12 Things I’d Like to Tell My Uber and Lyft Passengers

If you could say whatever you wanted to your passengers, what would you tell them? Today we’re going to talk about 12 things that you might want to say to your passengers, things that you want your passengers to know. Stick around at the end of the video. I’m going to share with you a 13th item, something one of my passengers said, “Would you please tell passengers this as well?”

Jay Cradeur is going to talk about things you think but you may not say to your passengers, and you may not say it to your passengers because you want to maintain your high rating, and you don’t want to get deactivated for being too forward or too abrupt or too rude or for being too darned honest.

What we did is we asked some of our readers to throw us some suggestions of things they would like to say to their passengers. Let’s get into the list. We’ll start out with number one.

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Be on time!

My time is valuable. Be on time because my time is valuable too. How many times have you been waiting and you’ve been frustrated and you just don’t say anything when they get in the car? Because, well, you just wait. You just wait for the passenger to get in the car. Driver Douglas F. made this recommendation, and I sure get it. Our time is valuable too. Let’s go to number two.

I make money when I’m driving, not waiting

This is my pet peeve that passengers don’t seem to understand that we don’t make much money when we’re sitting, waiting. We only make money when we’re driving, and if we can drive at 70 miles an hour on the freeway, that’s when we’re making the most money. Come on. Just don’t request for a car until you’re ready to go. It’s really not that complicated. Let’s go to number three.

Tip us!

Number three comes from Driver Joseph. Joseph says, “We’d really appreciate a tip.” When Uber started, they told everybody that the tips were included in our regular fare, the rate. Uber’s people never ever tipped. Lyft, they do tip, and you get a lot more tips when you drive for Lyft, but it would be great to say to everybody, “Hey, we appreciate tips.” It’s a big part of our earnings and give it to us. Show us the love.

Stops are for picking up or dropping off passengers, not errands

Driver Michael L. says that multiple stops are for picking up and dropping off passengers. They’re not for you to go shopping. Yes, absolutely. I hate multiple stops. I don’t like them ever, but sometimes it’s happened a few times. I took one woman to a bank. She spent 10 minutes inside of the bank before coming out. I took a guy to the post office. He waited in line for like 15 minutes, came back out. That’s not what it’s meant for.

Know where to get picked up at the airport

At the San Francisco airport, we pick up at the destinations area, and the passenger is downstairs in the arrivals or they’re in the wrong terminal altogether. I’d like to say if you’re at the airport, it’s really hard for us to stop and wait for you, so get it right. Get it right and show up at the right place.

Be ready at the address listed in the app

Number six comes from Joseph A. He says, and I’m going to read this for you, “Look and be ready at the address that is listed in the app.” He goes on to say, “Passengers need to be more conscious of where their pickup pin address is located. Too many times, passengers just use the automatic GPS location and the address is incorrect.” That is so true. How many times have I gone to pick somebody up and then I look across the street and there’s somebody waving and I got to go across three lanes of traffic to get over to pick them up. That’s a really good one. Let’s go to the next one.

I am not your servant

We are partners in this deal. I get really tired of passengers, mostly it’s Uber passengers if I’m completely honest. They treat us like we’re servants. They speak dismissively to us. They’re not friendly. They’re kind of rude. I would certainly like to say, “I’m not your servant, dude. I am just a guy like you and we’re in this together.”

Send us the gate code or other details for difficult pickups

Number eight comes to us from driver David R. He says to tell the passengers that when it comes time for a pickup at an apartment complex, please send us the gate code. How many times has it happened where you pull up to an address and it’s a big apartment complex and there’s a big gate and you’re stuck there and you just got to wait? Then, you got to call the passenger and say, “Can you please let me in or are you coming out?” It just wastes time. That’s a really good one as well.

Be ready on the sidewalk if you request a ride on a busy street

Number nine is one of mine. Number nine is if you live on a busy street, please be ready when I get there to pick you up. There’s a busy street in San Francisco called Oak. It’s about five lanes across, and cars just zip down this road. There’s no place to pull over. There’s no parking on the sides. If you’re not ready, I’m going to have to either stop and wait for you, in which case all these cars are going to be honking at me and I’m going to have to drive all the way around the block and try again. If you’re on a busy street and you know it’s a busy street, be ready to get picked up.

Don’t have loud phone conversations in shared rides

If you’re in an Uber Pool or Lyft Shared, so there’s other passengers in the car with you, don’t have loud phone conversations. It’s just rude and disrespectful. Hold off. Have the call later. We don’t all want to hear your conversation and then no one else can talk.

Stop telling me how to drive

I am a professional. Backseat drivers who tell you when to turn right and when to turn left and when to do this and when to do that can be very, very irritating. We have a GPS. My God, I’ve done 19,000 trips in San Francisco. I know where we’re going, so you just be the passenger and enjoy the ride and let me take you where we’re going. I promise I’ll get you there as quickly as possible.

Please respect our cars

Number 12 comes from a driver named Shu Yang. He says, “Please be respectful of my car.” I can still remember I had a woman who bought a bunch of scratchers. That’s like a lottery thing in San Francisco and in California. You scratch them off to see what the number is underneath. She was scratching all this stuff off and just putting it all over the backseat of my car. Very rude, very rude. People who eat food in the back of your car and it smells up the car. Not Nice. So please respect my car.

Bonus: What do passengers think?

I was asking my passengers. I said, “What else do you think I should say to passengers for this article that I’m writing?” They said, “How about you tell passengers not to leave their trash in the car?” That got me to thinking about how many times I’ve offered people a little bit of water and then later in the day, I noticed in the back seat that the empty water is just thrown on the floor. My car is not your trash can. Just take it with you and leave.

What do you think? Are there more things that you want to tell your passengers? If there are, go ahead and put them in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks for watching. This Jay Cradeur with the Rideshare Guy. If you haven’t subscribed yet to the Rideshare Guy’s YouTube channel, by all means, do and then you’ll be notified every time there’s a new video. They come out once or twice a week and you’ll stay up to date on everything that’s happening in the gig rideshare industry. Go out and have a great day.

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