# what's the maximum distance you would go for a pick up?



## Lyfty

Ok, honestly something is very wrong about this lyft system, first of all we can't see the destination of the passenger when we get the request, and in my opinion this is really bad, let's say the pick up location is 10 miles away for example, if I'm gonna drive to that location and then it turned out that the passenger only wants to travel for life 2 miles..well I just basically wasted my time and gas..

I just picked up a guy who was 6.5 miles away in a non busy area, I had to drive around 13 mins to get to him, and after all the trip was like 1.7 miles, and I also had to drive back to the busy area...and what made it more frustrating is that he didn't even tell me the address, he said he will give me directions, which I dislike most of the time.
Oh well


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## Swed

My maximum distance I will go pick someone up is 15 minutes away, but it is a learning process to figure out how far your max distance should be.


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## LookyLou

Yes you really have to develop a feel for what you will do. Personally I will go pretty far. More often than not they end up being longer rides bringing them into the busier area. If not, it all averages out in the long run with the short pickup long distance rides.


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## Crownan

Lol, I never turn down a pick up! I'm a 100% driver! Unless you drive a 12 mpg wagon, I can't see how you would want to refuse a 20 min pickup which, in most cities, is only like 10 miles.


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## Baron VonStudley

I used to not really limit my range. As long as the drop off is in the zone it's not a far cry to get a return ride. My slap in the face was 2 nights ago 3:30 am got request 20 minutes away. It was at a hospital so I figured humanitarian pickup or tired nurse with broken car I called the guy and couldn't understand his words due to accent and phone inside his mouth effect. I tried talking a couple times and text messaging and all I could figure was he needed a ride. I got to the ER entrance and found him and drive him 8.2 miles and then got him home but I was 20 miles away from my home and it was almost 5 am well as you might guess he zeroed out the Lyft and I ended up driving over 2 hours a lot of gas and effort super late for $1. Donation based might have given me decent rates other rides but I have had at least 5 zeroed out costing in the hundreds. This time I was a sucker and the accessibility of drivers late at night is going to have to suffer now cause this one experience jaded me for good on keeping the brand positive and good fuzzy feelings Lyft tries to project.


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## Doodle

What do you mean by "he zeroed out the Lyft"?


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## Lyft4uDC

since i serve more the burbs than the city, i go 20 mins max. but the question isn't how far ill go but..will THEY wait for me for 20 or so minutes?


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## Lyft4uDC

Doodle said:


> What do you mean by "he zeroed out the Lyft"?


he might be in a market where rides are donation based and not fare based.


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## Oc_DriverX

Baron VonStudley said:


> I used to not really limit my range. As long as the drop off is in the zone it's not a far cry to get a return ride. My slap in the face was 2 nights ago 3:30 am got request 20 minutes away. It was at a hospital so I figured humanitarian pickup or tired nurse with broken car I called the guy and couldn't understand his words due to accent and phone inside his mouth effect. I tried talking a couple times and text messaging and all I could figure was he needed a ride. I got to the ER entrance and found him and drive him 8.2 miles and then got him home but I was 20 miles away from my home and it was almost 5 am well as you might guess he zeroed out the Lyft and I ended up driving over 2 hours a lot of gas and effort super late for $1. Donation based might have given me decent rates other rides but I have had at least 5 zeroed out costing in the hundreds. This time I was a sucker and the accessibility of drivers late at night is going to have to suffer now cause this one experience jaded me for good on keeping the brand positive and good fuzzy feelings Lyft tries to project.


Are there any consequences to his zeroing the Lyft? I assume you had already rated him. Can you have his rating changed to a 1? Does Lyft do anything?


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## Sydney Uber

Oc_DriverX said:


> Are there any consequences to his zeroing the Lyft? I assume you had already rated him. Can you have his rating changed to a 1? Does Lyft do anything?


2 Zeroed rides by a rider here in Sydney's only donation based rideshare outfit called Ridesurfing, and im told the person is booted out. Name & Credit card details never to be accepted again.


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## Lyfty

Sydney Uber said:


> 2 Zeroed rides by a rider here in Sydney's only donation based rideshare outfit called Ridesurfing, and im told the person is booted out. Name & Credit card details never to be accepted again.


