In contrast, 'ride sharing' drivers seem to have no sense of direction, and are genuinely oblivious to the rules of the road.
In short, when in either type of car, I fear for my life.
While driving, I tend to fear for my life when taxis are around, but whenever I spot an Uber or Lyft car, they seem to behave unremarkably.
All drivers were cordial, polite, had no problem with routing (admittedly, it's pretty simple in Vegas). One driver was a smoker and the car smelled and that was the only negative in 6 rides.
Overall, it's the end-to-end experience. Call up the app, type in a destination, head to the curb. The car shows up about the same time I get there, I hop in, chat a bit on the way, hop out at the destination, rate & tip via the app and go on my way. The seamless experience, so far, makes up for the (so far mild) idiosyncrasies of drivers and cars.
My only request is that passengers don't encourage this by blindly rating everyone 5 stars. Take at least two star off for unsafe driving - not stopping at a stop sign, not yielding to pedestrians, not giving enough space while passing a bicyclist and at least one star for not following the rules - driving on the bus lane, double parking in the middle of a busy road, driving too fast on a 25Mph zone, not waiting long enough for the pedestrians to pass safe ...etc.
If the economics don't work out for the drivers, the fare has to go up. By keeping the fare artificially low and pushing drivers to accommodate too many trips Uber and Lyft are ruining the experience for everyone and in doing so are perpetuating the need for more people to use them instead of considering alternate transport modes. This, sooner or later, will ruin it for everyone.
Take it from me, America cannot handle a developing country style traffic. It requires a different set of skills. People here are used to predictable traffic.
I've personally been driven by awful taxi and awful Uber drivers, though Uber so far has the distinction of being the only one to genuinely scare me driving 3x the speed he should have on a twisty road, with tires screeching the whole way.
There is a bit of a natural selection process to it.
If you're a cab driver, and you keep getting into accidents, you won't be a cab driver for long. If you take no risks and are constantly late, you won't be a cab driver for long. If you have a poor sense of direction, or spacial awareness when driving, you probably won't be a driver for very long.
After decades of this process, most professional cab drivers are just reckless enough to get away with it.
These Uber drivers haven't spent decades going through that process. Everyone's a newbie. The difference this time is that the risk isn't being undertaken by the company, it's being undertaken by the drivers themselves.
Not really. A newbie at being paid to drive, but in many cases, not new to driving. In my area, I can predict to the minute when I'll arrive at my destination, and what route is best at that time of day, even for a 20 mile trip and without software support. That's because I've been driving 24k miles+ annually here for nearly 30 years.
Not to mention, the driver's app has the same real-time mapping features that smart phones have. So they can avoid grid locked areas, accidents, etc. even without years of cab driving experience.
Yes, an experienced cab driver will be a better cab driver, in general, than a new Uber driver. But not enough better to keep the masses away from Uber/Lyft. Cab companies are getting slaughtered, cab drivers are panicking and two-timing or jumping to Uber/Lyft, and this is happening globally.
And I think the disregard for rules applies to a lot of public drivers. The Port Authority buses in Pittsburgh think they own the road.
I recently went on vacation where the only option available was a taxi cab. Within 5 minutes I remembered why Uber and Lyft have become so popular. Our driver was a complete asshole, honking at everyone and almost running down a bicyclist. Plus, the A/C in the van was broken. And because it was a van, you couldn't even roll the windows down. It was a miserable ride.