The driver’s nightlife record—You say winter is so cold, but they feel winter every day

In mid-June in Hangzhou, there was a hint of restlessness in the air. The wind blowing from the sea was swirling around the city, and even its tail was tainted with a little restlessness.

At eleven o'clock at night, Li Quanwu came to the door of the SOS bar in Huanglong Sports Center on time as usual, yawned, wiped his face with both hands, and folded the clothes that were extremely disproportionate to his body shape. The electric bicycle stopped against a tree. He took out a bottle of water from the bag fixed on the bench behind him, took a sip, put it back, and then clicked on the familiar orange icon on the phone screen - "Didi Dai" Drivers are starting to take orders!”

The rise of the Internet driving platform

The driving industry has been around for many years. The "Social Value Report of Substitute Driving" released by Didi Media Research Institute on January 10, 2017 shows that in my country, driving after drinking is still the largest usage scenario for users, accounting for 97.8%, followed by work fatigue, Scenarios such as business pick-up and drop-off, picking up and dropping off family members.

Before 2014, there were many traditional driving companies. The owners of the driving companies cooperated with night entertainment venues such as bars, hotels, and KTVs to give commissions to hotel owners or security guards. In this profit chain, the commissions are exploited layer by layer, and the driving fees passed on to users are relatively high, while the actual profits earned by drivers have also shrunk significantly.

In 2014, China's mobile Internet entered a period of rapid development, and the growth in user scale, smart terminal sales, and mobile applications all reached new levels of magnitude. What followed was the emergence of a large number of Internet driving platforms, such as eDaijia, which has been established for three years and occupies a major share of the Internet driving software market, and rising stars Aidaijia and 91daijia. In July 2015, Didi Driving entered the driving market again. The low-cost, convenient and standardized services of the Internet driving platform have broken the "hidden rules" of traditional driving.

"Nowadays, most people are more aware. Don't drink when driving, and don't drive after drinking. If you take a sip of wine, you will be called a driver." Mei Jianxin is from Xinyang, Henan, and he comes to Hangzhou to work as a full-time driver. The driver has been working on and off for nearly three years and is a veritable veteran driver in the driving circle. "At the Gucui intersection of Tianmushan Road, traffic policemen catch drunk drivers every night, and they catch them every night. I was also checked when I was driving there."

Strictly control drunk driving to promote the development of the driving industry

The "Criminal Law Amendment (VIII)", which was implemented on May 1, 2011, added a new crime of dangerous driving. Drunk driving was initially regulated by the "Public Security Management Punishment Law" and then punished by the "Criminal Law" , the punishment method is upgraded, usually called drunk driving penalty. In August 2015, the Criminal Law Amendment (9) was passed, stipulating that anyone who drives a motor vehicle while drunk shall be sentenced to criminal detention and shall also be fined.

Although the "Sentencing Guidance on Common Crimes (II)" (Trial) recently formulated by the Supreme Court stipulates: "For defendants who drive a motor vehicle while drunk, if the circumstances are obviously minor and the harm is not great, There will be no conviction and punishment; if the crime is minor and does not require a penalty, it can be exempted from criminal punishment. "However, this only gives the judge a certain degree of discretion. Drunk driving has not been deleted from the provisions of the Criminal Law and is still an illegal crime.

The "Social Value Report on Driving" points out: The driving industry, led by Didi Driving, has formed a new economic format and has become an effective means for the government to control drunk driving and reduce traffic safety accidents. Based on the national average proportion of drunk driving traffic accidents and casualty ratios in the past five years, the driving industry reduced 3.5 million traffic accidents caused by drunk driving in 2016, saving 830,000 people from criminal sanctions and reducing property losses by 46.2 billion yuan.

Don’t dare to stop for a day

Hangzhou Huanglong Sports Center, together with Shenzhen Xiangmi Lake Resort, Beijing Workers’ Stadium, Chongqing Jinyuan Times Shopping Plaza and other places, has been rated as a popular drinking spot in the country Holy place.

Night clubs gather here, and bars of different styles are scattered around the stadium. When night falls, the lights in front of the bar are shining, and people and cars are coming and going.

In the dazzling neon beams, the bustling atmosphere of the city rises densely, and the smell of alcohol is accompanied by puffs of smoke rings, from the mouths of fat-bellied men, from the fingers of beautiful-faced women, from the young men wearing fashionable and avant-garde clothes. Take it out in your hands.

At eleven o'clock every night, Wang Dawei will move his camp from the Shengli River Food Street to the Huanglong Sports Center. "I had to sit down to eat at 7 or 8 o'clock. Now it's 11:30, and only these clubs and nightclubs have more orders." Since divorcing his wife two years ago, he came to Hangzhou from his hometown in Henan alone. , registered as a full-time driver with iDriving, went out to take orders at 7 o'clock every night, and returned home at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. This has been done for two years.

