[pizza guy]

Does Uber know when you are almost home and about to logoff and give you priority to keep you driving?
My dead time logged on is spent at home doing anything from working my other job to doing laundry to playing PS4. I get a ping (often closer than the walk to my car) and work from the customers destination to my home taking the most fuel efficient route that takes me close to pax hot spots. 30% of my pings come from that last mile before I reach home. This seems very suspicious to me.

 

[JimS]

You must live close to a hot spot. Sit in your easy chair and wait for the pings to flow!

Other ways of almost always guaranteeing a ping:

- Go to a restroom, any restroom. #2 reduces the time to ping by 50%

- Go into a store to buy something. Be careful because you won't get a ping until you actually start to check out.

- Sit down for coffee

- Sit down for food

- Get drive through

- Get out to buy gas

- Make or receive an important phone call you can't dismiss

- Make it just past a hot spot on a one way street with no turn around for 1/2 mile

- Be across the state line where you aren't approved to drive yet

- Stand 15 seconds away from your phone

- Fall asleep

- And, as the OP mentioned, be almost home after a particularly slow night

I'm sure there are others...

 

[pizza guy]

I do live in a hot spot at certain times. No problem with other residents in the area camping and reaping the rewards. As a courtesy we often log off until the other gets something. I do have a problem with Uber drivers who don't live in the area and don't pay rent or association fees sitting in the area cutting my ping area in half. Do I put up with it or do I be a dick and have them move increasing my ping area by 30%?

 

[JimS]

This isn't West Side Story. Your dues and rent don't extend to the public streets. If they are trespassing, that's another story, but it didn't sound like it.

Don't start a turf war. Not worth it for the pennies.

 

[TwoFiddyMile]

I do live in a hot spot at certain times. No problem with other residents in the area camping and reaping the rewards. As a courtesy we often log off until the other gets something. I do have a problem with Uber drivers who don't live in the area and don't pay rent or association fees sitting in the area cutting my ping area in half. Do I put up with it or do I be a dick and have them move increasing my ping area by 30%?

That's insane.
Whoever is closest gets the job. I'd never log off to let another driver get a job first, he's not gonna pay my mortgage.
Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

 

[LEAFdriver]

30% of my pings come from that last mile before I reach home. This seems very suspicious to me.

LOL I've noticed the same thing! And I definitely do not live in a HOT SPOT! There is a good 5 miles between me and any Hot Spots.....so usually, when I am about 4.9 miles from those hot spots...and within a mile from home....I get another ping....after I've been sitting IN THE MIDDLE of those hot spots for an hour or more with NO PING.

JimS list also seems to work if you find yourself 'pingless'.

 

[pizza guy]

That's insane.
Whoever is closest gets the job. I'd never log off to let another driver get a job first, he's not gonna pay my mortgage.
Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

Most Chicago area Uber drivers treat each other well. My other work is almost as flexible as Uber. Logging off for an hour without interuption can be very valuble to me when it is unlikely I get a a ping anyway. I sure hope I never have to count on Uber for a mortgage.

 

[JimS]

Best ways to NOT get a ping while online:

- Sit in the hottest nightspot in the area

- Chase a surge

- Chase a heat map

 

[pizza guy]

Best ways to NOT get a ping while online:

- Sit in the hottest nightspot in the area

- Chase a surge

- Chase a heat map

Best ways for me to get a ping:

Preheat oven, start a pot of coffee, any Cubs game I get through antenna (dead during cable games I want to be in car listening to radio), the day after White Castle.
If you log on to make some extra money while leaving town every pax will take you in the wrong direction.

 

[Another Uber Driver]

Other ways of almost always guaranteeing a ping:

- Go to a restroom, any restroom. #2 reduces the time to ping by 50%

- Go into a store to buy something. Be careful because you won't get a ping until you actually start to check out.

- Sit down for coffee

- Sit down for food

- Get drive through

- Get out to buy gas

- Make or receive an important phone call you can't dismiss

- Make it just past a hot spot on a one way street with no turn around for 1/2 mile

- Be across the state line where you aren't approved to drive yet

- Stand 15 seconds away from your phone

- Fall asleep

- And, as the OP mentioned, be almost home after a particularly slow night

I'm sure there are others...