Serves them right, I can't believe people actually do that, that is extremely rude and unbelievable


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## BeachBum

I've been driving for lyft for about three months now and got zeroed for the first time two days ago. Got zeroed again yesterday. Hope this isn't a trend now that the free rides are running out.


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## ElectroFuzz

I think it depends a lot on the area you are driving in.
I will go way out there, I did even 30 minutes but it usually ends up being $50-$80 rides.
I'm also getting thanks for going so far with $10 tips or even more.


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## LookyLou

BeachBum said:


> I've been driving for lyft for about three months now and got zeroed for the first time two days ago. Got zeroed again yesterday. Hope this isn't a trend now that the free rides are running out.


For you new drivers operating in donation cities. Be sure to go into your dashboard on the web and set your acceptance percentage. I suggest 80% - 90%. This will help to weed out those that continue to lower their donations and soon they will find that they are not able to get rides when they need them.


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## Baron VonStudley

LookyLou said:


> For you new drivers operating in donation cities. Be sure to go into your dashboard on the web and set your acceptance percentage. I suggest 80% - 90%. This will help to weed out those that continue to lower their donations and soon they will find that they are not able to get rides when they need them.


THIS is the key. At some point I had my level at 60% which I should have checked more often. I think I did that one night just to see how it panned out but I didn't mean to keep it that low yikes. I got a reply:

Thank you for writing in about this ride. I do see that you have encountered someone who under-donated before, and I definitely know how frustrating that can be.

We definitely appreciate you being out there at those odd hours for people who need those really late-night rides, and I wanted to let you know that as a one-time exception, I'm going to put in a request for a $15 bonus for you -- that rides's amount -- for what happened with that ride request. I've passed this over to our team that processes bonuses, and you should see that appear on an upcoming summary.

I also noticed that your donation threshold is at 60%, and wanted to note that we recommend that all drivers keep their threshold at somewhere between 80-90% in order to avoid these kinds of problematic passengers. While it is always possible for someone with a high donation average to be paired up with you and then under-donate, keeping a high threshold will avoid habitual under-donators.

Please let me know if there are any more questions that you might have, and I would be happy to answer them


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## LookyLou

Baron VonStudley said:


> THIS is the key. At some point I had my level at 60% which I should have checked more often. I think I did that one night just to see how it panned out but I didn't mean to keep it that low yikes. I got a reply:
> 
> Thank you for writing in about this ride. I do see that you have encountered someone who under-donated before, and I definitely know how frustrating that can be.
> 
> We definitely appreciate you being out there at those odd hours for people who need those really late-night rides, and I wanted to let you know that as a one-time exception, I'm going to put in a request for a $15 bonus for you -- that rides's amount -- for what happened with that ride request. I've passed this over to our team that processes bonuses, and you should see that appear on an upcoming summary.
> 
> I also noticed that your donation threshold is at 60%, and wanted to note that we recommend that all drivers keep their threshold at somewhere between 80-90% in order to avoid these kinds of problematic passengers. While it is always possible for someone with a high donation average to be paired up with you and then under-donate, keeping a high threshold will avoid habitual under-donators.
> 
> Please let me know if there are any more questions that you might have, and I would be happy to answer them


Nice that they gave you a little bonus on that. Sometimes it pays off to make contact with them about some of these issues.


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## Adam86

For me, I would limit to around 10km around my area, lots of jobs in Wollongong, but it's about 15km away and often it represents a short journey so I waste plenty of time just getting to the passenger. Happy to drive local people to Wollongong as it's a decent fare, but not worth it to drive for 15 minutes for a 5-10 minute journey


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## RideShareJUNKIE

Lyft4uDC said:


> he might be in a market where rides are donation based and not fare based.


REALLY? as if regular fares with LYFT arent low enough. I had no idea, what garbage. btw i limit pickups to 8 minutes max in my market. SMH


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## aarondavid1010

Crownan said:


> Lol, I never turn down a pick up! I'm a 100% driver! Unless you drive a 12 mpg wagon, I can't see how you would want to refuse a 20 min pickup which, in most cities, is only like 10 miles.


i dont see how this is smart



ElectroFuzz said:


> I think it depends a lot on the area you are driving in.
> I will go way out there, I did even 30 minutes but it usually ends up being $50-$80 rides.
> I'm also getting thanks for going so far with $10 tips or even more.


