Ridesharing from a FReepers POV (It is literally a blessing from God and saved my life!)

First off, the last part of my title. I lost my pay. I didn't lose my job, but my investors pulled their money from my pay to pay someone else they felt was more important to pay. Either way, I'll deal with that later. But here is the skinny:

I had to take an emergency flight to say goodbye to my father, who I am very close to. He's got Cancer and it will take him soon. The chemo has ravaged his mind and his body and I was called across the country to say goodbye.

Upon my return, my investors had made a decision. To stop paying me a salary. They would fund the rest of the project, just not my pay. A whole 'nother story and it's not what this story is about. Either way, I had no backpay, no savings (I just moved here) and I had to go home and tell my family the bad news. I had no money. We were going to lose the house. I couldn't make the rent due in just a few days. I couldn't pay our $1400/month healthcare bill and I would not have the ability to provide the life-saving medicationf for my wife. I wouldn't be able to get us back home in a few weeks for a trip to see our families. I wouldn't have enough to do anything. I had no money.

On the way home from that fateful meeting I actually stopped at a favorite gun store and asked him for a job. I told him I would work for commission only. I mean, I can sell guns. Just bring them through the door and I'll sell it to them. I delivered the news and then went to work immediately. The next day.

40 hours later (Which was about 3 days it turns out) I still hadn't made a single sale. One morning I came in and another guy was there who wasn't scheduled to be there. I was the only person working on commission. Everyone else was hourly. This guy said he was just hanging out. A car pulls in, he runs outside to greet him. The two walk in and the customer proceeds to buy $10,000 worth of guns - 2 of which on a whim. They weren't marked "sold". After this other guy took the sale from me, he left. I complained to the owner of the store and he told me exactly what kind of person I was. I was worthless P.O.S. and I wouldn't amount to anything. I was a pathetic loser who should eat things and then die. He made it clear how decent of a person he was. I'm glad he did so after I only wasted about 30 hours working tirelessly for him.

Anyway, having wasted a ton of time there, I recalled the first Uber trip I had taken to the airport to see my dad only a week prior.It was pleasant. The woman driving had a Toyota Tundra truck. It was clean and respectable, and she mentioned that while it didn't get Prius mileage, it was still enough to do her job and make some money while she interviewed for other jobs. The ride back was another woman who was about to have a very important interview the next day. I haven't seen her since, I assume she got the job.

I decided to give it a shot. What could I lose ? I had a "typical" job for a few days and I made exactly zero dollars doing it. At least with Uber I could control the losses ?

First off, no one needs to talk to me like that. Second - I had an option. If this were 5 years ago, I wouldn't have an option. I would have gas station 3rd shift jobs, fast food and other retail spaces. But here is this whole new idea that is there for people like me. You can just start. There is no interview, just up-front requirements. This new economy is a god-send - literally - to the millions of people out there who need to get back to work. I've got the requirement: A 4 door car newer than 2004. I am blessed by being to find and maintain it up 'til this point too. Seriously, on paper this solves many problems that have plagued many people.

So here is the jist of ride-sharing: I make about $13 an hour. Everyone makes about that because certain things all balance out. If you work in Brooklyn you'll make about $30 an hour but your costs will be higher. If you work in a rural area you'll do the same but your work day will look a bit different (You may sit at home with the app running. Who knows?)

In my area I have some pros laid out at my feet: I live near a HUGE corporation. I live near a major airport. I live near about 200 companies who have all setup small offices to support that huge office. I live near a state university. I have super rich neighborhoods and super poor ones. I have 2 historical downtown areas that are always having something happening. I live near a complex bike trail system. I live near a large medical complex with satellite offices everywhere. I have a concert venue.

About the only things I'm missing are a train station and a large government installation.

There are TON of people out there complaining about their Uber and Lyft experiences. I find that they are in the wrong. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I don't like "Having a job" and "Working for other people". I've always run my own business and had to work 4 times as hard as anyone else to make a successful impact. I'm used to it and it's in my blood now. I look at Ridesharing like this:

Like selling things on Ebay or Amazon, they charge. What you're doing is selling goods. You can rent a store and sell goods. You can rent space at a bazaar and sell goods. Or you can pay the fees to Ebay/Amazon and their shipping fees and sell your goods that way. What Ebay and Amazon do is give you access to their market place. And the more effective their market place is at selling your goods, the more they charge you for access.