Best ways to NOT get a ping while online:

- Sit in the hottest nightspot in the area

- Chase a surge

- Chase a heat map

Best ways for me to get a ping:

Preheat oven, start a pot of coffee, any Cubs game I get through antenna (dead during cable games I want to be in car listening to radio), the day after White Castle.
If you log on to make some extra money while leaving town every pax will take you in the wrong direction.

The short version of all of the above quoted messages is: Murphy rides Uber.

 

[Gretzky]

Haha happens to me every time I try to go home for lunch

 

[Fuzzyelvis]

This isn't West Side Story. Your dues and rent don't extend to the public streets. If they are trespassing, that's another story, but it didn't sound like it.

Don't start a turf war. Not worth it for the pennies.

I do live in a hot spot at certain times. No problem with other residents in the area camping and reaping the rewards. As a courtesy we often log off until the other gets something. I do have a problem with Uber drivers who don't live in the area and don't pay rent or association fees sitting in the area cutting my ping area in half. Do I put up with it or do I be a dick and have them move increasing my ping area by 30%?

"Have them move?" How does THAT work?

 

[Fuzzyelvis]

Does Uber know when you are almost home and about to logoff and give you priority to keep you driving?
My dead time logged on is spent at home doing anything from working my other job to doing laundry to playing PS4. I get a ping (often closer than the walk to my car) and work from the customers destination to my home taking the most fuel efficient route that takes me close to pax hot spots. 30% of my pings come from that last mile before I reach home. This seems very suspicious to me.

Uber doesn't want you to go home. You're supposed to stay in your car.

 

[Another Uber Driver]

Uber doesn't want you to go home. You're supposed to stay in your car.

It is just the same amoung all those people who try to hail my cab when I am going home. My top light can show OFF DUTY, I can have ten OFF DUTY signs in the various windows and on the dashboard and people still will not back off. They seem to think that I have nothing else to do.

 

[clwilla]

Something similar happened to me tonight.

In the middle of a 3.x surge and nothing. It's been a long day because today was the college football game home opener in a newly rebuilt stadium (University of Kentucky), and I'm tired so I start to head home despite a huge surge. About 10 miles away from the hot spots, PING! And just after the surge briefly ended. I'm sure I was the closest driver (the PAX was only a minute or so away, and my guess is that she was waiting for the surge to end). Then after a nearly 10 mile drive with no surge that was bringing me well away from home, I get ANOTHER Ping (again well away from any hot spots). These guys wanted to go . . .

back to the downtown hotspots where I had left 40 minutes prior with the full intention of going home. While there there was a 3.6x surge but since the game just ended and I had been dealing with game nonsense all day I decided to turn the app off and start my way home. A little ways down the road I turn it back on (well away from the stadium) while on my way back home and leave it on because 3.8x surge, and PING! To a PAX's marker . . .

which was 3 miles away from where the PAX was.

Cancel trip.

Turn off app.

Go home.

Turn on app to get the numbers I need for my spreadsheet and 4.2x surge.

 

[Amsoil Uber Connect]

Took me 4 times friday to get my Iced coffee at J n B. At least I was able to pee on one of those.

 

[JimS]

Don't pee on your coffee.

 

[Chicago-uber]

If I decided to go home, I turn off the app. Never leave it on when driving home. Because you'll always get a ping when you're almost home. Uber wants you to work 24/7

 

[Uberest]

My sympathies... It is always a huge gamble to stay online while on the way home or on the way to any place you want to be. I just turn the app off and relax. Yes you could be "leaving money on the table". But tomorrow's another day. If I am tired I am not driving... Risks go way up....

 

[Yugotrobbed]

You must live close to a hot spot. Sit in your easy chair and wait for the pings to flow!

Other ways of almost always guaranteeing a ping:

- Go to a restroom, any restroom. #2 reduces the time to ping by 50%

- Go into a store to buy something. Be careful because you won't get a ping until you actually start to check out.

- Sit down for coffee

- Sit down for food

- Get drive through

- Get out to buy gas

- Make or receive an important phone call you can't dismiss

- Make it just past a hot spot on a one way street with no turn around for 1/2 mile

- Be across the state line where you aren't approved to drive yet

- Stand 15 seconds away from your phone

- Fall asleep

- And, as the OP mentioned, be almost home after a particularly slow night

I'm sure there are others...

Every one of these has happened to me. Spot on.