Sleep during the day and work at night. The work and rest schedule that is opposite to that of most people makes Wang Dawei's life simple and repetitive: sleeping, eating, and driving. "It's very boring, but there's nothing I can do about it. Others go out to eat and drink at night and I have to work." The income of a driver fluctuates greatly, from seven to eight thousand one month to four to five thousand next month. The huge pressure of living in Hangzhou made Wang Dawei very anxious. Come rain or shine, he dared not stop for a day, because stopping would mean no source of income.

Wear down jackets in summer

Years of driving at night and an irregular life schedule caused Wang Dawei's body to begin to suffer from various problems. Now 36 years old, he clearly feels that staying up late has become too much for his body. When he first started doing it, he was very energetic and it was okay to stay up late continuously. But now he can feel that his body is exhausted. "Is it cold at night? My wrist often hurts. I don't sleep well during the day. I often can't fall asleep and sleep until three or four o'clock in the afternoon. In fact, the quality of sleep is very poor. The temperature difference is huge. It’s also quite cold when riding a bike. Most people now wear short sleeves, but I always wear a thin down jacket. It’s hard work, but what can I do?” Wang Dawei said and pulled up the zipper of his down jacket.

The drivers ride uniformly equipped folding electric bicycles, which can travel 70 to 80 kilometers a night. However, the bicycles are fast, have an unstable center of gravity, and are prone to accidents. "I remember one winter when it snowed, the ground was frozen and extremely slippery. On the first day I made an order, I broke my left leg while riding an electric bike. I went back to rest, and continued to place orders the next day, and I also broke my right leg. "Li Quanwu laughed, as if he was not the one who fell, and he seemed to be talking about some interesting memories.

Some bosses are good

Compared with the pressure of survival and physical injuries, there are other things that make substitute drivers feel aggrieved.

The driving platform dispatches orders uniformly, and the driver cannot decide for himself what kind of customers he will serve. Therefore, whether he can meet good customers who are reasonable and abide by the rules depends entirely on luck. . Drivers encounter drunk people every day. Disputes, big and small, often arise, often due to expenses or minor problems on the road. They often make unreasonable troubles due to drunkenness and default on debts. Wang Dawei smiled helplessly: "What can you do? He is drunk, can you still argue with him? You can only wait until he sobers up the next day and then call him to pay." Li Quanwu likes to call customers the boss: "Yes Some bosses are nice and easy to talk to; some bosses have a bad temper and are drunk, so they just scold them, "You don't know the way." Is that true? I don't go there often in Binjiang, and I can't go anywhere. I'm very familiar with it, and sometimes the boss will just scold me if I drive a little wrong."

Only sleep three hours a day

In addition to full-time drivers like Wang Dawei and Li Quanwu, there are also other drivers. Some drivers only work part-time. Most of them are energetic young people who have entered the society but whose wages are not very high. For them, driving for them gives them the opportunity to supplement their lives and the possibility of establishing themselves in Hangzhou earlier.

Huang Wensong from Anhui is a part-time driver for Didi Driving. After passing the platform review, he has only been working as a driver for a month. "My basic salary is about 5,000, which is nothing after eating, drinking, and eating. I go out at night to earn some living expenses." Because of the guarantee of the basic salary, Huang Wensong has less pressure than a full-time driver. He arranges his time flexibly. There are no strict requirements on how many orders must be completed every day.

"Yesterday before 11:30, the net income was only 28 yuan. After 11:30, I took two slightly larger orders, worth more than 200 yuan." Yesterday I worked until 5:30, squinted for a while and then went to work. "Huang Wensong is 29 years old this year. While waiting for the order, he just stared at the app page blankly, looking very mature under the dim yellow light.

"I'm here to place an order! "Huang Wensong suddenly shouted. A driver who had just arrived next to him asked where he was from. Huang Wensong said angrily: "Damn it, Puyan! It would be fine if I could catch the 12:30 bus, but if I couldn't, it would be in vain! "With that said, Huang Wensong rode away on his electric scooter, and only heard a polite "Hello, Didi will serve you" gradually disappeared into the hustle and bustle coming from the bar.

In the final analysis, every time Driving is a contract built on trust. The customer trusts the platform and chooses to call a driver on the platform to take him home safely after drinking. The driver trusts the platform and chooses to follow the platform's regulations. For both parties, trust is weak. What supports this contract is the double guarantee provided by the platform and relevant departments.

