VEGAS DRIVER

By Mehrdad Eshghi

VEGAS DRIVER is a short storybook series. All stories are true and real, and Mehrdad Eshghi writes them as an experienced Uber and Lyft driver for seven years. As a long-time driver in Las Vegas, I have completed 23,000 safe rides without tickets nor accidents. The VEGAS DRIVER storybook series contains hilarious, humorous, crazy, entertaining,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mehrdad Eshghi
• Release date: Apr 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781639019212

Book preview

Acknowledgements

Special Thanks To:

My God,

Thanks for opening my eyes every single morning to this beautiful life. Thanks for enabling me to start my day with healthy breaths full of love, passion, and joy to live in this exquisite miracle of life. Thanks for gifting me a soul, mind, courage, and thought to use all simple opportunities to be a successful person. I will never be hopeless when there is no distance between us.

The love of my life, Mahnaz,

Thank you is an understatement. Words cannot describe the love that I have for you. Thank you for always being my one and only rock. Thank you for closing your eyes on my weaknesses and pushing me forward to reach my goals.

My charitable Father,

What the fathers do is beyond feeding and raising. A true Father sacrifices anything for his wife and children, always to keep them happy. And my Father did precisely just that. Thank you for everything that you have done for me. 

My lovely Mother,

To simply put it, Mother's love can heal every wound. Thank you for helping me get back on my feet whenever I fell down. Thank you for holding my hands warmly whenever I felt alone and hopeless. Thank you for teaching me always to be brave and kind.

My dear Sisters,

My closest best friends. Thank you for helping me get through some of life's triumphs. Thank you for being beside me even though from far away. I always hope and wish to be a good brother to you all.

My beautiful daughter, Ava,

My lovely Ava, you are the first gifted angel in my life that allowed me to be a Dad. Every single day, I am watching your growth and success. Thank you for being such a great girl with all those talents and skills. I will never give up, and I will always fight for your future and your wishes. You can always count on me.

My gorgeous daughter, Nava,

I am grateful to have such a bright, energetic, and beautiful angel like you. You inspire and help me bring out my inner child to go after my dreams. You are the real sound, soul, and love of our family when you laugh and play. I will live for your dreams.

My first favorite American friends in Virginia,

Thank you for helping us to start a brand-new life in the U.S. We are all profoundly grateful for you guys, and we could not be here if it weren't for you. You were the only kind people who helped us believe and live in this great country. Thank you, my dear family. God bless you all.

My dear friends and families,

Since I have known myself, I have been surrounded by great people. Good friends and families create and build our mindset and help us adjust our path toward our success and goals. I am honor to have lots of great people in my life. So, thank you so much.

All riders,

You created and gave me all these true and real stories. If you had not gifted these stories to me, I could never live in my dreams to write this book.

All doctors and nurses, 

Thank you for risking your lives during these sensitive and dangerous times to help the ones in need. We could not fight that virus without your sacrifices. Thank you.

Special thanks to EMPIRE PUBLISHING and their team,

You made this happen. I could never begin and finish this most significant project without your help. Thank you, especially dear Francesca.

Introduction

Vegas Driver is about my life in the past seven years in the time-laps review. I have completed approximately 23,000 safe rides with no tickets or accidents. I started in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.. When we moved to Las Vegas, I continued driving until March 2020.

Over 80% of my lifetime rides, I have driven my 2014 White Toyota Prius Plug-in. My Prius is my best friend and the best full-time business partner. My Prius saved me lots of money on gas. In the past six years, we worked together. We had fun days and bad days together. I still own my amazing Prius with exactly 300,000 miles.

As a family man with all the responsibilities, sometimes, you have no choice to continue or pick your work title based on your past professions in a new country. I mean, the priority as a father is to make enough to live and feed the family. After a couple of short experiences in management and assistant management positions, I found this driving career very interesting because of how much I could make in my flexible schedule.

I am a proud dual citizenship holder. I am honored to be an Iranian/American. I am an Iranian (Persian) with thousands of years of great culture and history. On the other hand, being an American citizen is an extraordinary achievement. The United States of America is the greatest country in the modern world, with equal and lawful opportunities for everybody to cherish and enjoy freedom. Disregarding all the political issues between Iran and the United States, I wish prosperity and blessing for both countries' people.

