Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Work and Employment
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 03-28-2016, 10:44 PM
 
Location: U.S.A., Earth
5,511 posts, read 4,458,197 times
Reputation: 5769

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by gyrorider12 View Post
Uber drivers make like $30k -$50k a year, I think. And they can make a lot if they just work the high rate nights like friday and saturday night.

Idk how safe it is as I also heard that a bank robber tried to use an Uber as a getaway car once (saw it in the news).

You do need a car and car insurance, and I would be careful lol.
Does Uber allow you to work only peak times? I hear they've been trying to nudge drivers to take less desirable time slots. I'd imagine you'd reach an impasse if all Uber drivers only wanted the limited peak times.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 03-30-2016, 11:03 PM
 
Location: Eastern Colorado
3,887 posts, read 5,734,709 times
Reputation: 5386
As someone who was a cab driver years ago and is currently driving Uber on the side, I cannot believe how many misconceptions there are in this thread.

The money sucks, I average about $9.50 an hour after gas on the weeks I drive 40-50 hours from that you take the cost of wear and tear on the car with about 1000 miles per week driving and you are lucky to make a net of $5-6 an hour. In the Denver metro area you are making less than a dollar a mile once Uber takes their cut, and during the slower period you can drive 3 miles to pick up someone going a mile and make $2.25 for those 4 miles. Uber actively discourages tips, so you may get 1 in 10 people that will tip you even a dollar or two. Dividing my tips by number of miles driven it is about .05 a miles, do you do the math, you are working to even make a few bucks profit every week.

Sure some people work only the prime times for Surge, but on most nights you are lucky if that busy time is about 2 1/2 hours and that you can make a surge price for longer than an hour on that night. Also people do not realize how hard it is to stay sober and sit and wait for that prime time from 12:00-2:30 AM if you are not out doing something, if you plan to sit home and play video games until that time, and can pay your bills on what you make in those couple of hours every night, than more power to you. However if you are trying to switch between a day job and working those hours a couple of nights a week it will be a struggle, if you work a few hours it is not as bad but than your profit goes down. The best night I have had in 6 weeks of driving for Uber was about $30 an hour during those 2 1/2 hours on a weekend night, from that you figure $10 for gas and you are down to $65 a night, and that is on a busy night. By far the best 10 hour shift I have had I made $177 and spend $26 in gas, and that was by far my best busy day. During the week I average less than $80 for a 8 hour shift, and on the weekends I average $155 for a 10 hour shift, pay for gas and the wear and tear on your vehicle, you are not making much per hour even on the good shifts.


The fact of the matter is that Uber is safer than driving a cab, as a cab driver I had 3 people try to physically attack me in a year, I have yet to even having a verbal altercation on a Uber ride. Most people know they are rated and that everything is tracked, if they cross the line with a driver they can be banned pretty easily if the cops get involved.

I also went through basically the same background check to get on with UBer that I did to drive a cab, the only difference is Uber did not require a drug test driving a cab did.

The biggest difference is the car situation, with cabs they were inspected on the service schedule, if they were even just on the border for their requirements they passed the car, while with Uber I had to get a 3rd party mechanic to do the inspection and they were just hoping they could find something to fix so they could make some money on the deal.

I also keep reading about the plexiglass window, I never saw a Cab in Colorado with one, I know they exist in some areas and cities but in my limited traveling I have never seen it in person.

Overall I am considering stopping Uber and either joining Lyft or just not driving at all. Uber has a stated goal of replacing people's cars, if you think about it that only means the drivers are losing money and it may get worse. Look at it this way even if someone walks or take a bus/train for half of the 1,100 miles the average person drives every month, that means that Uber has to provide the car for the other 550 miles for less than that person would spend for the 1,100 miles every month. So if Uber is taking 20% and the costs for 550 miles for a month are the same for you as that person, then there is only 30%-bus passes left over of every dollar that person would spend on a car. For that 30% you have to pay for the wear and tear of getting back and forth to pick up clients, your time, and for the risk you are taking given that you are on the road with a person you do not know. With Lyft their higher fees and 60% of their people tipping, you are more likely to at least turn a profit that is above minimum wage, driving a cab prior to the Uber/Lyft explosion but still competing with multiple car services in a small city I was able to pay the bills for a 4 person household although I worked about 60 hours a week to do it.

Last edited by jwiley; 03-30-2016 at 11:15 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Work and Employment

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:43 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top