I dont get this . Distance driven does not equal a longer ride Driving 30 mins for a ride will not work out usually


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## kingcorey321

11 minutes. max. if it says 12 pass. i used to do 12 no more. if you get a ride that you do not profit on it then 3 star them wright a comment . ( i lost money on fuel) this will give lyft a idea were not doing  anything longer then 11 or what ever eta you decide. once you start 3 star all those small bull shit rides you can concentrate on making money. if you drive the same time every day in the say area you could start getting these pax in order . 3 dollar here 3 there. no money in your pocket. ill get the long rides green horns get the 3 dollar far side note. you ever notice 70 % of the time people that want to stop at a party store or gas station are rides that are less then 3. they know they are flat rate of 3 so they can stop for free at a store waste your time. i 3 star every 3 dollar fare if there is no tip.


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## aarondavid1010

kingcorey321 said:


> 11 minutes. max. if it says 12 pass. i used to do 12 no more. if you get a ride that you do not profit on it then 3 star them wright a comment . ( i lost money on fuel) this will give lyft a idea were not doing anything longer then 11 or what ever eta you decide. once you start 3 star all those small bull shit rides you can concentrate on making money. if you drive the same time every day in the say area you could start getting these pax in order . 3 dollar here 3 there. no money in your pocket. ill get the long rides green horns get the 3 dollar far side note. you ever notice 70 % of the time people that want to stop at a party store or gas station are rides that are less then 3. they know they are flat rate of 3 so they can stop for free at a store waste your time. i 3 star every 3 dollar fare if there is no tip.


11 mins... you're losing


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## kingcorey321

aarondavid1010 said:


> 11 mins... you're losing


are you saying 11 is to far? at night i get ping after ping. i pick and choose. there is zero wait time here.


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## aarondavid1010

kingcorey321 said:


> are you saying 11 is to far? at night i get ping after ping. i pick and choose. there is zero wait time here.


over 5 mins is waiting and paying gas in my opinion. Never had a ping over 6mins


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## kingcorey321

here. the average is 5 to 7. they come in at a crazy 37 min. i made a mistake accepted one . 32 minutes. i called lyft told them i if lose money i will stop driving for them,, i clicked accept by mistake. they canceled it for me. i never would do a eta that long. insane. depending on your area. i get it aaeondavid


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## Lordrlm

One of the reasons I drive mostly Uber trips is the long call fee. I can make an extra 10 bucks or so with a good long pickup fee. With Lyft no more than 10 min


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## RideshareSpectrum

I only understand Lyftspeak.. what’s ‘distance’?
During rush hour I will drive no more than 3 minutes to pick up a pinkPAX of any shape, size or smell. If there is no PT, there is no ride shorter than 3 miles unless advance tipping occurs. 
I made a pregnant lady walk from the Clift to Polk & Pine yesterday after she made me wait 4 minutes for her to waddle our to the curb. F that..: no pink placenta breaking water in my backseat.


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## aarondavid1010

RideshareSpectrum said:


> I only understand Lyftspeak.. what's 'distance'?
> During rush hour I will drive no more than 3 minutes to pick up a pinkPAX of any shape, size or smell. If there is no PT, there is no ride shorter than 3 miles unless advance tipping occurs.
> I made a pregnant lady walk from the Clift to Polk & Pine yesterday after she made me wait 4 minutes for her to waddle our to the curb. F that..: no pink placenta breaking water in my backseat.


whaaaa? what is advanced tipping. how can you work that. Do you ask then kick them out. UH no


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## KMANDERSON

Crownan said:


> Lol, I never turn down a pick up! I'm a 100% driver! Unless you drive a 12 mpg wagon, I can't see how you would want to refuse a 20 min pickup which, in most cities, is only like 10 miles.


Only ten miles?Three miles is about what I want to do.With these low rates if you do a lot of 10 mile pickups you will be working for free



aarondavid1010 said:


> i dont see how this is smart
> 
> It not.


