Always Tip Your Driver

Trip length: 56 minutes. Trip distance: 4.8 miles. Fare: $21.37 (Surge: 1.6x) Year: 2015 Song of the trip: “Forever” by The Charlatans UK I pull the car up in front of La Victoria Taqueria on San Carlos St. between 3 rd and 4 th . It's right off the San Jose State University campus, and a short distance walk from the strip of bars over on 1 st St, and it's open until 3 a.m. most nights. The name on my phone says Taylor so I don't know if it's a guy or a girl I'm picking up. Kids these days. Better than the tech bros, I guess. There's actually enough space for me to pull in front of La Vics and wait, so I bring the car up against the curve and turn the blinkers on. Most of the time, Lac Vics pickups are college students who need a lift home, and they're short drives, so you can get a number of them in quick turnaround during surge pricing. But sometimes you gotta wait. The timer is on. 2:18 a.m. Five minutes until they're offici...

Trip length: 8 (or 14) minutes. Trip distance: 1.4 miles. Fare: $9.02. Year: 2017 Song of the trip:  “Dad I'm In Jail” by Was (Not Was) Sometimes I make the wrong call on whether or not to pick up a fare. Every time I show up to a location, I have to make a snap judgment - is this safe, or is this going to be the kind of fare that gets me into serious trouble? 99% of the time, it's a very easy call to make. Some people going out for dinner in nice clothes, some people in clothes that used to be nice coming home from the bar late, people going to or from a concert, people with bags full of groceries to take home, people going to or from the airport... It's almost second nature that they're just people and the situation isn't going to be dicey. And then there's the 1%. It's a well-known fact I hate 1%. One percenters, 1% odds of failure, you name it... just the number and the symbol are enough to give me the jitters. So I suppose I truly should...