Need a Lift? Uber-Funny Confessions from a Rideshare Cabbie

Need a Lift?

Uber-Funny Confessions from a Rideshare Cabbie

By A.E. McKay

Copyright 2015 A.E. McKay

Smashwords Edition

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or noncommercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. If you did not purchase it, please respect the hard work of the author by returning to your favorite ebook retailer and purchasing your own copy.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Ridesharing: 101

Chapter 2 How do I know all this stuff?

Chapter 3 My Ride Categories

Chapter 4 My 50 Most Memorable Rides

Most Memorable Rides - Story Index

Chapter 5 The Best, of the Rest

Cheap Rides

Crazy and Funny

Drunks and Addicts

Foreigners

GPS

High Maintenance and Bitchy Rides

Late Night Food

Sexually Suspect

Pay It Forward

Chapter 6 The Confessional is Closed, For Now

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About A.E. McKay

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Chapter 1 - Ridesharing: 101

I come from the old school days of public transportation, from the 80’s and 90’s. If you needed a taxi, you either hailed one on the street (which was nearly impossible during rush hour), or you called a cab company and waited forever to get a ride, especially during busy times.

The world we live in today is much faster, more tech savvy, and fast-paced. Who could have even thought ten years ago that you would be able to use a smart phone, with an app, that provided an incredible transportation option using your GPS location, often in less than five minutes? Yes, growing up in my era was much different, as we did not have the Internet, cell phones, GPS tracking, and, there was no such word as ridesharing, unless you were hitch-hiking, or in a commuter carpool!

In my adult years, I have lived in big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and Seattle. I’ve also travelled extensively for work to just about every major city in the USA, and most major European cities. I am quite aware of traditional taxi services and how I was treated, as there were no other choices in many places. Although most drivers were friendly, there seems to be an unspoken code for taxicabs: You must leave a tip, even if you are not satisfied with the service. You must pay in cash, to avoid that hateful look if you try to pay with a credit card. You need to accept that if you don’t know the area well, the driver is probably not using the most direct route. And, you should be OK that the driver doesn’t speak English very well. Quite often, you also had cabbies on their personal cell phones while driving, the smell of different cultural foods they were eating in their cab while driving, or some type of religious incense that had been placed inside the taxi.

I’ve witnessed taxi driver fights in Boston over road rage, and a NYC taxi driver getting robbed at knifepoint while we were stuck in traffic. I was thrown out of a cab during a Gay Pride festival in Seattle by a foreign driver, who was quoted as shouting, All gays should die! And, last but not least, I was robbed by a taxi driver in Prague, who grabbed all my money and sped off as I was trying to pay him. I was consistently overcharged during late night rides home or told that I had to pay upfront, in cash, to get a ride home. We’ve all had similar experiences, right? But we had to willingly accept these demands as there were no other available alternatives, except public transportation, which ended by 2 am or was unsafe for travel.

So, in 2011, when I first heard of this new company called Uber, that was like a sedan/black car service, and you used your cell phone to request a ride, I was very intrigued. Yes, it cost a little bit more than a taxi, but the ride amount automatically appeared on your phone and the tip was included! How cool was that? Oh yeah, and your first ride was free!

All you had to do was load the application on your smartphone, enter some basic personal information with a credit or debit card, and you were ready to go. After the ride, everything just auto-billed to your credit card but then the best part - you got to rate the driver on their performance. I was instantly hooked!

Ridesharing services originally started in San Francisco and have spread like wildfire throughout most major cities in the USA and now worldwide in the past few years. As with any new invention, rideshare services have definitely been controversial as they stray from conventional ways that people have traditionally used for economical and efficient transportation like buses, trains, vanpools, carpools, the subway, light rail - and especially taxicabs. Rideshare companies started around 2009 with Uber, then their primary competitor Lyft, as an alternative technology solution, to connect a person needing a ride with a qualified driver. Each person, of course, having a smartphone application, that connected the passenger and driver through global positioning (GPS). The closest driver to the person who needs the ride appears on a map screen and then the passenger then can request a ride. There are some variations but it’s pretty simple. Drivers for these companies vary from city to city throughout the world, but most rideshare drivers come from all walks of life, with incredibly diverse backgrounds and experiences. The common thread for most drivers and passengers is that they enjoy meeting other people, talking about their lives with others, and learning about different experiences.

Drivers love the flexibility of their schedules and that they can work as independent contractors, with total flexibility to drive whenever they want, for as long as they want, and to start, stop or change their hours as needed. Passengers benefit from immediate availability, usually getting their ride in less than five minutes, especially during peak hours, with a unique experience that is definitely not like a traditional taxicab service. Because there are many other drivers that work on these rideshare platforms, this creates availability, 24/7, for quick service to be provided to rideshare passengers in most major cities and their greater metropolitan areas.

Lyft and Uber are the two major players in these new, rideshare wars. Both boast a different type of experience, that it is all about fun, having a great time, meeting other people, talking and getting from place to place safely! Both Uber and Lyft have grown exponentially in the past few years and have changed the way people think about getting from point A to point B. Now, with a Smartphone and a downloaded app, anyone with a debit or credit card has an economical and efficient alternative to a taxi in a few minutes. There are no hassles, no issues, no waiting and you get to your destination safely, without any money exchanged between the passenger and driver. But, ridesharing services have created quite a stir as many governmental agencies have scrambled to revise old transportation laws to match this new industry, some regulations that were actually written for horse-drawn carriages! These rules, of course, shifted to taxicabs and now deviate sharply from the norm, as rideshare drivers use their personal vehicles, and don’t follow the traditional guidelines for taxicabs. There continues to be lots of of articles written about rideshare services, protests, legal battles and these heated debates will continue, undoubtedly, as this new form of transportation evolves.