When we moved to the United States of America, I thought I could immediately start doing Art and Music. I had a plan, and I wished to continue doing Art in the U.S. But, when we moved to the United States, I found it more challenging than I thought. Instead of what I like to do as a new immigrant, I must first improve other things. So, I believe I made the right decision to put my dreams aside temporarily. I do not regret it because, like always, I used my creativity to develop new ideas as long as I am driving; and I did it.

Most of my friends and families in both countries still do not know what I do for a living. Because of my Artistic background, I do not mind if my friends and families know what my current job in the U.S. is. But I decided to turn this untold position into a creative chance in my life. That is why I kept driving for rideshare companies to get more stories from people.

Long story short, I did not let my family and friends know about what I was doing because it was hard to explain why I no longer do Art. Hopefully, when my book is published and read it, they will understand that I am still the same creative person. Also, I kept it a secret to surprise them with my challenging and an incredible upcoming new career.

As a long-time rideshare driver, I would like to say, if you do not have any rideshare accounts such as Uber or Lyft, it would be fantastic if you sign up for one. It is simple and easy. You only need to provide basic information about your identity and bank account. That is all. I am probably the only rideshare driver that has never taken any rides yet, in the past seven years. Honestly, I have never needed any ride.

Before you apply to be a driver, be aware that their fare calculation is different than what they advertise. They say that they take 25%, and the entire 75% of the ride's amount is for drivers. This oppositely is kind of exactly. Hum. Simply, they lie. So, you should know this secret before applying to be a driver. If you are going to open a rider account, it still is worth it. I promise that you will enjoy the always on time, fast, cheap, safe, and entertaining rides anywhere and anytime.

Technically, both Uber and Lyft provide transportation services with their genius idea. Their platform, policy, and business model are the same. They have differences in their App functionality, customer services, etc. As you may know, they were both born in San Francisco, and Uber is a little bit older than Lyft. Also, Uber is more popular on a worldwide scale. During these past years, Uber worked more on its market strategy targets to expand its business. That is why Uber has developed its business in many other countries and cities as its new marketplaces worldwide.

As a driver, you can drive for both Uber and Lyft at the same time with no restrictions. Some riders say that Lyft drivers are better, or Uber cars are newer, which is not true. Because I drive for both companies with the same vehicle, the same behavior, and I provide the same quality of service, and all other drivers do so as well. In this book, you will find numerous interesting and exciting tips in the story's shape. I am sharing my experiences and facts by telling true and real stories.

When you look at the book name VEGAS DRIVER, you think this book only contains funny, sad, exciting, weird, or entertaining stories. But in reality, you will find this book highly informative. The VEGAS DRIVER could serve as a handbook for both riders and drivers.

This book offers examples you may face, either as a driver or rider. Somehow, I will put you in MY SHOES when reading my stories. It gives you perfect ideas about whatever you cannot see on the surface of rideshare companies, policies, and services. So, you will get first-hand tips and resolutions about rules and tricks for both riders and drivers. I will tell you in the following pages what is happening behind the scene.

My first ride as a driver happened in McLean/Virginia in December 2013. I experienced about eight months gap when we moved to Las Vegas because Uber and Lyft had been temporarily suspended based on the Nevada rules and regulations. After creating and approving some new transportation rules in Nevada, rideshare companies re-launched their business.

When I applied for Uber, I was not expecting to drive for a long time. I started driving as a side job with decent earnings based on the flexible work schedule. Then, I realized this position could be the primary income source for living. So, in the last four years, driving for Uber and Lyft was my primary job. I do not still know that I am used to it, or it is all about freedom and flexibility. Anyhow, I kept doing it until the uninvited pandemic stepped into the world.

Since early 2016 I started to make notes in my notebooks about anything noteworthy while driving for rideshare. Then, around the middle of 2018, I began to type them up one by one. It was going very slowly because I was writing when I had time. As you understand, to write a book, you have to focus and concentrate on what you are writing.

Since the beginning of 2020, I decided to speed up and assign more time for my book. However, in early March 2020, I stopped working because of the Novel Virus, COVID19. Because of the high rate of infected people and an increased risk of infection, everything got shut down. Especially, Las Vegas turned into a ghost town. So, I found more time to write the rest of the stories and finish while on lock-down.

