RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) – Getting a Lyft driver to take you where you need to go has become a waiting game, Lyft drivers Laurie Schlecht and Jake Houterman have seen the impacts.
“The background check usually only takes a couple days, I’ve heard it taking a month and a half,” says Schlecht.
But for others, it has taken even longer.
“I was actually one of the people who had to go through that, I was on background check for just over two months,” says Houterman.
Meaning he couldn’t drive and neither can the other 20 to 30 drivers in the Black Hills he says are waiting on their background checks to clear.
“I kind of tied it into well the courts are closed they can’t really do anything and they are all going out of California, they are not going out of the local government here,” says Houterman.
With fewer drivers on the road. that means the drivers who are out are stretched thin picking up people across town from each other leading to longer wait times.
“A good Friday night, what it used to be, I’d probably see about 20 to 25 rides and that’s a good night. Now I’m lucky if I hit 15-16,” says Houterman.
Schlecht says these longer wait times are discouraging drivers.
“It kind of decreases the amount that the Lyft driver is being paid for the time that they’re working when they have those longer pickup times and that’s kind of discouraging to somebody who wants to drive to make a little money, your just not making the kind of money there that you could of before you had a shorter drive time,” says Schlecht.
Discouraged to the point where she says a lot of the Lyft drivers in the Black Hills have almost completely given up driving.
If you are in need of a Lyft and you are having trouble getting a ride, check out this link to their Facebook page where you can request a ride.
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