The Lyft Chronicles: Episode 1 Waiting on Your Ride

As we get into tax season, this will be the final filing for my Lyft and transportation services. For five years, I spent my free time hustling Lyft rides in the background of my race engineering career with my two Jeeps, Boogie and Quintana2. I racked up a perfect 5-star driver rating with over 5000 rides, but that’s not why we’re all here today.

I quickly learned how easy it is to die out here on the street in America. But before you die, you must wait…

2021. Boogie the white Jeep Renegade getting detailed in Miami

It was late 2019. I lost two race engineering gigs in under two months. i was just getting back on track with consolidating all my debt, but here I was now in survival mode, yet again.

I swallowed my pride and while living in Vegas, became a rideshare driver to pay the bills until the next racing gig appeared. At first, I started with Door Dash, but quickly learned after a wild day serving West Hollywood, DoorDash was more work and more risk for less pay. The soul crushing part was delivering a meal to an office in Beverly Hills one year before I was receiving multiple checks from.

Funny how life works?

Quickly moved my focus to Lyft and Uber. By this time in America’s culture, both services were popular and a common industry in Las Vegas. The two months before the pandemic were full of joy and glee because for once, I was getting paid to do something I knew how to do with my eyes closed.

But that’s when the death starts in. No, I don’t recommend anyone close their eyes while doing ride share to make this truth evident. The death I’m speaking of is the silent disappearance of your humanity. Uber, Lyft, hell even TURO are all convenient and proven methods to earn a dollar, but at what price? When you first join, it’s all on you to ensure you can drive legally. Your car, your application, your registration. Then once you are approved from an unknown entity that deems you worthy, you must go on your own around your local city in hopes to attract customers.

The good side to this, it won’t take long to find your first ride since you’re hustling with an established brand backing you like Lyft. The dark side is what you find once your phone goes Ding and reroutes you to a customer.

That Ding gives you 10 seconds to accept the mission, and dependent on your seniority with the ride share apps, how far you must go to pick up said customer. But it’s still all a waiting game. They are still playing in your face.

As you arrive to the pickup location, that’s when the intensity is turned up to 11. Your heart is pounding, you scan the area to see if your customer is close, nearby your vehicle, in hopes they were paying attention. But most times, you gotta wait. And that’s the hard truth. Waiting is a major part of the game.

You may think that your rideshare driver is busy fumbling with their air freshener, driving distracted or incompetent: but please, if you’re reading this know how much energy, anxiety and conditioning rideshare drivers go through just to earn money. You have the right to cancel if you feel they take too long or get a little lost in traffic, but this experience of being alone and forcing yourself into servitude with your vehicle, your maintenance and your life situations does something mental to drivers.

Each driver dies a little bit with every ride they accept daily, cause you take their safety and security for granted. Most importantly, it’s a waiting game on both sides. Drivers don’t get paid until your ride is complete. Passengers wait to get out of their location to a better destination. So if everyone’s waiting, who’s actually enjoying the ride?