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: 18 minutes. Trip distance: 1.1 miles. Fare: $9.82. Year: 2015. Song of the trip: “Enjoy The Silence” by Failure So this doesn't look great, I gotta be honest. I'm outside of The Brass Rail in Sunnyvale, waiting for someone named Dale, and it's 2:25 AM, which means the place has been closed for almost half an hour now. Opinions of The Brass Rail vary a great deal, but I've never been in there, so I can't testify to whether or not it's any good. It's a bikini bar – there are a number of these places scattered over the Peninsula, but I've never really understood the appeal. If you want a strip club, go to a strip club. If you want a bar, go to a bar. But these bikini bars are a weird half-way zone between the two, and they don't seem to satisfy either desire if you ask me. But they've been around since 1960, so I suppose they must be doing okay for themselves. I've been out here three minutes now, so this Dal...