# Longest distance Lyft request



## Ride-Share-Risk-Manager (Mar 16, 2017)

So many drivers have commented here about the absurd distance to respond on Lyft ride requests. Last night I think I got the longest one ever. It was a ride request from 52 minutes away. I accepted the request and called the passenger and asked her did she realize that it would take me an hour to reach her. She said she was willing to wait. I asked her where she was going. She didn't want to answer, she said, "just get here". I said to her that I will begin the ride once she gives me an answer on the destination and that I do not respond to rudeness from.passengers. She eventually admitted that she was going down the street to 7-11. I requested she cancel and explained to her that I run a business not a charity and that I cannot offer rides where I make a loss. She refused. She eventually cancelled after a half hour and I had accepted another Uber ride. Curious what is the maximum distance Lyft ride request that other drivers received.


----------



## Snowblind (Apr 14, 2017)

Was that a Lux or Premier Request?
If not, you are telling us there wasn't another Driver available in a, let's say 30 mile Radius?


----------



## MoreTips (Feb 13, 2017)

What a horrible person she had no concern that you were a hour away and would drive that far for a 3 or 4 dollar trip. TK has created this horrible attitude that we are trash to be worked to whatever need a passenger wants on our own dime. Anyone with any compassion would say "that's OK I'm just going a little bit down the road, I'll wait for a closer driver or walk." She'll find a new driver that won't know better and will have to learn the hard way. I'm glad you got a cancelation fee from that beeoottch.


----------



## Ride-Share-Risk-Manager (Mar 16, 2017)

Snowblind said:


> Was that a Lux or Premier Request?
> If not, you are telling us there wasn't another Driver available in a, let's say 30 mile Radius?


This a very common occurrence in NJ. Lyft entered the marketplace a year and a half ago and they do not have enough drivers to provide coverage in the suburban and rural parts of the state. I get Lyft pings from 30 minutes away on a very regular basis. What Lyft should be doing is providing drivers with the destination and route that the passenger is taking so that they can determine if they want to invest 30 minutes of dead time to pick up that passenger. Normally, I just ignore Lyft ride requests that are more than 8 minutes away, as I cannot make money on them. I accepted this ride request more out of curiosity than anything else. But the reaction of the passenger is indicative of the typical Lyft passenger in NJ: cheap, entitled, rude, inconsiderate and always looking to send complaints to Lyft.


----------



## Jamesp1234 (Sep 10, 2016)

Got an email from Uber linked to community guidelines. I'm guessing we should see it on the Lyft side pretty soon as well.

....
Reminder about destination discrimination
Refusing trips based on a rider's destination is against Uber's community guidelines. Frequent instances of refusing or cancelling trips because of the destination can lead to permanent removal from the Uber platform.
....


----------



## Ride-Share-Risk-Manager (Mar 16, 2017)

Jamesp1234 said:


> Got an email from Uber linked to community guidelines. I'm guessing we should see it on the Lyft side pretty soon as well.
> 
> ....
> Reminder about destination discrimination
> ...


I have already received these reminders from Lyft. I just ignore them. They can disconnect if they want.


----------



## MrMikeNC (Feb 16, 2017)

When I first started with Lyft they told me to do what you just did, accept and then let the rider know how far you are to give them a chance to cancel. Problem is at the time I didn't know that 99% of the time the rider will NOT cancel and Lyft is just trying to trick you into accepting far away rides.

What I have done since was screen shot how far away it is, let it expire, and then sent the screenshot to Lyft with the formal, non-nasty way of saying "You're out of your rabbit-loving mind". I've only done this twice and they've adjusted my acceptance rate accordingly, but I've heard how other folks have done this only to get told by Lyft we won't change anything, so mileage varies.

Now that I know better, if I get a ridiculous 52 minute away ping, I will still screen shot it before it expires and send it to them, I just won't care if their response is negative or positive. They're not going to destroy my car cause they're too stupid or greedy to give incentives to attract more riders.



Jamesp1234 said:


> Got an email from Uber linked to community guidelines. I'm guessing we should see it on the Lyft side pretty soon as well.
> 
> ....
> Reminder about destination discrimination
> ...


Problem is if you're just cancelling I see their point. If you're not accepting though they can't do jack. Refusing to accept long pings is your right as an independent contractor. If they're trying to say you don't have that right then you're not an independent contractor *you're an employee* and that's a can of worms they don't want to open.


----------



## Ride-Share-Risk-Manager (Mar 16, 2017)

I normally just ignore Lyft pings that are more than eight minutes away. I also know when to keep my Lyft app turned off in rural areas because you will get a whole bunch of pings in a row from 30 minutes or more away.


----------



## Jamesp1234 (Sep 10, 2016)

Here in Atlanta at 6am, I received a request 26 minutes away and let it timeout. The driver behind me, their AMP lights up and they turn around. Since traffic is light at that time, it's got to be a good distance away.
Less than a minute later, I get a request that is 2 minutes away and take that instead.
It's all about timing!


----------



## camel (Jun 12, 2017)

Ride-Share-Risk-Manager said:


> So many drivers have commented here about the absurd distance to respond on Lyft ride requests. Last night I think I got the longest one ever. It was a ride request from 52 minutes away. I accepted the request and called the passenger and asked her did she realize that it would take me an hour to reach her. She said she was willing to wait. I asked her where she was going. She didn't want to answer, she said, "just get here". I said to her that I will begin the ride once she gives me an answer on the destination and that I do not respond to rudeness from.passengers. She eventually admitted that she was going down the street to 7-11. I requested she cancel and explained to her that I run a business not a charity and that I cannot offer rides where I make a loss. She refused. She eventually cancelled after a half hour and I had accepted another Uber ride. Curious what is the maximum distance Lyft ride request that other drivers received.