So Uber and Lyft aren't employing you - they are charging you for access to their effective marketplace. What you as a driver are doing is deciding that you want to drive a cab. You aren't getting a livery licence, you aren't dealing with the Mafia (More on them still..) and you aren't having to bother with making business cards and leaving them around for someone to pick up. You are immediately tapping into the Uber/Lyft marketplace and they are trusting you to start to represent them. For that, each company takes 25% of your earnings.

Ebay can take 25% as well. And the USPS takes like 40% of your profits if you need to ship. Amazon makes more money in sly little ways that you may not even understand. Ever.

But Uber and Lyft take the money as you make it. And they do your taxes as you earn the money. They even take the money out of your tips per laws of the state in which you operate. They do everything for you. All you have to do is provide the actual drive. They don't tell you how. They don't really train you. It's not that they care, they do.. But they trust you to do well on your own.

As an entrepreneur this makes sense. This is a great deal, actually. If I wanted to sell Avon products I would have to pony up dough. If I wanted to sell insurance I would need to comply with alien-language contracts and payments that would make a Timeshare salesman jump off a building.

If you approach it as an employee being managed by a faceless company, you'll be on your way to disaster. What you are is an independent business owner buying access to a marketplace to perform that service. And for this, may God bless Uber and Lyft. Because without them my family may not eat this week. Our utilities would be shut off. We would become homeless. This new model is working.

I told you I make $13 an hour. That's after a few things have happened. The truth is that while I'm driving for Uber and Lyft, I'm making $1 per minute. About $1 every 2 miles. I do a normal "UberX" pool and a normal "Lyft" pool. I have a Chevy Avalanche which is the same operating costs as a Suburban but I don't qualify for "XL" services because I lack the rear seats. My car is a black luxury SUV and I have experience as a chauffer but I can't run UberBlack because they require a commercial licence and insurance policy. That's all ok because if you do have an XL car you still get regular calls with the occasional XL request. Working XL pools (If you can get in one exclusively) will get you about $17-$20 per hour if you're good. I only say that because I get $13 an hour without the XL perks.

If you drive "Black" services you have to have a livery licence and a commercial insurance policy. The insurance itself is about $1000 a month. And do you know who runs the livery game ? The mafia. So don't think you're getting out of that office cheaply either. You'll run a far more expensive ride, but your costs will bring you right back to "X" rates pretty quick.

If you can always run, you'll make great money. If you need to wait for calls (I do) then you'll need to develop a strategy.

I have a "Hotel strip" in my city. It's great to get people from there to the airport (I make about $20 in 10 minutes and the trip is easy) but it's not possible to know when those people will need it, or how often everyday. Some people leave at 3am and others leave at 4pm. There is no crystal ball. But throughout the day they want to be driven somewhere. If your hotels are far from the airport then chances are they have a rental car themselves.

Airports and other transportation centers put you in a Queue. So you'll arrive and park and then the list of other drivers gets their runs in the order that they came. In general 2 people on every incoming flight will take a rideshare from the airport. Again, making sure that your most popular hotels are within a decent ride. You'll need to make at least $20 per ride here unless the queue is low. (Again, measure the planes coming in and assume that 2 people per plane will request a ride. Then compare that to the "in queue" numbers to see what your chances are.)

Bars are full of people who don't effing tip. They stumble to your car and you KNOW what's next. I wouldn't even bother with them. They also try to squeeze 6 people in your back seat to avoid being charged to take two cars, or calling an XL. Just a-holes, mostly.

Colleges are awesome though. These kids are used to this method of transportation and they tip as much as they can. Something to understand about most of the kids is that they are starving themselves to get by. But they do tip, they provide friendly interactions and are appreciative of what you do. Here is something that may surprise you: I have gotten to know Millenials. These are some of the brightest, hardest working kids I've ever had the chance to meet. Seriously ! Yes, they don't understand our world, they are afraid of old people (They were told we literally ate their planet) but these kids work several jobs, study real hard and retain a lot of what they learned. These kids are more promising than my generation, by far. They live eat and breathe skills - Like Indians or Chinese people. When I was their age I knew stuff but it pretty much took a back seat to "Getting tail" and "Building hotrods". For these kids their professions are at the top of their attention. I meet a few of them who are supporting families too and they are working harder, commuting further and taking more sh!t at work than I imagined they ever would. I give Millenial kids a lot of props these days. They have it hard and they are adapting.