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## aarondavid1010

KMANDERSON said:


> Only ten miles?Three miles is about what I want to do.With these low rates if you do a lot of 10 mile pickups you will be working for free


yesterday i got some groceries then got a ping for .05 miles away. It was actually beside the grocery store. 20 dollar ride. Thats efficient. Cost efficient.


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## KMANDERSON

aarondavid1010 said:


> yesterday i got some groceries then got a ping for .05 miles away. It was actually beside the grocery store. 20 dollar ride. Thats efficient. Cost efficient.


A lot people only look at gas as there only expense.


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## aarondavid1010

10 mins of gas is too much


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## PTUber

I know it depends on your market but seriously folks driving 15-20 minutes for a PAX is just not good business. I rarely go more than 8 min. unless it's the direction i'm going or a nice surge ride.


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## SRGuy

In Contra Costa county in the SF bay area the typical ping is 15 minutes away. I have gotten pings on uber that were 27 minutes and didn't have the long pickup fee. No idea how long these pax have to wait to get a ride.


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## RideshareSpectrum

SRGuy said:


> In Contra Costa county in the SF bay area the typical ping is 15 minutes away. I have gotten pings on uber that were 27 minutes and didn't have the long pickup fee. No idea how long these pax have to wait to get a ride.


That's when a phone call is necessary... because at the EB base fare shitrate, our margin of profit shrinks below actual cost of delivery (gas & depreciation) for evey ride thats less than 66% longer than the distance you travel to the pick up... and thats before the time investment from ping acceptance to PAX dropoff is considered. 
Once time is factored in its clear that eb rides at base are only useful as a hedge against dead miles back to the city or Marin.


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## Mista T

Lots of variables come into play, since my market has radical variations. I can go from packed downtown to farmland countryside in 20 minutes. If I am in the boonies, 8-10 minutes is my max. But in heavily congested areas... I passed on a pickup 1 block away yesterday because that one block was behind me and I was on a one way street during rush hour, in the wrong lane to turn.

In general, I refuse to go over 1.5 miles, and even that is pushing it. That translates to a 4-5 min pickup for me. What I really hate is when it says 4 minutes, I accept, then all of a sudden it is 7 minutes, 2.3 miles away. Happens frequently. Then I have to decide if I want to cancel or just ignore the pax and force them to cancel.

3 months ago my max was 6 minutes, 2 miles. But gas has gone up 20% in the past 3 months. Now my limit is 4 minutes, 1.5 miles.

On the flip side, the new Estimated Ride time will affect my decision as well. If a ride is supposed to be 40 minutes (which is really more like 32) then I will travel a bit further to pick them up.


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## RideshareSpectrum

aarondavid1010 said:


> whaaaa? what is advanced tipping. how can you work that. Do you ask then kick them out. UH no


Advance tipping works like this...
Driver: Sorry this trip doesn't work for me. You are going to have to cancel and request another car.
PAX: what? I already waited six whole minutes for you to get here.
Driver: Yeah I hear ya... thing is I just drove 3x the distance of your ride to get here, which means I'd be losing money to take you three blocks away. It's not your fault though... and it's nothing personal...see Lyft doesn't allow us to know how far away you are going until we arrive to pick you up. Kinda puts me in a bad position and makes you potentially late but my car isn't cheap and I have bills to pay and only a few hours to spend driving so...
PAX: cmon man it's only a few blocks
Driver: Good thing. Your next driver will ave you there in no time... oh what's that? It's that's an Uber call looks like there's a surge. Anyway sorry. I gotta go.
pAX: cmon man I'll make it worth you while. I can tip you in the app.
Driver: I appreciate the offer but I prefer a fare multiplier to a tip you probably won't leave me anyway so if you don't mind..
PAX: here I don't have much cash how's 5 bucks?
Driver: Why didn't ya say so and sa e us both theaggrivation.



