Are you a new Lyft driver? If so, you are going to meet a lot of people, and hopefully make a nice income in the process.

If you haven’t been driving for long, you also have a lot to learn, including some common mistakes that Lyft drivers make. The good news is that we have some Lyft tips to help. Here’s our list of tips and secrets for Lyft drivers:

Here are 37 helpful tips for Lyft drivers:

1. Free Jacket: Tip number one is that after you do 1,000 rides, Lyft is actually going to send you a free Lyft jacket. That’s pretty cool, right? You get a free jacket for doing a thousand rides

2. Tip: Lyft actually pays you for long pickups. So, anytime you have a pickup that’s over ten minutes away, Lyft is going to pay you $5. Anytime your pickup is more than 20 minutes away, Lyft is gonna pay you $10. All you have to do is send them a quick email, and they’ll send that payment to your account. Lyft doesn’t do that payment automatically yet, but all you have to do is send them an email.

3. Tip: Lyft passengers are usually better than Uber passengers. I don’t know why, but every person that I’ve talked to who drives for Uber and Lyft always says that their Lyft passengers are better.

4. Rideshare insurance: Most insurances won’t cover you being a rideshare driver, so anytime you’re driving as a rideshare driver, you need to have separate insurance or insurance of your own. So, make sure you call a few places get a couple of quotes, and be sure you have rideshare insurance.

5. Discounts: As a Lyft driver you can get discounted car washes, discounted oil changes, and sometimes even new tires at a discounted rate. So call up a few places and let them know you’re a rideshare driver, and that you plan to come there a lot. Many times they’ll give you great discounts. You can also get a discount on TurboTax, H&R Block, and QuickBooks when you do your taxes!

6. Tip: You can rent a car through Lyft. There’s a thing called Lyft Express Drive and it’s gonna be free so as long as you hit the weekly bonuses that are basically gonna pay for your car so you don’t have to worry about maintenance, depreciation on your own car, and you get to drive a pretty sweet car. Plus, you can use it for your personal use as well all right

7. Tip: Those phone mounts that go on your windshield are illegal in most states! That’s because the law states that if you have something blocking your view, that’s an obstruction. So, what you want to do is put the phone mount on the side of your window, or on the side of your windshield, but make sure you don’t have it in the middle. People do get tickets for that, so look up the law in your state

8. Tip: It’s illegal to record audio of your passengers. It’s just the US law that you can’t record somebody else’s voice without their permission, so if you have a dash-cam that has audio, make sure you ask your passengers if it’s okay, and if not, just simply turn off the audio switch.

9. Tip: You can’t stream or publish any videos of your passengers. So, if you want to publish a video on YouTube, you just simply can’t. That goes completely against privacy laws, and it’s for your own safety, as well as theirs.

10. It’s illegal to take children and toddlers without car seats or booster seats. So, if somebody wants to take a child with them and they say. “oh I’ll just hold the baby myself,” that’s completely illegal, and you need to have a child seat. Imagine if you get in a car crash or something and that baby isn’t safe. You don’t want to risk it for a few dollars, so don’t take a child or toddler without a car or booster seat.

11. Tip: Airports across the country hand out tickets to Lyft drivers every single day, so make sure when you’re going to an airport to pick somebody up, you know the proper rideshare procedure. Most of the time you need separate Lyft placards and permissions on your windshield to make sure that airports know that you’re a certified Lyft driver.

12. Tip: You can actually make extra money as a driver simply by playing music in your car. There’s a new company called Steereo, and they’re paying drivers just to play music on their platform. You can make an extra hundred dollars or more a week just playing their playlists!

13. You can make extra money selling food through a company called Cargo. This company is actually really successful now, and basically, you can get a bunch of water and snacks for super-cheap, and then sell it to your passengers!

14. Tip: You can make money back per ride with Ebates. Ebates (Rakuten) is a company that basically just pays you to give you points. It’s up to $1 per ride, so I think that’s really awesome.

15. You can actually drive for Lyft and Uber at the same time. If you’re not getting a bunch of requests all day doing Lyft, you can do Uber as well. There’s a company called maestro that allows you to do both apps at the same time, and that way you’re constantly getting rideshare passengers throughout the day, and you’re not just waiting.

16. Tip: There’s a daily limit on how much you can drive for lyft. Lyft states that after 14 hours, you have to take a full uninterrupted six-hour break, and that’s just a safety procedure so you don’t fall asleep while driving. some people do drive for uber after that, but I recommend getting a good night’s rest and just working again the next day.

17. Tip: There’s an app called Gas Buddy that lets you know where the cheapest gas is. Lyft drivers can use and you get up to 30 cents back per gallon! All you have to do is sign up for Gas Buddy, get a card, and if you pay through them, they’re going to reward you for every gallon of gas that you buy.

18. You can make $200 doing product market research for a company called Product Lab. They’re basically paying rideshare drivers to fill out surveys.

19. Tip: You can make money advertising your car. I know some people think it’s kind of tacky having a sticker or mini-poster on your car, but some people make some serious money doing this. Also, the more you drive, the more they pay. So, as a rideshare driver as a Lyft driver, you’re driving a lot, so these companies can pay some serious money just for advertising your car. I know one company called, referral car. They’re great, and there are a bunch of other companies as well

20. Tip: Make sure you calculate depreciation on your car as well as maintenance costs. An easy way to do this is just to go to Kelly Blue Book and type in your car, and then type in the miles and make it like 30,000 more miles, or however long you’re thinking about driving, and calculate out how much you’re really losing in depreciation on your car. This is important, as you’ll be prompted for these numbers on tax software like TurboTax Self-Employed and H&R Block Self-Employed.

