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I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

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Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#61

Post by bko »

> After waiting 20 minutes, I called the driver, who did not speak any version of English I am familiar with. He claimed to be relatively near my house but was unable to tell me how he was going to get there. I canceled and tried again. This time I got a young woman who also apparently didn’t speak English well.

As someone whose parents speak English with accents, it really makes me cringe when some Americans complain about non-native English speakers in service level jobs. I would hate to have one of my parents deemed less worthy of a job due to their accents. I understand that some jobs benefit greatly from employees that speak English fluently, but I don't think a driver is one of those positions and I doubt many would pay a premium to have a native speaker as a driver.

Maybe I'm overreacting but statements like the one quoted above always come off as slightly xenophobic. It almost makes me throw out the rest of the authors arguments as a rant.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#62

Post by jschwartzi »

rifung wrote: post #17
LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

I'm surprised she complains about the directions. I was under the impression that it used Google Maps. I'm not an Uber driver but I have used the Google Maps app for driving directions and always found it to be pretty good.

This probably depends on where you live? I use Google Maps and when I was living in California it was completely awesome. However, having moved to Seattle recently, it definitely is not as reliable as it used to be. This might have to do with the roads here being much more complicated though.

I've noticed that in downtown Seattle, the GPS has some difficulties maintaining a tight fix on your location. Couple that with how close together some of the roads are and you may find yourself teleporting from one avenue to the other as you move toward your destination.

It works great in suburbia, as expected.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#63

Post by javery »

bko wrote: post #61

> After waiting 20 minutes, I called the driver, who did not speak any version of English I am familiar with. He claimed to be relatively near my house but was unable to tell me how he was going to get there. I canceled and tried again. This time I got a young woman who also apparently didn’t speak English well. As someone whose parents speak English with accents, it really makes me cringe when some Americans complai…

It is one big rant - as someone who has ridden with Uber dozens of times in 4 cities I have never had someone who I couldn't understand.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#64

Post by evjim »

bane wrote: post #50
dnautics wrote: post #27

I'm not sure how her back to back drives add up to only $10/hr. I drive Uber/Lyft in San Diego, routinely don't get back-to-back rides and have some long stretches of downtime, and usually make $1000 on a 50 hour on-call week (~30h of actual drive time). So that's about $20/hour. If you minus gas (~150/wk) that's a little bit less; I drive a honda insight, which gets slightly worse gas mileage than the prius, and the…

> and usually make $1000 on a 50 hour on-call week (~30h of actual drive time). So that's about $20/hour. Now subtract car payments, insurance, wear and tear, etc. Here's an example of how this breaks down: You work 215 hours per month on average (50 * 4.3 weeks) and make $4,300 revenue during that time (or $51,600/year). - Subtract self-employment tax 15.3% - ~$7900 - Taxable income 37,650 - ~$5,300 in taxes so subt…

The IRS $.56/mile takes into account estimated gas costs, wear&tear and insurance. You are double dipping.

Also income tax is deducted off of profits not driver revenue.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#65

Post by saraid216 »

jschwartzi wrote: post #62
rifung wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably depends on where you live? I use Google Maps and when I was living in California it was completely awesome. However, having moved to Seattle recently, it definitely is not as reliable as it used to be. This might have to do with the roads here being much more complicated though.

I've noticed that in downtown Seattle, the GPS has some difficulties maintaining a tight fix on your location. Couple that with how close together some of the roads are and you may find yourself teleporting from one avenue to the other as you move toward your destination. It works great in suburbia, as expected.

It's been explained to me that tall buildings play merry havoc with the GPS, but I haven't been able to test that out at all.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#66

Post by nawitus »

DanBC wrote: post #35
nawitus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should insurance be higher or lower for commercial transport, and if so, why?

Using a non-commercial insurance policy for a commercial-use vehicle is fraud and routinely leads to declined claims. The vehicle driver might be aware of that and take the risk anyway, but passengers are usually not aware of this and need some protections.

I'm not interested in that, I'm interested in whether or not commercial transport increases insurance costs on average.

Although this question is slightly less interesting because of typical insurance policies being neutral on the number of kilometers driven.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#67

Post by mathattack »

I can see the issue here. Someone says, "Why is this so hard on me when the company shuffling paper is making all the money?" I could see Lyft or Uber having a competitive advantage if they gave equity or something like equity to drivers. Pre-IPO equity may be difficult for regulatory reasons around # of shareholders, but perhaps bonuses based on valuation?

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#68

Post by zb »

Retric wrote: post #56
bane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and usually make $1000 on a 50 hour on-call week (~30h of actual drive time). So that's about $20/hour. Now subtract car payments, insurance, wear and tear, etc. Here's an example of how this breaks down: You work 215 hours per month on average (50 * 4.3 weeks) and make $4,300 revenue during that time (or $51,600/year). - Subtract self-employment tax 15.3% - ~$7900 - Taxable income 37,650 - ~$5,300 in taxes so subt…

You should be using pre tax numbers for expenses.

He should be using pre-tax numbers for everything - not only is he not deducting any expenses, he's comparing the final after-tax number with the before-tax minimum wage.

Still, assuming his research is accurate at best it comes out at like ~$12 per hour before tax, unless you play russian roulette on the insurance. This of course assumes that it's your full-time job, otherwise the car payments will further reduce the hourly rate.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#69

Post by bane »

evjim wrote: post #64
bane wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and usually make $1000 on a 50 hour on-call week (~30h of actual drive time). So that's about $20/hour. Now subtract car payments, insurance, wear and tear, etc. Here's an example of how this breaks down: You work 215 hours per month on average (50 * 4.3 weeks) and make $4,300 revenue during that time (or $51,600/year). - Subtract self-employment tax 15.3% - ~$7900 - Taxable income 37,650 - ~$5,300 in taxes so subt…

The IRS $.56/mile takes into account estimated gas costs, wear&tear and insurance. You are double dipping. Also income tax is deducted off of profits not driver revenue.

Yeah you're right. The IRS mileage covers insurance. You can alternately calculate your true expense and deduct that, for example, since he's operating a taxi service, he's probably required to have taxi insurance or risk committing insurance fraud. Since that insurance is much higher than normal car insurance, he probably can deduct more.

Re: I quit: Miseries of an Uber driver

#70

Post by bane »

zb wrote: post #68
Retric wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be using pre tax numbers for expenses.

He should be using pre-tax numbers for everything - not only is he not deducting any expenses, he's comparing the final after-tax number with the before-tax minimum wage. Still, assuming his research is accurate at best it comes out at like ~$12 per hour before tax, unless you play russian roulette on the insurance. This of course assumes that it's your full-time job, otherwise the car payments will further reduce th…

No, I'm assuming he should be bringing home about what the after-tax minimum wage earner brings home for 50 hour work weeks at minimum wage.

But you are right, I should deduct expenses before taxes.

I don't think the end-result is terribly different though. Maybe $1-2/hr

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