Mista T said:


> Lots of variables come into play, since my market has radical variations. I can go from packed downtown to farmland countryside in 20 minutes. If I am in the boonies, 8-10 minutes is my max. But in heavily congested areas... I passed on a pickup 1 block away yesterday because that one block was behind me and I was on a one way street during rush hour, in the wrong lane to turn.
> 
> In general, I refuse to go over 1.5 miles, and even that is pushing it. That translates to a 4-5 min pickup for me. What I really hate is when it says 4 minutes, I accept, then all of a sudden it is 7 minutes, 2.3 miles away. Happens frequently. Then I have to decide if I want to cancel or just ignore the pax and force them to cancel.
> 
> 3 months ago my max was 6 minutes, 2 miles. But gas has gone up 20% in the past 3 months. Now my limit is 4 minutes, 1.5 miles.
> 
> On the flip side, the new Estimated Ride time will affect my decision as well. If a ride is supposed to be 40 minutes (which is really more like 32) then I will travel a bit further to pick them up.


This^^^^

Is PRO style.


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## Lordrlm

Guess I'm just not the hardcore driver type. Every time I talk to a passenger who has a story about a driver that asked them to cancel I tell them to never cancel, wait it out and make the driver cancel. And if they get charged email Lyft and explain the drivers behavior.


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## RideShareJUNKIE

SRGuy said:


> In Contra Costa county in the SF bay area the typical ping is 15 minutes away. I have gotten pings on uber that were 27 minutes and didn't have the long pickup fee. No idea how long these pax have to wait to get a ride.


This is an indicator of a service interruption or manipulation by software, not reality in terms of driver availability in the immediate area of that same pax request. $hits just getting out of hand on the system and what it TURNS the pax wait time into. In other times im sure you have all seen how fast the app can deliver a driver to the pax doorstep if it actually relies only on PROXIMITY, but we all know this isnt true. Im a broken record at this point...... Oh the echoes.


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## upyouruber

Lyfty said:


> Ok, honestly something is very wrong about this lyft system, first of all we can't see the destination of the passenger when we get the request, and in my opinion this is really bad, let's say the pick up location is 10 miles away for example, if I'm gonna drive to that location and then it turned out that the passenger only wants to travel for life 2 miles..well I just basically wasted my time and gas..
> 
> I just picked up a guy who was 6.5 miles away in a non busy area, I had to drive around 13 mins to get to him, and after all the trip was like 1.7 miles, and I also had to drive back to the busy area...and what made it more frustrating is that he didn't even tell me the address, he said he will give me directions, which I dislike most of the time.
> Oh well


"Oh, really? You dont want to give me the address" I reply to paxhole.
No ride at this point. Pax cancels or I wait out timer and cancel. This type of pax is nothing but trouble. PS: report to Lyft immediately as well.


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## PTUber

Lordrlm said:


> Guess I'm just not the hardcore driver type. Every time I talk to a passenger who has a story about a driver that asked them to cancel I tell them to never cancel, wait it out and make the driver cancel. And if they get charged email Lyft and explain the drivers behavior.


Seriously?? Who's side are you on?? Educate don't throw your fellow driver under the bus.


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## Jamesp1234

I use logic - if I see that in the traffic I'm in it's 5-10 minutes away, I start thinking about not going for it. 
In the early morning with the roads clear, 10 minutes is a ways away. Rush hour, 10 minutes is 10 feet from where I am at times.


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## Mole

2 miles or 5 minutes unless it’s s surge.


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## Bus Bozo

In general, I refuse to go over 1.5 miles, and even that is pushing it. That translates to a 4-5 min pickup for me. What I really hate is when it says 4 minutes, I accept, then all of a sudden it is 7 minutes, 2.3 miles away. Happens frequently. Then I have to decide if I want to cancel or just ignore the pax and force them to cancel......Mista T.

I really hate that too and it happens all the time. I had an extreme case just this morning.....6 min pick up became 14 mins when I accepted, so I had to cancel.


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## Lordrlm

I never throw anyone under the bus, if you except the ride do it or cancel it. Why play games? My market is way to small for that stuff. I run into the same passengers all the time if one gives me a problem I just stop further calls.


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## 68350

I did a 13 min pickup today, because it showed a 45+ min trip. Here, that is typically mostly easy freeway miles. No tip of course. Otherwise, its gotta be under 10 estimated.


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## possibledriver

Mid sized city, too much traffic for the infrastructure, poorly time stop lights. It can take 15 mins to drive the 20ish block length of downtown. I take nothing longer than a 7 min pickup. I might go 8 or 9 minutes if it's dead and I really need to make a buck.


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