Commutes and events are a great way to get into it. Wake up and take people to work from 6ish to 9ish. Take them home from 3 to 6ish. Go home for lunch and take a nap. Do something else. You'll make about $60 per day. They don't tip.

Events are a great way to go. If you have a few convention centers near you, stadiums or concert halls. You get the schedule and you know whats going on. You can plan your day pretty well. People will even pay for a kind of shuttle service from the outskirt parking lots to the few blocks closer to the venue. Hotels will house thousands of convention attendees. Get creative and research all the time to see what's going on.

I decided to make my goal everyday $100. And that's EVERY day. I need to pay bills. I can make that goal with 8 hours of work. I can even work a little more to cover gas for the day (I calculate that cost as I'm rolling). You may make more, you may make less but you should also be given more effort if you're making more, and less effort if you're making less. If you live in rural Missouri you may not make a ton of money, but you may also have the option to just sit at home. You won't roll as much. If you live in NYC you'll roll literally all day long until you decide to stop but you will work your ass off (And your car's ass off) to get there. It all boils down to that magic number: $13 per hour. That's about what you'll make. And that's not horrible. That could be the difference between eating and not, living in a house or in your actual car.

* There is little stress here. * You have to drive like a little old lady. As a pro driver you're doing about 5 times the amount of driving as normal people do. That means you're 5 times more likely to get in a collision or get a ticket. Drive every street like you just got your licence. Full stops. Careful as she goes. * Be good to your tranmission. Every single thing you do gets pushed through the transmission. Bumps, stopping, accelerating, even turning and of course engaging gears. Treat your tranmission like gold. It's the first and worst to break. Your vehicle will last about 3 months. I'm sorry to say that, but there you have it. About 3 months you will run into a major repair. So get prepared immediately. Get another 2 runs everyday before you log off. Run all the apps simultaneously. Uber and Lyft allow you to work for both at the same time. They allow you to work with all of the food deliveries too. When you get a call on one, you immediately switch to the others to disable them to avoid overbooking. You can turn down calls. * In my experience, do not EVER operate outside of the app. There is a good chance the app is listening to you too. It makes sense that they investigate if a call that rode in your car is now calling you on your phone (You gave it access to your contact list, remember? They can do that.) Either way, people who want to work outside of the app are there to swindle you. DO NOT DO IT. I will never, ever work outside of the app again.

If you have an older car you can work for all of the major food delivery services, at once. You can again make good money this way but I haven't calculated the actual data. Delivering food so far isn't great because you need to drive far distances to get the food. Not many people are doing the food delivery versus the people delivery.

Even with Uber Eats you have to have your car qualify for Uber. If you want to do deliveries then go to Amazon Flex. The other day I saw a car pull into the station with a bungee cord holding his trunk down. Like I said before, you don’t make 13 an hour after expenses. 3 months and something is wrong with your luxury SUV? Get a new car! I go far longer than 3 months without car maintenance. I change my oil every 20-30K miles. I change my tires every 50K miles. I keep my car clean by subscribing to the local car wash company where they do interior and exterior cleaning for about 70 a month, unlimited. I have taken my car through the car wash three times in a day before. Oh be careful of the cleaning fee, it too has been reduced. A woman dropped some sort of mushy chicken from dinner in the car. It got smashed into the next woman’s fur-like coat. I lost the fare but got 20 dollar cleaning fee. It did not cover the time I was out of service at 11 PM on a Friday night (if you don’t know that is surge time). You paint a rosy picture with 13 an hour with a car that cost you how much and how many miles a week do you put on it? Like I said, no way you are making 13 after expenses because I don’t know any Uber driver doing that on any board or any that I have talked to. Not possible after expenses.

