So yesterday I took my very first Lyft ride. I have used Uber a few times though not very much – generally only when I’m traveling by myself somewhere else. I don’t drink alcohol so I don’t need it to take me home from bars or such, and living in Cincinnati, it’s almost always more economical to just drive my own car. Further complicating things is that if I’m with my family (of 8), we can’t take just ONE Uber (or Lyft) – we’d have to take TWO Ubers!
It’s the same reason we are a 2 rental car family! The last time I did a rideshare (Uber in this case) was on our way back from Seattle. We had taken the train from Cincinnati to Chicago (cheap seat drama!) and then the Empire Builder Amtrak train from Chicago to Seattle. So that meant that we had parked our van at Cincinnati Union Terminal. But coming back from Seattle we had used 100,000 Skymiles to fly back from Seattle, which meant that we were at CVG, about 20 miles away from our van at the train station
(SEE ALSO: Worst usage of 100,000 Skymiles ever?)
My first Lyft ride
So I had some Lyft credits as part of the conference that I was at, so I thought I would use it. I needed to head to the Ritz-Carlton to buy some gift cards for the Amex offer of $100 off a $500 purchase. Ritz-Carlton gift cards code as Marriott gift cards, which makes this a moneymaking deal (in addition to the Membership Rewards from the purchase itself)
(READ MORE: Reselling $18,030 in gift cards – was it worth it?)
My driver picked me up in front of my hotel (the Marriott Marquis in Washington DC)
Map © OpenStreetMap contributors
He then turned right and right again. But you’ll see that 10th street is a one-way street southbound. I didn’t notice anything at first, but then I saw that the cars were parked on both sides and facing the wrong direction. Once we crossed L street, a car started coming down the other way. At that point, there was nothing that we could really do, so we just moved to the side of the road and inched past the oncoming traffic. The other drivers rolled their window down and yelled at my Lyft driver 😀
After that, the ride was pretty uneventful, because there isn’t much you can say about it!
If you have not signed up with Lyft yet, you can get $50 in ride credits if you’re a new user by using my Lyft referral link. I also get something but I’m actually not sure what that is 🙂
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
It’s called human error. I’m sure you have made mistakes but why are you making this public where it might affect the driver (your average Joe/Jane and not a professional) trying to make a living. Your Lyft driver probably drives for Uber as well so it doesn’t matter which service you use, it’s the driver. You’re a douche for publishing this especially with the detailed map.
I’m willing to be corrected if I’m wrong, but I’d be surprised if Lyft (or anyone) is going to be tracking down my driver to punish him, even with the map. I agree it’s just human error, and I wasn’t angry or anything – more just thought of it as a humorous story.
It is a pointless story and I agree you are a dbag!
Big deal. What a nonevent
Just so you can plug for Lyft credits. You bloggers get worse by the day.
Anybody make mistake. Some people spend time to make such statement to public. Not for me. Don’t you have better things to do? Or you maybe yellow cab driver…ha ha
AMEN!
Good for you!!
You’re totally correct.
I drive in NYC for Uber,Lyft, Juno and Gett and ,as you said, it could have happened while driving for any of them.
Thankfully it never happened to me, yet!
Not to mention that going up 10th St is completely out of the way to get to either of the Ritz Carlton’s in DC. All the driver had to do was go straight on Massachusettes To get out of that neighborhood. Was a GPS directing the driver or did they do this on their own?
Good point! There was a GPS, but from what I remember, it said “Turn right and then turn right”. I think the first turn right was directing it to get out of the Marriott entryway and then the 2nd right was onto Massachusetts. He interpreted it as right on Massachusetts and then right on 10th.
Unfortunately, that’s pretty common for this area. I’ve learned to look both ways when crossing one-way streets.
The worst part is, if you are driving the wrong way, there are no traffic lights!
Right – when he first turned, I didn’t think anything of it really until the cars started coming down the other way 🙂
You kind of suck at being a person. How would you feel if every mistake you made was blogged about?
That Lyft driver lives and dies by rider ratings and now your cheap ass is trying to ruin him.
Again, I will say that nowhere did I mention the driver’s name and I would be surprised if he is getting in any trouble. Which is fine by me – I am not trying to get the guy fired, as you mention, it’s a mistake.
I blogged about it because I thought it was humorous.
As for mistakes, I actually DO blog about my mistakes. Maybe not EVERY mistake, but here are a few of them
The time I lost a $400 signup bonus
Don’t screw up your Citi Prestige airline credit (like I did)
Sounds like you just wrote a post to accompany your $50 referral credit and really didn’t have anything to say.
People like you are why some of the human population shouldn’t have internet access.
Ma’am like this you want to tell peoples that you loosing business of your rental car due Lyft and Uber instead of make a drama improve you rental services with very reasonable charges then you hahah
Shocking how many obvious Lyft drivers have flooded out of the woodwork in response to this post! With so many who are bothered by one of their drivers being called out, the message is clear: Lyft is full of people who don’t know how to drive and are rightfully worried about losing their jobs! No company that was worth its business license would have people responding like that!!
Yikes. People can be such jerks. I bet I know who these mean commenters voted for! 😉