Thoughts on Uber/Lyft/etc?

I think the poster is saying thanks to these programs, the other taxi services are cheaper.

>millenials

Cause people of other ages don't drink and drive either...

Well, in your defense they shouldn't have worked because they're nothing more than an updated version of the jitney and that battle was fought long ago. Who would predict that regulating authorities would just roll over because of the mere addition of the use of an app to summon the jitney driver?

oh, true.

Convenient services, I've used Uber a few times and I know several people who use one or the other basically every weekend when they go out. If Taxi companies had thrown some money into developing and marketing a similar app then they would've been reaping the profits right now.

It's great when you're going to an area that you know has limited parking or just a shitty parking situation. Some sports venues around here charge $40-$80 for parking so taking an Uber to the game can actually be cheaper. It's also a good service to use if you're going to be hitting the bars or clubs and will be too drunk to drive.

>pretty much no driver insured adequately, accident will fuck both driver and passengers backwards
both lyft and uber insure drivers for half a million dollars while using the service.

Lyft screws its new drivers out if promised incentive. They're not worth driving for. They're cheats and thieves.

Uber updates its app from time to time to make it harder for drivers who aren't creative to understand how to make more money. But if you're smart instead of a follower you can always adapt.

Other generations didn't have rideshare services when they were 21.

Drunk driving is fun af t b h

Good for supplemental income, awful if you're trying to make a living off of it.

Great service in areas with poor public transport and/or expensive cab companies. I went to a conference in LA recently and used Uber quite a bit, and I never felt like I was being ripped off. I paid about $8 on average, most expensive ride was $13 for a trip from the convention center by LA live to my hotel in Koreatown.

It's definitely not a service I hear of many people over the age of 30 using.

I picked up a woman last night at a hospital outside of DC. She said two uber riders had cancelled on her before I have her a ride. I felt bad because she was waiting in the rain and she said her daughter was sick, and then she had this sob story. So I explained to her why it was.

She responded by crying about how discriminatory and inequitable uber is, how its time had passed, how it should be illegal to deny a ride to someone outside a hospital, and how she was going to sue uber corporate, the other drivers, me, and anyone else she could think of. Apparently she was an attorney, who kept exclaiming that she specializes in "this kind"of law.

I didn't take it personally at the time because I knew she was having a rough day, but man was she rude. I have her a 3 star rating. There's one more driver who won't pick her ass up lol

you've obviously never been to new york...

Would you recommend it as a supplemental job? I'm thinking of doing Uber in DFW but I need a different car. Not sure I want to jump through that hoop just for a PT job.

should have pulled over and kicked her ass out.

Idk how good uber lease program really is, but it looks like a good deal. 3 year lease with unlimited miles for 250 down, 250 early termination fee, up to 20k on a new car, 18k on a used.

Uber is funny though. I'm still trying to figure it out. I mainly do it because I really like driving and I figured, "well, I'm gonna drive pointlessly anyway. Fuck it, might as well get paid."

There are guys who drive their teslas for basically the same reason.

while uber seems to have started with decent drivers, now it's all shitskins and so it will probably go downhill fast and lots of female customers will get raped, etc etc.

I haven't kicked anyone out yet, and I've had far more obnoxious people than that. I get it. She was having a rough day. When she started barking at the moon, I really felt bad for her.

Then I saw her million dollar house and lost any sense of sympathy.

Yeah, the women I pick up often express fear of rape or sexual assault. The men usually complain about body odor. They all generally preface what they say with "I'm not racist, but..."

But yeah, the shitskin drivers are disgusting. They're delusional, too. Look at what they talk about:

uberpeople.net/threads/what-do-you-do-when-a-drunken-female-pax-sits-up-front-then-grabs-your-lizard.62130/

Tl;dr things that never happened, shitskin fantasy edition

To clarify, they complain to me about other drivers lol

is the risk of sexual assault all that real for them though?

Idk, but they complain about it.

Never stops them from getting in the car, though.

Then there are the ones who say that uber is misogynist because the ceo made "anti-feminist" comments about how his drivers weren't rapists, so they only take lyft.

Fine for me either way, I drive both.

With shitskins? Yeah. The feminists' bogeyman exists, and he makes brown on the streets in fear of the toilet witch.

female passengers you get complain about getting sexually harassed? what do they say?

that's legit scary. I wonder if it is any worse with uber than a general taxi though.

absolutely flat out better than the taxi system

taxi system engaging in straight up crowney capitalism attempting to push them out, nothing surprising

bad drivers occasionally slip through their nets and that shit is BLASTED on all media channels

They ask if it's safe. I tell them yeah. They get in. Sometimes we have a longer conversation about it, but they're already in by then. If I wanted to hurt them it would be too late. Naturally, I don't, but it just goes to show how women (don't) think.

Last night I picked up three drunk high school girls. One didn't want to be alone in the car with me while her friends went to cajole the other two to get into the car. I made small talk and she forgot she was supposed to be afraid of me.

My take is that they're just feeling peer pressure to be scared of uber. Typical feminazi nonsense. Like I said, they all get in anyway.

