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 (pool): 17 minutes / 12 minutes. Trip distance (pool): 3.1 miles / 2.4 miles. Fare (pool): $17.01 / $13.88 Song of the trip: "Careless Whisper" by George Michael   I both hate and love driving in San Francisco proper. Just on general principle, I try to avoid driving here, preferring to stick to the comfort of my beloved South Bay, but every once in a while, I get dragged up to the city by a fare, and like the mafia, just when you think you're out, they pull you back in. That said, sometimes you get the kind of rides that make you pull over and turn off for a few minutes because you're laughing too hard to drive anywhere. My last fare had been some people at a Sharks game in San Jose who had bailed with about ten minutes left on the clock. (That turned out to be a hilarious mistake, as a bunch of action happened in those last ten minutes and the Sharks pulled out a victory in overtime. Go Sharks.) Anyway, I found myself in the Sunset district (it...