In September 2016, the Ministry of Commerce It is proposed that the "Driving Service Specifications" (SB/T11137-2015) drafted by the Automobile Club Branch of the China Automobile Dealers Association has been officially implemented, and it has put forward clear standards and requirements for driving companies and drivers, so that driving There are rules to follow for the development of the industry, and the agency driving industry is no longer a three-no industry with "no supervisory authority, no entry threshold, and no unified standards"

In the first few years of its development, the agency driving industry was no longer a three-no industry. Driving insurance has not received enough attention, and service disputes are prone to occur once a driving accident occurs. With the diversified development of the driving business, there are also various forms of driving insurance, and the probability of disputes has been greatly reduced. Both Didi Driving and e-Driving are self-insured, and the company charges a certain amount of money from each order for accident compensation. At present, Didi Driving has purchased liability insurance.

Wang Dawei’s platform is Ai Dai Driving. According to him, Ai Dai Driving provides liability insurance for two yuan per order. If you encounter an accident, you don’t have to argue, and there are fewer disputes. Call the police first, and the traffic police will arrive. The accident scene ruled that if the other party was responsible, the other party would pay, and if the driving agent was responsible, the company’s insurance would pay the compensation. “If there was no insurance, no one would do it! Some customers' cars cost millions, but a little repair costs tens or hundreds of thousands. How can we afford to pay for it? ”

It’s getting harder and harder to get orders

Mei Jianxin has been working as a driving agent full-time for nearly three years. He has used almost every Internet driving platform. He initially registered e After a period of time, he signed up for Aidaijia, a local driving platform in Hangzhou. According to him, Aidaijia was very popular at the beginning and had many users, but now it has lost a lot of users and was “burning money” to Didi. "Burn" is gone. "The market is saturated, and the industry has begun to decline. When we first started, there were not so many driving agents in Hangzhou. They had orders wherever they went. Look at it now." ”

Mei Jianxin pursed his lips and motioned for us to look at Wang Dawei on the side. He had been watching the green interface of the Ai Dai Driving app for twenty minutes, but he had not received a single order. The screen flickered on and off. When it's about to turn dark, Wang Dawei will poke the screen to light it up again. It seems to stay on, and he hopes to receive orders.

As early as 2011, e-driving service was launched. The leader of the Internet driving platform has emerged, but due to its low-key development, it has not been widely known. The driving market only occupies a very small share of the mobile travel market, and Internet giants have not set their sights on this in a short period of time. field, only focusing on larger-scale express and private car services. Therefore, as of October 2014, although Internet driving platforms such as iDaiDai, VDaiDai, and 91DaiDai have sprung up, eDaiDriving has become ubiquitous. There are 102 cities across the country, firmly occupying nearly 90% of the Internet driving market. In July 2015, Didi Daidriving was officially launched. Relying on Didi Chuxing’s high penetration rate and traffic advantages, it launched dual subsidies for drivers and users. With these measures, the comfortable days of e-driving are over.

At the end of 2015, the market share of e-driving services dropped rapidly to only 40%. According to the "2016 Fourth Quarter Driving Market Report" released by Analysys, Didi Daidriving took the lead with a share of 74.5 in 2016, significantly ahead of e-Driving with a share of 29.7.

The rapid development of Didi Dai Driving has eroded the living space of other Internet Dai Driving platforms. The Dai Di Driving drivers squatting in front of the bar gathered to discuss the Ai Dai Driving and e-Driving platforms they were using. Will the driving club close down? Drivers who love to drive on behalf of others are always worried. The orders are getting fewer and fewer, and it is becoming more and more difficult to accept them. Others' words of "I don't think it will work anymore" make their hearts tremble. Life is not easy for the drivers who have joined Didi's fleet. The platform system does not distinguish between part-time and full-time drivers, and the dispatch of orders does not favor full-time drivers. There are many drivers and few orders. This imbalance makes the life of full-time drivers very difficult.

It is not easy to change careers

The elimination of platform competition and the shift from decentralization to concentration will bring about a reduction in subsidy costs and the cruel reality of more monks and less meat. Full-time driving The days are getting harder and harder. For them, it’s not that they don’t want to change careers, it’s just that they can’t see the way forward clearly.

Wang Dawei has personally felt the decline of Ai Dai Driving, and has just applied for driver registration with Didi Dai Driving. "Didi has a lot of review processes. It takes several months to complete one set. You have to live in these few months." When asked about his poor health and what his plans are in the next few years, Wang Dawei shook his head with a wry smile. : "I never thought about it, and there is no good way out now. Forget it, just take it one day at a time. Anyway, I can feed the whole family without worrying about it!"

Regarding the future, Li Quanwu is better than Wang Dawei. Very optimistic: "Am I uneducated? I stopped studying in the fifth grade of elementary school. There are very few jobs I can do now. Just take it one step at a time. Is this society willing to endure hardship and still starve people to death? Haha!"

(Li Quanwu, Mei Jianxin, Wang Dawei and Huang Wensong are all pseudonyms in the article)