Posted on 01/25/2016 9:24:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
When Carol Sue Johnson, 73, wheels her silver Mazda S.U.V. out of her driveway in suburban Minneapolis, she doesn't know how much money she will make driving for the ride-hailing service Uber, but she's sure she will have an adventure.
Her passengers run the gamut, she said, from three visiting Chinese business executives who were surprised to see a female driver, to teenagers needing a ride to hockey practices or games.
When one group of teenagers "started to get too rowdy," said Ms. Johnson, who goes by Sue, "one of them told the others to stop because 'Grandma's in the car.'"
Ms. Johnson is among a growing number of older Americans who are driving for Uber or its competitor Lyft to augment their retirement income. Some drivers say it is a great chance to be independent and earn extra cash on their own schedule. But others, including some drivers, say it is exploitation of older people who work as independent contractors, without any benefits, because their age means they have a harder time finding full-time employment.
Many retirees, like Ms. Johnson, drive part time, about 20 to 30 hours a week; others may drive full time, which in many ways takes them out of the fully retired category.
Drivers are in such demand that last July Uber and Life Reimagined, a subsidiary of AARP, the organization for people over 50, formed a partnership to recruit more people as drivers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What do you mean by safe? The passenger has the following before he gets into my car, on his phone:
1. My photo
2. My phone number
3. Photo of my car
4. My license plate number
5. GPS track of my car before pickup and during ride as part of his reciept
Driver background checks are performed on a regular basis. Car inspections are performed on a regular basis.
Compare that to a taxi ride and driver.
I was kinda looking at the other direction...Can you pick and choose who you drive around???
I was recently in Ft Lauderdale for a long weekend. Our Uber drivers were retired construction workers, real estate agents with free time and a mom. All were looking for an extra buck and worked when they wanted. Vehicles spotless and everyone a pleasure to talk to. The drivers and passengers rate each other on the app. I will never take a filthy stinking taxi again.
When I die, I just want to go peacefully, unlike the screaming passengers in my car.
Yeah your chances of getting somebody that speaks English are so much higher in a rideshare than a taxi.
Bingo — I am sort of looking forward to being old enough to get Medicare — I am flat out getting reamed on the health insurance premiums now at my “real job”.
Uber or Lyft seems like a pretty cool gig, actually.
Oh pease Latka does a wonderful job
I had planned to retain my bus drivers license for after I retired. But the DOT came up with some incredibly low bar to force me to get a CPAP. My sleep Specialist doctor at Johns Hopkins tells me that my sleep apnea is so mild, he wouldn’t bother treating it, but since some nameless wonk in Washington says so, he’d have to get me a CPAP.
I had the license to drive as a volunteer to take kids to a Bible camp in northern Michigan. I live in Maryland, so I drive 600 miles to Michigan just to drive a bus. 1000 mile round trip with several drivers, then back to MD. Made for a long weekend.
Since I couldn’t afford multiple sleep studies and a needless CPAP, I gave up my license.
I could see me doing Uber though. Seems like it would be fun.
Isn’t carpooling ride sharing? Seems that your insurance company could screw you over if you are transporting someone other than family or someone that isn’t on our policy.
Here’s a good summary of the insurance aspects of the ride services.
https://wallethub.com/edu/ridesharing-insurance/13884/
bump
The exclusion is if I drive for a “donation or fee” through a “Transportation Network Company”, or if I let someone other than family use the vehicle while enrolled in a “Vehicle sharing program”. If Uber provides the insurance, I guess that would cover it. Now I just need to get me a smart phone... :)
I’m a 34 year old female who just started driving for Lyft. I’ve always felt completely safe. Most of the people I give rides to are young, millennial, college aged kids. It’s a lot of fun and hardly feels like a “job”. Most of my passengers are very nice and some can be pretty darn entertaining. At times I almost feel like I’m doing a community service. I once took an elderly lady to the bus station so that she could catch a greyhound to go visit her sister in Chicago (the ride was requested by her daughter). Another time I took two teenagers to their homecoming dance (they were way too cool for mom to take them!), and my most interesting passenger was a guy that was so drunk he could not tell me where he lived. All he could blurt out was “downtown”. I eventually asked for his driver license so that I could get his address off of it.
I have a full time-40 hour a week job, so I mostly do this in the evenings and on the weekends for extra cash.
But others, including some drivers, say it is exploitation of older people who work as independent contractors, without any benefits,
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Guess I must be ‘older than dirt’.
At 14 when I had a job setting pins in a bowling alley the ONLY benefit I expected or was offered was that check every week or so and an occasional tip from the bowlers. (Don’t stand too long in one place).
Of course that was before adults started taking jobs that were ‘designed’ for kids and Government mandates for ‘FREEBIES??????’ made it the norm for non 40 hour weeks.
Also, even in the 70s/80s would tell my ‘crews’ that they were entitled to paid holidays and paid vacations.
Just designate whatever vacation you want and show up for work then and on the holidays and you would get paid.
So, part time work WAS the benefit, just there to supplement your full time work.
Think it was P J O’Rourke that quipped Health Care/Hospitalization was never so expensive until it became ‘free’ or govt subsidized .
As usual, when the ‘government’ adds it hand and skills, they couldn’t successfully put together a ‘soup sandwich’ BUT will sure kill thousands of trees etc making up rules and regs restricting how one does it.
Uber will loan you a cell phone device for a small fee.
Another considering it.
Metromile is really interesting. You pay a monthly fee of $20 and then about $.03 per mile. They work with Uber and deduct the miles driven for Uber each month and bill you only for personnel use. Since I rarely use my second car, its insurance dropped to $20 per month. For my Uber vehicle, I pay about the same I did before I started doing Uber.
After a little more research, Uber and Lyft both forbid you to carry while driving. No thank you.
When I die, I want to go just like grandpa, peacefully in my sleep. Not screaming in horror like everybody else in the car.
save for later
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