>I wonder if it is any worse with uber than a general taxi though
If an uber driver actually committed a crime, he would never get away with it. Both the driver and the ride have their apps on, registered to their phones, transmitting gps location to the server, with their address, bank account info, etc. All on file. Any idiot who tried to hurt someone else would be caught by even the dumbest donut eating cop.

The bad drivers get kicked off the app.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466540/This-Lyft-driver-don-t-want-Terrified-passenger-begs-driver-stop-driving-refused-home.html

In this story, the rider is 100% in the wrong, but the driver deals with it in such an atrocious way that he just makes things a million times worse.

And look what happened to him. His "career" is over.

I've found Uber to be the better service. The drivers actually know their way around the city, the cars are cleaner and you get the occasional qt driving. Granted I'm shitfaced most of the time if I'm using Uber so I'm limited to a few witty remarks and trying not to fall on my ass when I get out.

>Last night I picked up three drunk high school girls.

kek I thought you were saying all your passengers talked mad shit to you

lol no. My riders usually love me. There's maybe ten percent that don't, and that's split between when I really fuck up and when they're raging tumblristas.

I make them comfortable, then they open up about other drivers. I get inside info on my competition.

I wouldn't call some degree of caution wrong but this is absurd. They're afraid of their shadows at this point.

That's just it, I don't think they're actually afraid. If they really were, they wouldn't say, "hey mister, are you sure you're not going to rape me?" I think they're just socially programmed to be prejudiced in this certain way.

Not that I care, really. They're paying me. I'll go through the little motions if they want.

What percent say nothing and don't talk?

The thing I hate about Uber is the drivers always talk. They never shut up. Almost makes me miss the Haitian on a mobile phone.

More on uber than on lyft. There are some who say "sorry, but this is my quiet time." Others just make it very clear they aren't interested in conversation. Usually, I'll ask maybe 3 to 5 simple, open ended questions, and if all I get are one word answers, then I get the message and just leave them be.

Or if they make phone calls I turn the radio off for them and shut up. You know, the standard bullshit.

Anyone done it in the UK?

$10 an hour after expenses. Your call to risk life, limb and auto for their social experiment. [spoiler]I'm fulltime myself[/spoiler].

I'd say most of my pax are over 30 except at 2 am, and even then a bunch of the time.

damn that sucks
plus there's depreciation on your car/parts

Alternator just went. $500 gone just like that.

>$500 for alternator

Damn man, I replaced the alternator on my vehicle in about 30 minutes for $80 in parts.

The cheapest version of my alternator on a 2007 Toyota was $400.

Not to mention traffic fines. In my city those are crushingly brutal.

Also airport runs. I lose money taking riders to the airport.

Holy shit

This is Veeky Forums he's going to tell you to salvage parts from a junk yard.

Do you not get reimbursed for airport tolls or whatever is causing you to lose money there?

> Sign up for Lyft
> Everything going well
> Watch videos
> Detail car
> Buy cat chargers, air fresheners, gums, and snacks
> Go to Miami (from West Palm Beach) to do interview
> Kinda far but okay let's do this
> Pass inspection

> Days later application is rejected because my car is 2003 and must be 2009 or newer as West Palm is in miami territory.

WHY WAS I NOT TOLD AT ALL IN ANY OF THE APPLICATIONS
fuck this company.

With Uber, you can always manually report tolls they (very, very conveniently) miss

Nah, alternators are something you should always buy new or rebuilt

help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/214219557-Requirements-for-Lyft-Vehicles

I feel for you, but this page does exist nonetheless.

Warranties are a good thing to have probably. At least I got a 3 year one.

All I can say is being in a condensed space with an old man straight out of the third world gives me weird vibes.

i have noticed all of uber/lyft cars tend to be more recent models :o

2004 is the oldest possible, and they'll be pretty cold about moving that requirement up every other year more than likely.

I only took uber a few times (drunk obviously) but it was fine. A dude in a Fusion shows up and takes you were you want to go while you shoot the shit.

I however live in Austin, where Uber and Lyft are too chicken shit to have their people checked out. And simultaneously the local government is too invasive to let a company make money. So we don't have that anymore.

>thinking driving people in a 14 year old car is acceptable

>too chicken shit to have their people checked out.
explain? you mean background checks?

With the new Tesla deal for Uber and Teslas being able to drive themselves.

Feels pretty demolition man

can't wait to get picked up by a robot rather than some blabbering failure.

Why not drive yourself?

Also if Clinton gets in she'll put in place a 55mph speed limit...

taxis are a fucking cartel.

sometimes I drive, sometimes I'll take an uber - depends what i'm doing obviously

it gets the appliance drivers into the back of taxis and leaves the roads to people who can drive, most of the uber drivers I've seen are decent drivers that don't do stupid shit on the road

I'm fine with that

There should be exceptions made for sure for certain cars, after visual inspection by Uber or Lyft.

What if someone wants to drive his termi cobra with mystichrome? unlikely but should be allowed. I dont think many would complain!

More comprehensive fingerprint-based criminal background checks for drivers and a 1% fee on revenues.

