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Folks who are curious about, or plan to drive for, Uber should check out the discussions at uberpeople.net. It's just like city-data, except that all the posters are Uber drivers. Several posters there have spreadsheets that you can download and customize, to see if you can make money with Uber. There is also a section titled "Stories" that is pretty entertaining as it's where drivers describe unusual rides, customers, or accidents.
Just a personal opinion, I wouldn't just go by forums, as I think more people complain than not and make it look worse than it is. I fell victim to this in a way earlier this year, when I let forums scare me away from getting back surgery with horror stories, only to endure an expensive, very painful 6 months until I finally got the surgery anyway and 8 weeks later 90% back to normal. Waiting all those months and spending thousands because the forums I went to made it sound terrifying.
During a 6-week period where the pain prevented me from driving, I took Uber several times a week to Dr, PT and chiropractic appointments. I'm a gabby type of person and usually chatted to the drivers most of the way. The vast majority that rode me seemed to enjoy driving for Uber. But again, these were not people trying to live off of it, its' not really set up for that..they were retirees, students, second-income workers. The complaints I heard were not about the company, mostly about competition from other Uber drivers in some areas (local people would tell me drivers would come to the Atlantic City or one of the other resort areas down here in the summer from as far as 2 hours away, and just hang there all day waiting for passengers, for instance, because their areas didn't have enough passengers.
Take a 5 mile Uber ride, interview a couple of drivers in addition to going to the forums. I think you'll learn more from someone face to face, personally. This is especially true if you are taking rides from drivers in the same area where you would be working. Every area is going to be different and someone in NY is not going to be able to advise you about driving in Wyoming.
ocnjgirl - You, an OT, went to a chiro? I am disappointed ;-)
I am a PT myself.
I didn't go for manipulation, I went first for Active Release, and then a manual form of decompression called the Cox Technique. There are good chiropractors.
Uber is just making money off the wear and tear you put on your car. I drove for them and gave up after about a week. Would rather work a minimum wage fast food gig.
Payouts are laughable, customers are rude, and you end up spending a lot of time just driving around with no one in the car. It's a waste of time and money, not to mention you are killing your car.
One thing with using your own vehicle is insurance. My car insurance asks if you use your vehicle for business. If you don't say you do then they can cancel or not cover anything that happened during business use.
Most Americans wouldn't even loan their cars to friends and family then why would they happily loaning their cars for Uber for barely much money for lunch. That's why I don't get people who get lured in by Uber's initial fat check but pay for the costlier expenses later on.
Ok Uber helps you finance a car, so what? I can get a 0% interest rate on a cheap car but why would I pay extra insurance just help Uber when they should be the ones insuring my car on a gig.
This is why Uber has resort to constantly going after new drivers to lure as many newbies as they can so they can quickly figure out how to get automated cars to replace all drivers in the future.
Anybody who has driven awhile either can't get a job or still stubbornly waiting for their real gig to show up.
As I said the posters who complain on that Uber board are just that, complainers. There are plenty of part time Uber drivers who love it. If you are really driving around all night looking for rides you are doing it wrong and should not be blaming Uber. Automatic cars will replace drivers? Not in my lifetime or yours either for that matter.
Again if you are tryijg to earn full time living wages this is not the way to go. But for folks looking for extra money or are in between jobs this is a great, totally flexible option. But getting Uber "help" for a car? This will destroy any chance you would have at making money.
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