r/Bellingham • u/Jessintheend • 1d ago

Discussion Please be nice to rideshare drivers. Lyft is on some bullshit and just accepting a ride has become dangerous and stressful.

For reference, I do Lyft full time, mostly because ten years of customer service, management, and medical admin experience means nothing in this town apparently.

Anyways, Lyft has decided to switch to a new way of forcing drivers to accept rides. Basically turning ride requests into a full screen pop up every 30 seconds, wether you’re driving or not, that then takes several minutes to actually process, leading to last second turns, wrong directions, and lower patience. I feel like I’m driving a slot machine more than a taxi.

TLDR: I hate it here

49 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

14

u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

Full time driver here. Lyft has always been way shittier in my experience than Uber. Not saying Uber is wonderful or even good. But Lyft just seems to always fuck me in ways Uber doesn’t and consequently Uber is 75% of my business. 

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u/Jessintheend 1d ago

Uber booted me for a 4 year old speeding ticket. Claiming I have a “criminal record” then they just shut me down and refuse to reply to emails.

I’m just exhausted. Between this and the endless job search I’m breaking down as a person mentally and physically.

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

Oh I am breaking down too. I had to fight Uber for over a year once due to a “fraudulent email address”. 

I do this full time because of a miasma of personal circumstances. I’m not even trying a traditional job search anymore. The immediate situation has me scared af and looking at options. 

Sorry for rambling ranting. Good luck, be safe. 

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u/Jessintheend 1d ago

Thanks. I like the old sim city reference too. That asset taught me how to spell bureau

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

Im considering working down in Mt Vernon tomorrow to get that Tulip Festival business. Just for something different and flowers instead of the usual. 

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u/PillagingJust4Fungus 1d ago edited 1d ago

I have been off the road since September because I got so burnt out and just didn't have the bandwidth to be up until 3 Friday and Saturday. I always felt like Lyft was shady and trying to trick me, let alone the extra stress of switching back and forth.

When you both say full time, how many hours a week are you meaning and what's an average weekly gross? Going to have to get back on the road in the next few weeks, and may have to end up focusing on driving only for a while. Thanks in advance, understand if you don't want to share $ figures.

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

I honestly wouldn’t recommend it. Business is collapsing as we speak. If I had any prospects or viable opportunities, I’d quit. 

Sitting with both apps running and getting ZERO pings for over an hour is normal. The only way I’ve done okay (not good, okay) these past 3 weeks is through luck - a string of passengers needing emergency rides to Sea-Tac, Everett, and Sedro. Those long-distance rides are getting rarer and you’ll spend most of your time driving WWU kids 2 miles up that hill. 

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u/PillagingJust4Fungus 1d ago

Thank you for being honest. I have done it for years on the side and have taken an extended break. For the last few years I was only doing weekend nights. Short of finding an extra job, I'm going to have to start again soon. From what you're saying, I'll probably stick to those nights and not count on doing more or trying to do it full time if I lose my main job. Not looking forward to being always tired and beating the crap out of my car again. Probably need to get serious about a "real" side job. Appreciate your candor, thanks again. I'm hearing 40-60 hours for $500-$800 gross. Is that close?

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

40-60 hours for $800 gross is terrible. Holy crap. 

I don’t drive nights at all. Weekday mornings have consistently been far more lucrative. The late bar crowd is extremely limited - you can’t even fill a 2-hour shift with bar/late night traffic. Bellingham makes that more difficult because the vast majority of the regular bar crowd is within walking distance of their bars. I love that by the way, but it forces the taxi business to diversify their clientele. 

I rarely do more than 40 hours, but pretty much work 6 days a week and I’m barely covering my needs. I would argue doing 45-60 hours in this town would mean at least 15 of those hours are spent idle. 

I’ve made at least $750 each of these past 3 weeks. 

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u/PillagingJust4Fungus 1d ago

Yeah, I was asking if that's how bad it was. Thanks for going over what you're doing right now. When I was driving weekend nights most recently it was something like $350-$600 for 8-16 hours. Mostly busy other than a couple predictable dead spots in the night. You answered my main unasked question, which was that $1,000/week is possible but would take some time. Thanks again

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u/Teneniel 1d ago

Hey Jess keep a lookout over the summer for a potential Starlight position. 21+ and a clean record. you get full benefits all year even though it’s a cyclic position. It’s not a full time solution but it takes the pressure off A LOT

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u/Jessintheend 1d ago

The shuttle?

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u/Teneniel 1d ago

Yep! I love it. 25 hours a week, salaried. Incredible boss

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u/Jessintheend 1d ago

Good to know. Thank you

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u/ThursdayV 1d ago

that sounds horrible. I take lyfts a lot and have only ever had really lovely drivers. Y'all deserve better.

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

I just woke up and started working and it occurred to me. Are you referring to Lyft’s “trip radar” feature by any chance? 

I have decided to ignore it and press the dismiss button every time because of the points that you’ve mentioned in your post. None of the few that I tried to engage with this morning ever actually came through anyway. 

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u/Jessintheend 1d ago

They called it “ride finder” on my app. And it popped up every 10-30 seconds

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 1d ago

That’s exactly it. Ignore it. You won’t miss out on anything. 

Remember how in grade school it was “funny” to tie dollar bills on fishing line and fuck with people? That’s what “ride finder” is. 

I am not a bloody trained seal and I will not submit to such dark pattern bullshit. 

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u/Jessintheend 1d ago

It was hard to last night. For most of the night it was 90% of the rides given. Idk if it was a bug or some awful pilot program

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u/BureauOfBureaucrats 23h ago

Ride finder has been around for a while. It existed in my last city 2 years ago but under the name “trip radar”. 

You can safely ignore it. I tried “accepting” 5 of them this morning specifically to reproduce what you experienced. None of them actually matched me to the passenger. “Rides on the map are not guaranteed” is what always pops up. Basically I was distracted and interacted with my phone for nothing.

If you ignore it, it’ll eventually just ping you the ride anyway. 

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u/Jessintheend 23h ago

I tried to. Last night, it was almost every ride. I can count on one hand how many actual ride requests I got. I just gave up out of frustration