I only take Uber when I'm going out drinking or going to a concert or sporting event where traffic and parking will be a nightmare.

>the car's too loud
>there's not enough room in the backseat
>the driver went too fast

I was never into taxis and even I came around to taking them in the scenarios you just mentioned. Respect to the people smart enough to take one if drinking.

Well, its clear that its a mustang meant for really, only one person.

Make it clear to perspective customers that, it may be louder than normal cars, may be a rougher ride and may be less room.

I bet it still gets loads of ride request in a large city.

I've taken taxis a few times in those same situations. It's just a lot easier to open the Uber app and request a ride than it is to drunkenly fumble through google search results to find the phone number of a taxi service... and then try to figure out the address of the place I'm at or what street corner I'm near when I'm completely unfamiliar with the area.

I don't think you can request specific cars/drivers on Uber though can you?

Well, there are different tiers like UberSelect or UberBlack.

They could make a tier that focuses on sports cars. Since the sensation of going fast is mostly torque you wouldnt really need to "speed".

It will never happen but its a thought.

My car did meet the requirement. 2002 was required but then they changed it to 2009 after i came back from Miami.

this.

Cities already charge a large fee.

Why do you think fingerprints are so important?

How long ago was this? 2004 has been the minimum for quite some time now.

It could never get past legal. Who's going to pay the speeding tickets? What happens when there's an accident and some ambulance chasing lawyer insists Uber is encouraging law breaking by promoting Assault Cars?

>help.lyft.com/hc/en-us/articles/214219557-Requirements-for-Lyft-Vehicles
This is some hidden bullshit.

>Oh they publish it so everyone should know!!1!1one

Horseshit. They produce all their deceptive advertising to sucker drivers in and then screw them over on technicalities. Talk to any lyft driver that doesn't work for corporate, and they'll tell you the same.

>owning a vehicle that is ~10 years old or less is a technicality

That said, that link does require the initiative of one Google search. I definitely agree it should be linked at the top of any application, but am not too sure I follow your tangent about deception. The only screwing happening here is not having a new enough car to begin with. I will say I don't understand how they can require as high as 2009 in some markets, that does seem extreme.

>I don't understand how they can require as high as 2009 in some markets, that does seem extreme.
To be fair (and I don't really want to be right now) that seems to be a requirement that's forced on them by local politics and competition.

The thing is, though, they'll screw you over on any technicality they can. That's just one example.

If I had to do it over again, I would sign up for lyft, put all my ducks in a row, and ensure I had the correct bonus code for their guaranteed $1500 per week for the first month. But no new driver is EVER going to be able to navigate through their bureaucratic bullshit to figure all that out. That's sort of the point. They advertise it, and then make it impossible to do. But, you know what? It's clearly on their website!

That nothing links to.

That's impossible for anyone to find until you dispute them, then they send you the hidden link.

lyft's a san francisco hipster scam.

I have definitely heard accusations of them not honoring fat incentives. The matter of that guy finding out his 2002 car wasn't eligible was more of a him problem though.

They're clever. It's always like that. They find some way to say, "well, you messed up in this tiny way."

Even if it was easy for you to google up, he was under a different impression and acted in good faith. They know he's too poor to actually sue them, though. Even if he did, their legal team has prepared a good case before anyone even could dispute him.

I agree with you that an older car is reasonable to exclude, but taken in the totality of the context of all their other abuses it paints a completely different picture. Meanwhile their team of 25 year old hipsters are living high off the work of drivers duped into their impossible system.

Well for what it's worth I've worked Uber since November and just got accepted to Lyft and so far contrary to what I hear so much of, I honestly favor Uber quite a bit more than what I've seen so far. Clunkier app, awkward company, loads of text harassment. I don't know why people get on a high horse about this company. Like Uber they definitely don't care about their drivers, and in some ways are far worse, like a substantially larger insurance deductable and greater difficulty getting support if someone is sick in your car, etc.

Maybe, but at least Uber isn't actively stealing from their drivers through deceptive practices.

As it stands, a guy can work a 50 hour week for lyft and then get told, "woops, sorry, you forgot this bureaucratic hoop to jump through, that you never knew about, three weeks ago. Now you're going to make $9/hour instead of $30. Nothing we can do."

Uber's got other scams, no doubt, but they aren't even close to as evil as lyft corporate is. If you really just signed up for them, I hope you picked the right incentive, because otherwise you're screwed.

Oh, who am I kidding. They're going to screw you regardless.

whats an average uber driver making? Considering ubering in my STI lol

You'll never afford gas.

Not a living wage. Only do it for the lolz.

I'm a driver and sometimes a rider. Cab service is a joke in Portland. Rideshare is amazing to have here.

It's my alternative form of income for me to return back to school.

I picked up 4 rowdy girls once from a metal show and one chick started rubbing my shoulders. I'm pretty sure she only did that to kind of be a showoff to her girlfriends. A single supposedly hot girl in the car going after the crotch sound like bullshit.

yeah my normal job pays well i just get bored at night might as well get paid
you have a good point