State Farm has a ridesharing rider. I pay regular insurance and have the rider. Uber will only pay you through their insurance if you have a passenger in the car. State Farm has explicitly told me if I have the Uber app on and no rider, they will not pay. Don’t count on the Uber insurance because if you are on your way to pick up a passenger or recently dropped off a passenger, meaning no passenger in your car, Uber will not pay through their insurance. That is straight from the horse’s mouth, as I asked exactly that question. And if you think they will cover it, check the Uber policy again, it states its only good when you are carrying passengers. This does not include en route to or from the pickup or dropoff.

Uber has this but not in all cities. Its called Ride Pool. The premise is that I pick up passenger A and on my way to drop off passenger A, I get pinged for passenger B. I pickup passenger B. And so on until I fill up my car. Then I drop off each passenger and they all get charged accordingly. Uber has this, I think Lyft too but not sure. Also, you can schedule a pickup now with Uber.

The reason I don’t drive a luxury vehicle because the morons that order the lowest tier have no respect for your car whether its a beamer or a Corolla. The car is not theirs so they don’t care what they do in your car. SO whether you pay 65K or 25K your passengers do not respect your car.

I am correcting you where you are wrong about Uber. Your original post props up Uber and makes people think that driver’s make more money than they actually do. It’s no wonder why people don’t last as long as drivers. They get fed BS and then find the reality isn’t as pretty as the picture that was painted for them. Your 13 an hour is bogus and I will continue to say that because this is nothing more than a recruiting thread. I know of no driver that makes 13 dollars an hour after expenses that includes lux vehicles. So yeah you want me to let it go so you can carry on with your love fest. Freepers don’t play that game. (or as you call them creepers).

Yes it is a factor for driving uber/lyft. Here is the rub about Uber insurance:

Scenario 1

You turn on your Uber app and expect to get a ping any moment to go pick up a passenger. Your normal insurance now considers your car as being used in business and won’t cover you. Uber insurance only covers you and your vehicle while you have a passenger in the car. This called livery service.

Scenario 2

You turn on your app, you get pinged to go pick up a passenger(s) and you are involved in an accident. (See Scenario 1).

Scenario 3

You drop off your passenger, end trip and keep the app on and after you drive away expecting the next ping you are involved in an accident. (See Scenario 1)

Scenario 4

You are involved in an accident while a passenger is in your car. Your normal insurance won’t cover the costs because your vehicle is being used in a business capacity. Uber may or may not cover you, but will cover your passenger which is the reason why Uber has insurance in the first place. They carry the insurance to cover the passenger and Uber will flat out tell you to get additional insurance if you were to get into an accident.

Scenario 5

You drop off your passenger, end trip and turn your app off. You get into an accident, your normal insurance may cover you and it may not. The reason is that your reason for being there was dropping off the passenger. So the insurance may say that you are not covered until you either go to another destination or go back home. It is a possibility your insurance provider may take this narrative as was explained to me by an insurance agent. The reason for this is that if you declare your home as your place of work and deduct expenses as such, then you need to return to your place of work to finish out the day or if you go to, let’s say the grocery store, it shows you are no longer performing in a business capacity.

The point is once you turn on your app, the insurance company sees this as your vehicle being used in a business. Uber has insurance because they know this and the insurance is there to cover the passenger more than the car and driver.

Moral of the story:

CYA get livery(or a rideshare) business insurance. I have it in addition to normal insurance and it costs me around $30 more a month.

Those who rely on their normal insurance and put in a claim while using their vehicle as a business can be prosecuted for a false claim.

As a part-time Uber driver, I bought my car in May 2016 with 20K miles on it. As of yesterday, I had 95K miles on it. I did take a four-day trip where I drove 1100 miles each way but no driving during the time I was at my destination. My personal miles are less than 5% of the overall miles.

As a part-time Uber driver, I take days, weeks and months off at a time. The longest time I took off was 8 months. Came back no problem. I kept my docs updated.

An insurance company will not ask you miles driven for commuting to work with business insurance. This is because your home is usually your starting place. You don’t drive home if you already live in your home. If you drive to an office building then get into your car, that is considered commuting. I can not tell you how many times I have been pinged pulling out of my garage (connected to my house) and going straight to a pickup. It does help I live near a concert venue with hotels nearby. However, most of the time it is when I am doing airport trips at 4AM.

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