These ride-share companies (U &L) are shameless and have no sense of honor, they should take responsibility in coordinating the rides, drivers don't coordinate rides. If they want drivers to accept long distance/time pickups, they have to pay for the dead miles to the pickup location.


----------



## MrMikeNC (Feb 16, 2017)

Jamesp1234 said:


> Here in Atlanta at 6am, I received a request 26 minutes away and let it timeout. The driver behind me, their AMP lights up and they turn around. Since traffic is light at that time, it's got to be a good distance away.
> Less than a minute later, I get a request that is 2 minutes away and take that instead.
> It's all about timing!


I remember something similar happened, only with Uber. A bunch of us was in the RDU airport que, standing around talking, and we got an outside ping for a steakhouse 20 minutes away. When one of us let it expire, it would go to the next person, and so forth, and it did this at least twice before stopping.


----------



## Ride-Share-Risk-Manager (Mar 16, 2017)

What really drives me nuts are the LyftLine requests from 30 minutes away in Northern NJ (beside the NY State border) that happen at rush hour on a Friday or at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night. These Lyft passengers are always the cheapest of the cheap. They do not think about the fact that drivers have to make money at peak times.


----------



## touberornottouber (Aug 12, 2016)

The longest one was 29 minutes. I just laughed as I ignored it and went offline right afterwards. Sure sometimes I will do one "and take one for the team" but I know better than to go that far -- especially when Lyft allows 5 minutes to cancel without a fee. I've been burned so many times by passengers canceling on me as I drive long distances to get them. Further I suspect some will even down rate me over the pick up time as they do not understand that actually in coming a long distance I am doing them a favor and probably losing money on the ride.



camel said:


> These ride-share companies (U &L) are shameless and have no sense of honor, they should take responsibility in coordinating the rides, drivers don't coordinate rides. If they want drivers to accept long distance/time pickups, they have to pay for the dead miles to the pickup location.


I'd be happy too if they at least lowered or waived their commission on the ride. That would show that it is "give and take". But when they want me to drive 15 miles just for $2.96 when they get more than 50% of what the rider pays, well, I just find that insulting and it makes me feel like a slave.


----------



## Hunter420 (May 1, 2016)

Its terrible! Just ugly greed! Every ride is long distances non surge rides in traffic. Ill be posting on every forum, all weekend if they don't stop it! This is a breach of contract to idependant contractors. They can't just exasperate drivers with cherry picked rides, they have lost all morals and ethics, and ill be posting all over social media.


----------



## Wiseleo (Feb 8, 2017)

I posted a screenshot for a 42-mile request that took me out of airport queue. It's cute. 










Uber handles this by saying there are no cars available in the Uber X class. My car is usually set to XL-only mode, and when I am the only driver in an area I would get XL requests from Uber X customers. They told me there were no cheaper options available.

Lyft handles this by sending exceptionally long distance requests, which is deceptive to customers.


----------



## DrivingForYou (Aug 6, 2017)

Wow, that must suck in NJ.

Here in Los Angeles the longest request I can think of was maybe 10 minutes (less than a mile, time was due to traffic). 

Except at LAX. It takes a minimum of 15-20 minutes to get to rideshare C or D pickup during peak hours, even going the "back way". But most LAX rides are substantially greater than 20 miles.


----------



## Freggy79 (Aug 20, 2017)

I had to double back 20 minutes when I started this morning. Turned out to be a homeless dude at the ER that smelled horrible, and almost made me puke. I should have refused the ride... but it was a 40 minute drive and I got about 45 bucks. Pretty sure it was set up by a "do gooder", but they got a 1 star from me. I spent a few hours disinfecting my car this morning after that bullshit.


----------



## TheWanderer (Sep 6, 2016)

Jamesp1234 said:


> Got an email from Uber linked to community guidelines. I'm guessing we should see it on the Lyft side pretty soon as well.
> 
> ....
> Reminder about destination discrimination
> ...


I would respond with, "you are being discriminatory towards different neighborhoods by not including adjacent neighborhoods within the same city in the boost zone.


----------



## Telsa34 (May 7, 2017)

Ride-Share-Risk-Manager said:


> So many drivers have commented here about the absurd distance to respond on Lyft ride requests. Last night I think I got the longest one ever. It was a ride request from 52 minutes away. I accepted the request and called the passenger and asked her did she realize that it would take me an hour to reach her. She said she was willing to wait. I asked her where she was going. She didn't want to answer, she said, "just get here". I said to her that I will begin the ride once she gives me an answer on the destination and that I do not respond to rudeness from.passengers. She eventually admitted that she was going down the street to 7-11. I requested she cancel and explained to her that I run a business not a charity and that I cannot offer rides where I make a loss. She refused. She eventually cancelled after a half hour and I had accepted another Uber ride. Curious what is the maximum distance Lyft ride request that other drivers received.


Lyft monitors phone calls to the passengers I did the same thing last week I had drove to a city about 15 minutes south of where I normally Drive In got within one block of the destination and they cancelled. I did get the cancellation fee. The next day I get another call from the same area and now I'm 25 minutes away I called the passenger I said you are aware of that I'm 25 minutes away he said he needed to be picked up quicker than that and that he would cancel he did, within one minute I get a note from Lyft stating that they've noticed that I've contacted the customer and they cancelled. I sent Lyft a blast of [email protected]#_& over it.


----------



## Adieu (Feb 21, 2016)

Snowblind said:


> Was that a Lux or Premier Request?
> If not, you are telling us there wasn't another Driver available in a, let's say 30 mile Radius?


Skips and 1-3* rating exchange with said 7-11er...local stagers recognize her and stay away


----------

