Jeez, and I thought I would just have to get some barf bags.
Seems like pointing a gun at your fare might endanger your rating, so barf bags might be a better choice.
I just received an email from Uber confirming that I’m now authorized to start driving for them. I won’t start driving until I hear from my own insurer about how or if this will affect my auto insurance.
I’ve been waiting 2 weeks now for Lyft to assign a “mentor” to me. I haven’t heard a word since.
Insurance:
FYI, I have State Farm insurance for normal driving and just spoke to my agent. State farm has no issues with my driving for Uber, so long as I understand that their policy does not cover me at all while I’m driving or Uber, or even when I have the Uber Partner app on and am available to pick up customers.
I think I’ve already posted this upthread, but here is a summary of Uber coverage.
There is an insurance “gap” that my agent pointed out to me. That is while I’m waiting to accept a ride with a customer. I’m not covered by State Farm, and Uber covers only liability during that period. So I would have no coverage for collision and comprehensive. A tree better not fall on me and I better not be in a collision during that time. The general recommendation of Uber drivers is not to drive around or even have the engine on when waiting to accept a customer, which does tend to minimize that risk and decrease my costs.
Those conditions wouldn’t be too bad here in nowhere FL, but in Chicago I don’t think I would be willing to risk it. Interesting stuff, thanks for sharing it.
I decided to give Uber driving a shot this afternoon. I was surprised – I didn’t have to wait more than 5 minutes or so before the app connected me up with a rider for the first time, nor any longer than that between the next couple of passengers. Busier than I would have thought for a mid-size town on a Saturday afternoon without a game or some other big event in town.
In an hour and 40 minutes, I made almost exactly $34.00 + a $5 tip, which I consider pretty good for a part time more or less unskilled job. The most important thing I learned is that Uber’s navigation app is horrible. The street drawings are more or less right, but the street names are just randomly wrong.
There is an option to use Google Maps for navigation, and maybe I’ll figure out how to use it better, but when I choose to navigate with it my location is shown as latitude and longitude coordinates instead an address, and as far as I can tell I would have to type in the the address to pick up the riders as well as the places they’re going. So I’m using my own nav system, which is better than Google in the sense that my current location shows as a street address. Dunno, maybe I’ll figure out how to use it better.
And since my 3rd drive destination was just a few blocks from home, I decided to call the experiment a success and close out the app.
Cool!
Keep us posted as you develop more experience with this. And more war stories. 
My only war story so far is the weakest one in the history of the world. The last passenger reeked of cigarette smoke, though he didn’t try to smoke while in the car. We are officially authorized by Uber to “request” riders not to smoke, as it violates their rules for passengers. No word on what to do if the passenger doesn’t obey. My car doesn’t even have an ash tray.
My sister said she was happy I could smell it. 15 years ago when I smoked, she said I smelled like that but I claimed not to be able to tell.
Getting approved to drive for Lyft was not just a job, it was an adventure. I had an in-person session with a Lyft rep (really just another driver). It didn’t go very well – we didn’t communicate well with each other and I’ll leave it at that.
A few days later Lyft emailed me that they were declining me as a driver based on my session, AND that there was “no appeal” possible to change the decision. I emailed back and asked whether I could be considered again sometime in the future.
And while I’m waiting for a reply I’m still being bombarded with their emails: links to training videos, to the page where I could enter my banking information so I could get paid, etc.
Once they told me my background check was almost finished I had enough. I replied again and told them to save themselves the time and expense of checking and sending me all this other stuff, since they’ve already decided I can’t drive for them… I was very polite.
Today, I get a response from that last email, saying they completed my checks and I could start driving today if I want. And apologizing for all the confusion I was caused by the last flurry of emails.
Noo, don’t leave it at that, that sounds interesting. What happened exactly?
No, it’s boring. The Mentor and I had literal physical communications issues. He had some physical issues that made it difficult for me to understand, and for him to hear what I said. To be fair though, perhaps I didn’t listen closely enough or speak loudly or directly enough. I’m willing to write it off as a mutual difficulty.
Hey Boyo Jim,
The first time I requested an Uber driver, I was interested in maybe working for them and so I asked this driver about Uber.
One thing he told me was - like you said - their app was crap and he used a different app for getting from Point A to Point B. He said there were a few to choose from.
I’ll give you an Uber update. The map built into the app is really not usable, but it does support two other nav system options – Google Maps or Waze. On my phone Google Maps has a significant lag – IOW it will show you that you’re approaching someone when you’re right there or have already passed them. Several time I had to turn around and go back because I kept getting caught by that.
