Category Archives for "Support for Uber Drivers"
This is the question I was asked in an email yesterday.
As I no longer do any rideshare driving, I decided to put the question to other Rideshare Guy members.
Here's the original email to me:
"do you have any suggestion for best uber insurance in Melbourne thanks"
Here's what I sent out:
Thank you to all the extra drivers who added their results to the survey since they were first published yesterday. There were some significant changes, so I've republished them here.
This chart reflects increased pessimism. The original chart showed 64% reported that their rideshare business was worse or much worse because of the pandemic. This has increased to a whopping 78%.
The survey results are in and the results are interesting. If you didn't get around to completing the survey yesterday, you can still do so at https://rideshareguy.com.au/please-complete-this-short-rideshare-survey/. I'll be happy to republish the results if the figures change significantly.
The chart above is just one of the results from one question. As you can see, 64% of respondents felt that their rideshare business was worse or much worse because of Covid-19.
Let's have a look at the rest of the results.
While waiting for me to do the next lot of FAQs, here are some ways of using the time spent waiting for your next ride.
We drive mostly to make money: We drive, we earn, we drive, and we earn. But there’s quite a few things that are really golden opportunities that we have because of all that time that we’re spending in the car.
The first hidden opportunity is ongoing education. We spend a lot of time in the car, and with the invention of podcasts, it’s amazing how much new stuff we can learn. Whether you want to learn about pig hunting, you want to learn about how your mind works, about meditation, you want to learn about MMA fighting, you want to learn about peak performance, you want to learn about the Paleo or Keto diet.
If you do 20 rides a day, and in between the rides you have 5 minutes, that’s like 100 extra minutes that you have where you can be listening to podcasts when your passengers aren’t in the car.
As emailed to our client base, this is an apology for my absence from Rideshare Guy Australia.
In that time, there have been a number of emails and comments from you that have been left unanswered.
All of these will now be addressed as FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) 10 at a time. In some cases, my response will be too late. I'm very, very sorry if that's the case.
In all cases, greetings have been removed for clarity and client names for privacy.
I used the new Uber Driver App for the first time this morning for 5 trips spread over 4 hours, for a total of $112.28.
Overall, I liked it, although as I indicated in the previous post, the differences are more superficial than substantial.
However, I believe that there has been a substantial rewrite of the underlying code.
That should make rolling out new features in the future easier, quicker and more reliable.
Two features that have been in overseas versions of the Uber Driver App for a long time, for example, are provision for tipping (which also requires an update to the Uber Rider App) and showing what your position is in an airport queue. Love to see both of those here soon!
Here are some screenshots of various aspects of the new Uber app, with my brief take on each one.
When you select the Driver App, you see a nice clean interface, with a GO button that you tap to go online.
An improvement on the previous slider.
Although I'm not doing any Uber driving today, I turned the driver app on to check out something else and discovered I'd been updated to the new Uber driver app overnight.
A quick browse through highlighted some obvious differences, though they seemed to me more along the lines of appearance than significant changes or new features.
At a glance, I couldn't find my 4.99 rating, so I'll be very upset if that's disappeared, along with passenger compliments.
I can't imagine that would be so as it would clearly upset everybody.
I'm planning to do some Uber driving tomorrow, so I'll explore the app thoroughly in the real world and report back on it.
The biggest improvement to me would be if navigation worked properly all the time.
Anyone with experience of the new Uber driver app is invited to leave their comments below.
Thanks.
We received this email from a new driver recently and thought others might benefit from the questions and answers.
G’day Phil and Sam,
Thanks for all the helpful hints.
Being a relatively new Uber boy on the block, around 6 weeks on the Sunshine Coast – south end – I have some questions that I am hoping you can answer for me:
Guys, I hope you can help.
Many thanks and much appreciated.
Hi,
Answering in order.
Regards
Phil
Phil,
Many thanks.
In respect to Point 2, I should have been a little clearer. When you get a job or a ping, are you the only one the signal goes to? Or does it go to 2 or 3 drivers and the first one to responds gets the job?
Also, in terms of getting a return trip to Noosa from the Sunshine Coast Airport, do you simply wait for the next arrival to see if you get a job – and what are the percentages of getting a job?
Many thanks,
Hi,
You’re the only one getting the ping. If you decline it (or fail to accept it) then it goes to the next closest driver.
I check the airport website for arrivals and factor in the 20-30 minutes between a plane arriving and the passengers collecting their luggage. I really dislike waiting, so I’ll only do so if the plane has already landed. That said, your chances of getting a job are fairly high. From my experience, around 80%. Of course, you don’t know whether they’re heading North or South until you start the ride, so it won’t necessarily be in the direction of home!
And unfortunately you can't use the option to get trips towards a destination (such as home) while you're in the airport queue.
Cheers
Phil
We've published plenty of feedback here from drivers who've suffered from unsatisfactory Uber driver support.
So it's good to be able to report a positive experience.
My own, in this case.
This morning, I picked up one of my favourite fares, from Noosa to the Sunshine Coast airport.
It takes about half an hour. The first half on the very scenic coast road and the second half on a 100 km/hr motorway.
It normally pays around $42. Not bad for an easy half hour drive and I usually pick up a couple of extra rides on the way back.
Except that this time the fare came up as $24.32! In other words, a reduction of 43%. Not acceptable, Uber.