I drove for uber for just shy of 3 years. 2 months ago I lost my job due to too many "dangerous driving" reports(not sure how long of a period they went by). I never got to be around for tips either. A lot of different things I've seen change with Uber. Some good, some bad. I miss the days where there were $3 base fair, $1.50 a mile, 30c a minute. 2 times they have lowered rates that affected money potential in a big way, but thankfully with Pool, number of ride bonuses and guaranteed boost rates for rush hours and events, it equaled out in the long run. But I have seen a lot of things that caused stress with being a driver. Here is a list of what I remember as being the biggest issues:
Rating system: I'm sure the vast majority of people can safely say Uber has a VERY faulty rating system. I lost my job due to it. Negative ratings and Uber's dealing with them is generic at best and confusing. You are given a VERY vague list of categories on why you got dissatisfied ratings. You have no way to defend yourself nor find an exact cause to better your methods with driving and dealing with riders. for example, I had a vast amount of reports of an unclean car. Sure, I know I had times where it got a little dirty, but even after washing, vacuuming, and wiping my car down, I was still getting bad ratings due to the quality. It turns out, it took a friend to tell me there was a funky smell in my car that I was unaware of. I drove full time and spent a LOT of time in my car. You don't know about certain advancing smells when being there for so many hours a day. The list was vague with I think about 7 different things it could be for the bad rating. If I had 1 report that specified that it was a smell, I could have had my ratings go up. Same thing with "dangerous driving". I was never told what I did that was considered dangerous nor had a chance to defend myself with an explanation. This is San Francisco: you have to drive somewhat aggressive to get to a destination in a timely and safe(some aggressive driving is safe) manner.
Airport Pickups: I can safely say I never really did many airport pickups, but there is a good reason for it. First off, there are high numbers of cars that are in the airport cue and I'm not one to sit around and wait. I would usually try for airport pickups when I had a drop off there as it was. But the times I have done or tried to do airport pickups, easily 9 out of 10 times the rider was in the Arrivals when we can only pick up at departures.
Bus Lanes: NEVER pick up a rider in a bus lane or you are looking at (it may be more now) a $288 fine. I learned it the hard way and I made ZERO exceptions to bus lanes.
Pin locations off: Uber had it good for a while until they did updates on their app. There were times when it would literally be a 50/50 chance the pin was on the correct side of the street. Some streets it isn't really an issue, but if it was a busy street, it was a real pain to deal with. Who knows if riders rate badly for pulling on the wrong side of the road for a pickup since the rating system never specifies anything.
Low rated riders: If I ever had a rider with a rating below a 4.6, it was usually for an obvious reason that you're about to find out. Usually it was for wait times. Yeah, you can wait the 5 minutes for the pay but sometimes in busy areas you can't really wait that long due to blocking the road. I would usually cancel at the 3 minute mark of waiting. Sometimes you get the "door slammers". Take note: Rate all door slammers 3 star and send a report to Uber for it on them. I'm sure you wouldn't want other drivers having to deal with slamming of doors either so do it as a courtesy for them since I did it for you.
If it was still fresh in my memory, I'm sure I would have had a longer post.
Rating system: I'm sure the vast majority of people can safely say Uber has a VERY faulty rating system. I lost my job due to it. Negative ratings and Uber's dealing with them is generic at best and confusing. You are given a VERY vague list of categories on why you got dissatisfied ratings. You have no way to defend yourself nor find an exact cause to better your methods with driving and dealing with riders. for example, I had a vast amount of reports of an unclean car. Sure, I know I had times where it got a little dirty, but even after washing, vacuuming, and wiping my car down, I was still getting bad ratings due to the quality. It turns out, it took a friend to tell me there was a funky smell in my car that I was unaware of. I drove full time and spent a LOT of time in my car. You don't know about certain advancing smells when being there for so many hours a day. The list was vague with I think about 7 different things it could be for the bad rating. If I had 1 report that specified that it was a smell, I could have had my ratings go up. Same thing with "dangerous driving". I was never told what I did that was considered dangerous nor had a chance to defend myself with an explanation. This is San Francisco: you have to drive somewhat aggressive to get to a destination in a timely and safe(some aggressive driving is safe) manner.
Airport Pickups: I can safely say I never really did many airport pickups, but there is a good reason for it. First off, there are high numbers of cars that are in the airport cue and I'm not one to sit around and wait. I would usually try for airport pickups when I had a drop off there as it was. But the times I have done or tried to do airport pickups, easily 9 out of 10 times the rider was in the Arrivals when we can only pick up at departures.
Bus Lanes: NEVER pick up a rider in a bus lane or you are looking at (it may be more now) a $288 fine. I learned it the hard way and I made ZERO exceptions to bus lanes.
Pin locations off: Uber had it good for a while until they did updates on their app. There were times when it would literally be a 50/50 chance the pin was on the correct side of the street. Some streets it isn't really an issue, but if it was a busy street, it was a real pain to deal with. Who knows if riders rate badly for pulling on the wrong side of the road for a pickup since the rating system never specifies anything.
Low rated riders: If I ever had a rider with a rating below a 4.6, it was usually for an obvious reason that you're about to find out. Usually it was for wait times. Yeah, you can wait the 5 minutes for the pay but sometimes in busy areas you can't really wait that long due to blocking the road. I would usually cancel at the 3 minute mark of waiting. Sometimes you get the "door slammers". Take note: Rate all door slammers 3 star and send a report to Uber for it on them. I'm sure you wouldn't want other drivers having to deal with slamming of doors either so do it as a courtesy for them since I did it for you.
If it was still fresh in my memory, I'm sure I would have had a longer post.