In VEGAS DRIVER, you will find various unique stories. Besides being entertaining, all the stories are informative. This book can be an alternative to Uber and Lyft's Handbook in a fun and entertaining style. It is also perfect for those who want to be a new driver or rider. This book contains lots of advice and suggestions for rideshare companies. Perhaps even they should read this book and care more about the drivers.

I believe that directors, CEOs, and founders of these rideshare companies should read this book and learn from my simple stories as an experienced driver. I have provided many solutions and recommendations. They can add them to their policy or fix their customer service, rating rules, fare calculations, and service quality. There are many blind spots and weaknesses in their platforms. I bet that they have never thought about those critical issues.

If you are a rider, you need to know that Uber and Lyft have many hidden overcharges under the name of fees. If you check the breakdown details for every ride, you will see the shocking list of unfair charges. Oddly, most riders usually do not check them or do not even care. To be clear, after all those fees and the ride's original amount, drivers only take 25% to 35% of what you pay for the ride. So, as I mentioned earlier, Uber and Lyft take the most of the fare which, is not fair. After all, hard-working drivers are responsible for car maintenance, carwash, cleaning, car payment, expensive insurance, gas, tax, tires, car registration, car inspection, accidents, tickets, car depreciation, properly working Smartphone’s, high-speed internet data, charging cables, bottled water, gum, snacks, paper towels, napkins, attire, business licenses, etc.

Also, Uber and Lyft are competitors. So, to fight for their business, they always reduce the driver's earnings to keep their profit high. That is why, nowadays, driving for Uber and Lyft to make a living is a lot harder than before. If you use your experience, you might survive by changing your strategy or tactics, but if you are new, I have no idea what you should do to make some money.

When the new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, stepped into Uber, he promised to make tremendous improvements. Still, after almost 2.5 years, he has not yet made any significant changes. He has done something, but they most likely are not in favor of drivers. There are still many confusing complications in their unclear policy and rules. On the other hand, Lyft has not made any remarkable changes in its policy in the past years. In general, they always do show-offs that they are willing to make some changes, but they never do anything. They only do changes on their App's look. Problems and issues won't be gone with new designs on the App.

Rideshare companies in every country, state, county, city, or region have differences in launching and operating their businesses. Every place has different laws, regulations, taxations, situations, conditions, and ride demands. So, local governments must consider establishing and passing the new rules for rideshare companies to launch their business. After all, the provincial government in any region has the right to modify and change the rules. And they dictate their wishes into their rideshare policy, which is usually not in favor of drivers.

I love to provide more information about: Cancelation policy, fare details, ratings, surge pricing, Apps functionality, promotions, insurance hustle and high rates, perks and discounts, health insurance, stealing, tricks, tax fraud, tip's errors, App's errors,  honesty, customer service, airport rides, luggage, wait time, the number of passengers, drivers, background check, carrying a gun, threats, risks, liars,  requirements, insulting, harassing, discrimination, rider's behavior, rider's size, regulations, pick-up/drop-off locations, expectations, adjustments, and more.

To Uber and Lyft companies CEO and founders,

Dear Uber and Lyft, I will not say what is right and what is wrong in this book. I do not want to judge your policy, platform, and rules. In your business, you have strengths and weaknesses which, is acceptable. In my book, Vegas Driver, I will talk about fairness and truths. It benefits drivers and riders and helps rideshare companies fix their problems and issues. In almost seven years of driving for rideshare companies, I have completed around 23,000 safe rides. I believe I know more about ridesharing than Uber and Lyft founders and CEOs. My advice and tips are not limited to the drivers; I will also share riders’ comments. Please feel free to contact me if you find this book and my recommendations useful.

To dear readers,

In this book, I will not judge people because of their actions or reactions. I am sharing my experiences by telling my real and genuine stories. Before you start reading this book please, NOTE:

I do not discriminate against anyone because of gender, skin color, ethnicity, age, size, weight, country, language, religion, and accent. I use these specifications to describe the story and situations better.

I am sharing real and genuine stories. I am not judging

people with made-up and fake stories.

Most people’s names in this book are not real unless the story is about that specific NAME.

Ages are not accurate

English is my fourth language

I have an accent in my English

I preferred to keep my