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Out of curiosity I gave driving for Uber a try during weekends for a few weeks last year. This article brings two thoughts to mind. First I had a more than on
by pmorici 11y ago
Out of curiosity I gave driving for Uber a try during weekends for a few weeks last year. This article brings two thoughts to mind.
First I had a more than one passenger tell me during my time driving that prior to Uber they would regularly drive home after drinking from parties because they just couldn't get a cab in areas they were often in.
Second, driving drunk people is the absolute worst. Even if they don't puke in your car they are a pain to deal with[1], and less considerate of your vehicle in general. Having to deal with them one too many times was what lead me to stop driving at together. I initially found driving to be a fun way to interact with random people I wouldn't normally meet but the drunks killed it for me.
[1] During the few weekends I did it I had one drunk guy puke in my car second ride of the evening. Another belligerently refuse to tell me their location when the GPS showed them in a spot that was not near any road and become verbally abusive when I couldn't find them. Another stash a half open can of beer in the back seat pocket spilling beer all over the car. Uber pays for cleaning but they don't pay for lost income stemming for your car being out of commission until you can get it cleaned. I couldn't imagine having to rely on driving for any significant portion of my income under those working conditions.
- spun 11y agoWhy didn't you just continue driving outside of times people normally leave bars/clubs?
- pmorici 11y agoI had/have a real job as a software engineer that pays an order of magnitude more than driving for Uber. Also the guy that puked all over my car did it at 7:00 so not exactly the time you might have expected something like that to happen. Wasn't worth it for me.
- monksy 11y ago2 things: 1. Not all drunks are bad. Yes there are bad apples. Rate them badly. 2. Uber can and will deny someone from using uber.
- pmorici 11y agoYou are missing the point. If you are someone who depends on Uber for your income and someone does something in your car that puts it out of commission even if it is only say 5% of people it can have a major effect on your income.
- ryanlol 11y agoDid you deny low-rated riders pickups?
- pmorici 11y agoPretty much all passengers have a 5 star rating, at least when I was doing it, Uber had been in my city for less than a year. I can recall maybe 1 out of 100 passengers that had a noticeably low rating and they turned out to be perfectly nice people they even told me their story about how they got their low rating. Swearing in the presence of a driver with sensitive ears, though not at them. I was driving at a time when Uber was aggressively lowering their fairs and giving out a lot of free ride credit. It might have been my imagination but it seemed like every time they cut fairs the average customer behavior got worse. Drivers are also graded on having a high acceptance rate for ride requests so being picky about who you pick-up is strongly discouraged no matter their rating.