5 Common Misconceptions Drivers Have About Their Passengers

I would like to share with you five common misconceptions that drivers have regarding their passengers. In other words, what are some things that you and I may be thinking about our passengers that aren’t necessarily true which are impacting the amount of money that we make doing our job and can also impact our rating?

Stick around at the end of the video, I’m going to give you my number one tip to help resolve all of these. Take a look at the video below, then scroll to the video transcript to read all of Jay’s points.

Hey everybody, this is Jay Cradeur with The Rideshare Guy. Great to be with you here today and we’re going to talk about things that we think that aren’t necessarily true.

“My passengers want me to drive fast”

When I started working, I thought this was my goal. Get the passenger from point A to point B as quickly as possible.

This could be further from what the passengers want. In nine out of 10 cases, the passengers, they want a smooth, easy ride. They want a peaceful environment in which to enjoy the ride.

Driving fast, swerving, swerving, hard stops, quick accelerations. These are not the things that the passenger wants and it took me awhile to figure this out. There are a few times where passengers will tell me, “Yes Jay, I’m in a hurry. If you can get to the airport quick, please do. Drive aggressively.”

That’s rare and when it does happen, I drive a little bit more aggressively, but what I will usually say is, “Look, I drive as fast as I can while being safe. I’ll do the best for you that I can. Let’s get on our way.”

“My passengers want me to be entertaining”

Second misconception is that my passengers want me to be entertaining. Now, this is what I thought when I first started driving and I was lucky because I asked one of my initial passengers, I said, “What makes for a good a rideshare driver?”

They said, “Don’t talk at me. Let me just enjoy my ride.” Certainly, there are times where you will say, “Hey, how are you doing today?” The passenger will start talking and they want to talk and they want to engage.

That’s great. Engage and be your entertaining self, but the majority of the time, the folks don’t want me to be entertaining. They would just rather me be quiet. Don’t think you have to be an entertaining personality in your car. It’s not necessary.

In fact, more times than not, the passenger just wants it nice and quiet.

“My passengers care what I have to say”

I used to think that my passengers care about what I have to say. We’re having this conversation and this happened to me early in my career and I’m sharing something profound and I look back and the person is on their phone just going, “Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. Right.”

Immediately, that just hit me hard and I realized my passengers don’t care what I have to say. What they do care about is that you as a driver care about what they’re saying.

In other words, we are there more to listen, to be a place where someone can talk and be heard. That’s the service that we can provide to the passengers. Listen, we have two ears, one mouth. That’s a good way to think about the proportion of the amount of time we should be talking versus listening.

“My passengers understand how I get paid”

I had the misconception that my passengers understand how I get paid. When passengers would get in my car after I’d been waiting for four minutes, I would assume they knew that I was only making 18 cents a minute while I was waiting there for them and they should have hurried up and they should certainly get in the car and say, “Sorry to make you wait.”

They don’t, they don’t have any idea. Frankly, they don’t care how we get paid. Don’t worry about what they think about you getting paid. You worry about how much you’re getting paid because the passengers, they don’t have any interest in that.

Here’s a good example of what can happen if you don’t really understand your passengers. You get comments like this saying that I’m rude. What happens a lot is someone will get in my car and I’ve been waiting and then I get angry and then I’m not nice to the the passenger.

Lo and behold they complain and say rude. It’s really important to understand your passengers and realize they’re there, we provide the service, the better service we can provide, the higher our rating was going to be and the more tips we’re going to get.

“Passengers who don’t talk to me are rude”

A person would get in my car and sit right behind me and I used to think that was the rudest thing a passenger could do because I can’t even see them, I can’t talk to them.

It’s like I am their servant driving them around town. I thought, “Man, that is so rude.” Well, then I talked to some of my passengers and they said, “No, they’re not being rude. They just want to be left alone.” Or, “No, they’re not being rude, that’s just the seat that was closest when they opened the door.”

My biggest tip: Check your ego at the door

This is my last and my big tip that I want to give you and that is that I was watching a movie recently and it was Ocean’s 8 and there was a line in there that said, “The ego has landed.”

Instead of the eagle has landed, it was the ego has landed. To really make this job pleasurable, you’ve got to check your ego at the door. Once you get in your car, the ego is outside, you’re inside.

What you want to do is put yourself at service. Think about how can you serve your passenger. That’s really the place to come from and what I’ve found is I’ve been able to go from tips in the $40 to $50 a week range to a $100 to $150, one week I actually made over $200 in tips.

What I’m sharing with you really can improve how much money you make during the week. There you have it. Five misconceptions and a really good tip to wrap it up. This is Jay Cradeur, I want to say thank you for watching this video, and if you haven’t subscribed yet to the YouTube channel for The Rideshare Guy, I highly recommend it.