searching beforehand.  If you ask me a question that is easily Google-able or that I’ve already answered a million times you’re likely to get an Uber-like response out of me 😀

With that being said, there are still a lot of questions that you’ll need to contact Uber for and there are certain things that they’re very good at answering and dealing with.  I’ve compiled an epic list of all the places that you can go to get help from Uber (no matter what city you’re in).

Uber and Lyft don’t make it easy for new drivers to get help – that’s why I created The Rideshare Guide, your ultimate go-to guide for every Uber, Lyft or rideshare question you could have. The Guide is based on my years as a driver, and talking to and helping out drivers like you. Check it out here.

⭐️ Related Article: Your Most Popular Rideshare Questions – Answered Here!

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Do Rideshare Drivers Need To Get Business Licenses?

In this Throwback Tuesday Classic, RSG contributor Paula Gibbins answers a question many drivers are worried about: do we need business licenses to drive with Uber and Lyft? Many LA Uber drivers recently received a notice from Uber stating they need a business license to operate in the city, which came as a surprise to many drivers. This isn’t the first time this has happened to rideshare drivers. Here’s what all drivers should know about business licenses and rideshare driving.

Update: Since SB 182 passed in California, California drivers now only need one business license to work statewide. Drivers can obtain this business license in the city where they live.

The Case Of San Francisco

The actual language of the letter drivers in SF received was “if you drive on San Francisco streets seven days or more a year and work as an independent contractor rather than an employee of your TNC, you are required to obtain a Business Registration Certificate.” It gave me 30 days to either register for “both the current registration period and the 2016-2017 registration period.” 

Or I could to go to a different website and declare I do not need to register. Now, it gives you 15 days from starting business to submit your registration.

For those of you who are interested, here is the full letter that drivers received from the SF Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector, along with the response that Uber and Lyft gave to drivers:

What's up with business licenses and rideshare driving? Ryan tells us what rideshare drivers need to know about business licenses.

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Why Are So Many Drivers Having Trouble with Background Checks?

Over the past few months, we’ve heard from numerous drivers who were running into problems with the Uber background check. In some cases, new Uber drivers were experiencing issues getting approved, but for the most part, a lot of the issues we’ve been hearing about stem from the updated annual background checks that Uber is now running on existing drivers.

There’s never been much transparency with this process, and I’ve always disliked the fact that drivers have no idea when these checks are going to be run, what Uber is looking for and what the appeal process is, if the check turns up something that disqualifies you from driving.

You Can Fight Back If Your Background Check Is Inaccurate

If you think you’ve been deactivated or rejected as a rideshare driver due to an error in your background check, It’s important to remember that you are entitled to an accurate background check as part of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Losing access to your ability to pay your bills as a result of such an error may entitle you to having your lost pay reimbursed. We recommend getting a free consultation and speaking with the Consumer Law Firm of Francis & Mailman, P.C.  in order to make  sure that you are fairly compensated.

Earlier in the year, we documented Jay’s experience getting accidentally deactivated from Uber for 6 weeks due to a simple clerical error. If a false positive can happen to a driver with 20,000 rides under his belt and a 4.9 star rating, it can happen to anyone.

Fortunately, Jay was able to drive for Lyft during that down time (and he actually hasn’t driven for Uber since), but it was a real PITA getting straight information from Uber and Checkr (the background check company).

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Age Limit: Should Uber Drivers Transport Kids & Minors?

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Click here to sign up to ride Uber as a passenger

How old do you have to be to use Uber?

I know a lot of parents like to joke that once their kids start getting older, a big part of their job becomes transportation.  There is no shortage of soccer practices, rehearsals and pick-ups and that’s just one of the reasons why we’ve seen a huge uptick in requests for minors over the past year.  But Uber and even Lyft’s policies might surprise you when it comes to picking up minors.  Today we take a look at those policies and what drivers need to know in order to protect themselves.

This is a subject I never really gave much thought to until recently.  I am a father of two.  I am a pretty boring suburbanite dad and husband.  The type no one would even think twice about giving their kids a ride.  So when I see kids get in my car, if anything, I am relieved they got me as a driver.  But should kids be requesting rides for themselves?  Can adults request rides for their kids?  What is our responsibility as drivers on this topic?  These are some of the questions we will be addressing.

Related article: Essential gear every Uber driver should have

Age Requirements for Uber Riders

Before we discuss what we should do as drivers, lets look at what the terms and conditions are for the riders.  If you didn’t know this (I didn’t until I researched it), don’t be surprised.  The rules are actually different for each company: [Read more…]