Waze doesn’t seem to have that problem, but it has some others. It marks a lot of junk on the map that I don’t need and haven’t yet figured out how to hide it. It also take several more button pushes to get the nav course plotted and displayed. I’m using it though, in preference to Google.
I had my first Lyft passenger this evening. Where I am there’s a lot of people who’ve never heard of it and hence a lot fewer requests for Lyft rides. But it does pay the driver significantly more for the same distance drive. It also uses Waze, which will make driving for both easier on me.
FYI, what I’ve been personally using for a nav system before the ridesharing thing is called Here. I picked it because I can download the map files with all their details, and then use it on the road without any data connection or charges. I’ve found it to be just as accurate as the other two, but since it’s not supported I would have to manually retype the addresses for anywhere I want to navigate to.
Are you required to put that pink mustache on your car when you’re driving for Lyft and do you have to take it off if you’re driving for Uber?
No, no moustache requirement. Also, I can have both the Uber and Lyft apps running simultaneously, accept whichever rider request comes in first from either, and then switch off the other app until I’m done with the ride.
I’m considering dropping doing Lyft rides altogether for a couple of reasons. Even though they pay me more per ride than Uber, there are so very few rides. Most people in Madison seem unaware that Lyft exists, and well over 90% of my rides are Uber calls. The other thing is that I have both apps running simultaneously, and many of my Lyft requests are coming in at the very same time as Uber requests, forcing me to stiff one of the riders by not accepting the call. Ideally, I get one request and then turn off the other app so this conflict doesn’t happen, but often that’s possible And if I have to pick one, Uber is clearly the winner on call volume and income.
Oh, forgot to mention – income. It’s not great and it’s certainly not enough to quit the day job. I’ve been what I’m coming to see as my normal driving schedule for 2 weeks now. That’s 1-3 hours a night right after my day job ends, and 6-8 hours a day on weekend days. I’m netting just over $400 a week, but I’ll have to put aside a fair chunk of that to cover taxes, since neither Uber or Lyft withholds. That works out to $10-$15 an hour, though a couple of individual days it was substantially higher.
I went into this thinking that I would earn enough to cover my car payment, which is a little over $300 a month. Since I’m earning 4 times that, I need to give some thought to whether to cut down on my driving hours, or just pour the money into the car and pay it off much faster. I’m inclined toward the latter, and if you’ve seen any of my past threads about my long-term unemployment and my near-foreclosure and continuing debt, I can certainly use the extra bucks.
And, if any of you decide to be a driver based on anything I say, please PM me. I have a referral code, and if you use it when signing up and then eventually complete 20 drives, they’ll pay me $200!
Interesting thread.
From personal experience here in Chicago, Uber is infinitely better than the cabs. UberX is almost 50% cheaper when traveling from the city to the northern suburbs where I live (the cabs charge 1.5X the base rate for driving to the suburbs. One of the tricks cab drivers have tried is to charge the 1.5X rate from the pick-up and not from when you pass the city limits (Touhy Ave in my case)).
The fact is the taxi cab industry is a cartel that needs to be busted. Whatever about the specifics on Uber or Lyft there is no reason for a medallion system to exist in its current form. It’s exploitative to both drivers (vast majority of whom do not own their own medallions) and the consumer. If Uber were to become too dominant well that can be handled through existing regulations including state and federal anti-trust laws.
The fact is, technology has exposed the cartel for what it is and the market will eventually level out salaries for the drivers.
I feel some real sympathy for “normal” cab drivers. Most of us driving for Uber and Lyft, I imagine have day jobs and are driving to pick up some extra money. We all own our own cars and maintain them as if they aren’t actually cabs. And most of us couldn’t maintain a reasonable standard of living if Ubering was the only income we had. The “real” drivers, by and large, ARE trying to make a living driving cabs. Not only don’t they own their own medallions, they don’t own their cabs either, and are stick forcibly renting a cab that is barely maintained at all.
And we Uber people are seriously undercutting their income. I don’t have an obvious solution for this, and I’m not going to voluntarily give up my extra income to help out the full-time drivers.
Time and technology have moved on. They may be better off getting out from under the medallion system. No one is guaranteed a job and the medallion owners (and their bankers) who are complaining about collapse in medallion prices care solely about themselves not about the drivers and certainly not the consumers. The consumer should not have to pay to prop up an inefficient, closed system.