*Related: TurboTax Tips for Lyft Drivers

21. You can run a business out of your car. There are some Lyft drivers who are making tons of money running separate businesses in their cars there’s one guy who got super rich selling jewelry out of his car and it was just a separate side business that he had there’s one guy in Hawaii who claims he makes over $100 an hour advertising his events in the entertainment industry. He has tons of tourists who come into his car every day since he’s in Hawaii, and advertises things like sunset boat rides, skydiving, and even concerts. So, be creative and come up with another company since you’re meeting so many people a day. it’s like free advertising for your company

22. Tolls: Lyft pays for all the tolls you go through. so if you ever go through a toll and you get charged. Lyft will reimburse you for it. However, you’re going to lose a little bit of money, so I like to avoid tolls at all costs. Think of it this way; if you go through a toll that costs $5 you have to pay out of your pocket. Then, Lyft reimburses you $5, but you still have to pay taxes on that $5 that Lyft pays you, so you’re losing a small amount of money. So, I just like to avoid tolls at all cost

*Uber Driver TurboTax Discount!

23. You get a $5 cancellation fee only if the passenger cancels. So, if you cancel on your end, you won’t get that fee so just make sure your passenger cancels if they don’t want the ride anymore. That way you’ll get your $5 cancellation fee

24. You get also a $5 no-show fee, so if you go to pick up your passenger and they are not there, or they’re taking more than five minutes, you can technically leave and still get a $5 cancellation fee. All you have to do is call them and there’s a way around this if you just call them and then hang up you can still get the $5 cancellation fee. It’s a little loophole, but basically, if they don’t show up you get $5.

25. Cleaning fee: If a passenger either makes a mess in your car, throws up in your car, or spills something, you can get a $150+ cleaning fee. So, some drivers just like to clean up themselves and just pocket the money rather than take their car somewhere to get it detailed. One thing about that is that you do need to take photos for proof, so before you clean it up, make sure you take some photos and then send that in and you’ll get your cleaning fee.

26. Lyft has something called destination mode. Destination mode is really cool; anytime you get a trip that’s pretty far away, just click on destination mode, type in your destination, and Lyft will pair you up with somebody who’s heading that way. I think you’re limited to about 6 of those per day. Make sure you just you know click your destination mode and that way you’re getting paid on your way back as well.

27. You can track all your miles and save all your receipts and these will all be tax deductions for you when you have to do taxes. Make sure you track all your miles; just save all your gas receipts anytime you get a car wash or new tires if you’re buying gum or candy for your passengers these are all tax write-offs, and it can save you thousands of dollars.

28. If you drive late at night, somebody’s gonna throw up in your car. Just know that it’s part of the job if you choose to drive at night, so be ready to have a plan, take pics, and get a cleaning fee.

29. Tip: People tip more in the morning! Think about it; when somebody wakes up, they want to have a great day, and to get some good karma, they tip their drivers well. You’ll find that when you drive super early in the morning, I’m talking about like 5-7 a.m., pretty much all of your passengers are going to tip you!

*Related: Vintage Pin Up Girls With Cars

30. Tip: Don’t wait around: You get paid very little for waiting for your passenger, so anytime you go to pick somebody up, and your passenger says, “oh hey, I’ll be out in like 10-15 minutes.” don’t wait! You’re literally only getting paid like 15 cents a minute. This applies to whenever your passenger wants to go to a drive-through. Sometimes people say, “oh I’ll tip you,” or “hey I’ll buy you food,” and that’s I mean that’s a pretty good trade-off, but just keep in mind you’re really not making any money just waiting for them!

31. Tip: Drivers aren’t necessarily paired with passengers based on location, so even though you might be the closest one to that passenger, somebody else from farther away might be paired with that passenger first, based on how long they’ve been waiting for a passenger.

32. Tip: Your acceptance rate doesn’t matter that much, so if you get a ride request and you want to decline it for whatever reason, there’s not a huge penalty, and Lyft doesn’t care that much about it. I know some people who don’t accept and only take Airport rides. Just keep in mind that the acceptance rate doesn’t matter that much unless you’re trying to hit a bonus, which you need like a 90% acceptance rate for.

33. Tip: Don’t ever accept cash for a ride. Sometimes someone might walk up to your car while you’re driving around or waiting for a ride and say, “hey can you take me somewhere and I’ll just give you cash for it?” It may not be illegal, but if you get into an accident, you’ll have huge legal troubles, and your insurance won’t cover it. Just say, “hey sorry I can’t do that.” Don’t risk it.

34. Tips: You keep 100% of your tips on lyft. On uber, I think they take a small cut, so on Lyft you make more money from tips. Keep in mind you’ll need to pay taxes on these tips, so if you can get a cash tip, that’s better because you don’t have to report it to the IRS.

35. Tip: Passengers can favorite you as their driver. So, say a passenger had a really good experience with you if they click “favorite,” Lyft is gonna try to pair you with that passenger again, if possible.

37. Tip: Kicking passengers out: It’s your car’s rules, so you can technically kick a passenger out of your car at any time. So, if your passenger is being rude to you, inappropriate, or creepy, you can easily just say, “Hey, I’m sorry – I don’t feel comfortable with you being in my car,” and let them out on a busy street.

Hopefully, you found some good Lyft tips on that list!

If you are a Lyft driver and would like to add any tips, please leave a comment. Also, be sure to check out RideShareClub’s channel on YouTube!