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Chapter 2 - How do I know all this stuff?

I am a rideshare driver and have been since October, 2014. I live in the Greater Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area and I drive mostly in and around Scottsdale, the Arizona State University (ASU) campus in Tempe, and downtown Phoenix on a part-time basis each week.

A few years ago, I had a very bad string of luck and had to close my business, which led to huge financial hardships. Basically, I pretty much had to start my life over again. I was living in a different state and working in a home-based, Internet marketing job which didn’t afford me much time to explore the city or meet others. I thought by driving for a rideshare company that I could learn more about getting around the city, make some much-needed extra money, get out of the house, and to have some social interaction with different people during these rides. And I sure have had all this, and more! Since I started, I’ve logged over 550 hours with nearly 2,500 passengers, on 750+ rides, in my fierce 2006 Hyundai Santa Fe mini-SUV.

Never in a million years did I think I would have so many incredible experiences, which is far beyond my original expectations. Yes, I have had good, bad as well as happy and sad rides over the 14,000+ miles I’ve traversed. The best part is that I’ve collected hundreds of stories to share with other folks along the way. The vast majority of the people I drive to various destinations make this job so much fun each day, keep me laughing and always ready for new adventures. I wouldn’t have these stories if riders weren’t so awesome (and, a few, not-so-awesome). I am very grateful to so many, who have been open to share their stories with me, and are excited to participate in this new way to travel.

On New Year’s Eve, I was driving two guys in their mid-20’s to a party in the early evening and they, like most, asked me to tell them a few of my most crazy ride experiences. After I told them, they were hysterically laughing and said I should write a book that could be an easy-read for folks about my times driving. We talked about a book like this being the next, great American bathroom-type reader setting on the commode. I immediately thought of the television show Taxicab Confessions but wanted my stories to be a little different.

While I am a fairly new writer, I do think I have a message to share with others and I’m hoping that everyone reads these stories in the spirit which they are intended: to laugh and realize situations in life are funny and different. Yes, some of the book is provocative, and some of it is outrageous. Some of it is sad, and other parts might cause you to think a little more about people.. But mostly, these stories are just quirky people, unique individuals, and will hopefully inspire others to celebrate the good times you can have driving around your city, using a rideshare service like Uber or Lyft!

What follows are the 50 most memorable events and ride experiences from my first six months of driving, as well as some other short stories as well from ride categories I’ve created over time. While I know some of these stories may, perhaps, strike a chord with your own personal ride experiences, in order to safeguard the confidentiality and anonymity of passengers, actual names have not been used. I assure you, though, each of these stories are based on real rides. To avoid anyone thinking they might be a person who is portrayed in this book, I offer this disclaimer:

All the characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real life, real places or real persons, living or dead, in this or any other life, is purely coincidental and should not be construed to exist. If you think you are a character that is depicted negatively in any of these stories, you definitely need to get a life!

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Chapter 3 - My Ride Categories

Early on in my driving, I started keeping track of my ride experiences. Each day I would jot down some notes for rides that I liked (and even the one’s I didn’t). I tried to remember specific people on any given day, but soon found that I was only writing down the most outrageous, crazy and wild rides. I wasn’t capturing all the truly amazing experiences with great people. So, it was then that I created the following categories which have become my chalkboard of sorts, as I set up the rideshare confessional:

Cheap Rides

Crazy and Funny Rides

Drunks and Addicts Rides

Foreign Student Rides

GPS Mishap Rides

High Maintenance and Bitchy Rides

Late Night Food Rides

Pay it Forward Rides

Sexually Suspect Rides

Sketchy and Sunday Funday Rides

Each category relates to the stories that are listed in the Table of Contents, for easy reference. To help you decide what story (or category) you might want to read first, I have also provided an individual story index for my 50 most memorable rides, just in case you want to hop around. The individual story names should give you a pretty clear picture of what the story is about but if you want to immediately skip ahead, to the most juicy and absurd rides I’ve had, start in Chapter 4, and work your way downwards from ride number 10. By the time you hit my most memorable ride, I’m certain you will definitely want to circle back to other stories and categories! All of these stories should be easy to read and were written in both the present and past tense, from my perspective. I’m not a grammarian or novelist, so, I hope you will bear with me as you read ahead. I’m just a regular guy who has lots of stories that I think you will enjoy reading. I’ve written these for you to enjoy in multiple sittings, all at once, or to share with friends and coworkers. I do think that you will enjoy reading these vignettes as much as I did writing them down after they happened in my car. This book was specifically written to make you laugh at how we, as humans, can behave in front of a total stranger in what I call the rideshare confessional. And, with all that said, the confessional is now open for business!

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Chapter 4 - My 50 Most Memorable Rides

Anyone that transports folks from one place to another for payment, including rideshare drivers, has their favorite stories. Not necessarily their best ride experiences but certainly their most memorable. In fact, anyone who has ever worked in the hospitality, food service, retail or any type of customer service field will definitely relate to their best and worst customers.

These stories are MY most memorable, counting down from number 50, to the most unforgettable driving experience so far, a story I called Flapping Felicia. I’ve had hundreds of experiences to draw from, but these stories that follow will certainly provide folks with an idea of rideshare services from one person, living in one city in the USA, who loves what he does, in order to make ends meet.

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