I am a DC uberX driver since 2013 and have SEEN IT ALL...so please, AMA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP here. I've only used Uber a few times. Yesterday morning ~ 6:45/7am we took an Uber XL to Dulles. My husband, new to uber, didn't realize the implications of a 1.9 surge and we paid nearly $130 to get from Logan circle to Dulles (a ~$70 cab). Painful lesson learned, but help me understand surge- why early Sat morning? I understand rush hours, etc...

Best AMA thread I've read. You are a great writer & seem like a decent and interesting guy. Thanks.

Well, first thing...DC is an early-bird kind of town every day of the week. The Beltway, 395, Dulles Toll Road, 295, and 66 are essentially super-speedways before traffic gets heavy at 6am and are filled with ubers, taxicabs, and the early work crowd. Both National and Dulles are slammed with departures daily from 5-9am. 75% of my trips in the morning are either to an airport or Union Station. This is what surge looks like from the driver's app right now at 5:10am Monday up in South Arlington:



DC is currently scattered between 1.5-2x. This is business as usual, and will be even busier than normal today since this was a holiday weekend prior with lots of visiting family leaving out, not to mention the cherry blossoms too. There are 6,000,000 people living within 20 miles of the Capitol along with ~30,000 visitors nightly in hotels. A huge portion of these folks have no access to a car, and many of those are metro inaccessible too. DC is a top-5 uber city, along with SF, LA, Chicago, and Boston. It's busy here all the time and this brings on surge pricing. Someone needs a ride to somewhere 24/7. Sorry about your high fare, but it's not too bad, and hopefully it was a little better ride than a taxicab because you mentioned you had 3 kids with you in that other post.


Surge is sporadic, but comes and goes. Try to wait it out if you have the time to spare. Now don't give your husband a hard time over this, but I promise you, he breezed right thru this notice/accept screen:



Uber will ALWAYS notify you of surge pricing and ask you to accept it. In fact, if the surge is really high (4x+) the app will force you to type in the current surge multiplier and accept before you can even request a ride.

HOW TO BEAT SURGE PRICING:
1-Use that little button in the pic above "NOTIFY ME WHEN SURGE DROPS". It works.
2-Use Lyft instead. Sometimes you get lucky and lyft won't be primetime pricing in the same spot that uber is surging.
3-Go for a walk towards your destination or at least away from the "action" and keep trying. Surge zones are set up in little honeycomb shapes all over the map that are about a quarter-mile wide. You'll eventually walk out of one and into another.

That's my 'hood! I wonder if I've seen you in shirlington....

Living this AMA, OP. I've never used über.0, so I'm learning a ton. Might try it on my next business trip.

[Anonymous]

Can you see what any individual rider rates you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) Did you have a good time at Grandma's?

2) If Gran lived in Pennsylvania, and you were bored Saturday night, could you go out and get some Uber riders in PA? Or are you tied to one location only?

3) Do you have a celebrity doppelganger?

1) Grandma's was great. You can't get this on Easter in DC:


2) If Grandma lived in Pennsylvania, I could not give uberX rides there. If Grandma lived in Cumberland, MD or Eastern Shore, I could do uberX there. As a "DC" uberX driver I am approved to pick-up in the ENTIRE state of Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia with a southwestern border of a rough straight line from Winchester, to Culpeper to Fredericksburg to Tappahannock.

3) My celebrity doppelgänger would be, ummm, Bret Baier? That's a generic white guy that comes to mind.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you tap into Under eats?

He already said "No," as he only works during hours when Surge is activated. The margins are too low for a driver doing Uber Eats.
From my standpoint, Uber Eats looks like a giant time suck - drive to pick up the food, drive to drop off food, get out of car, etc. I think the driver only ends up with $8 or something like that. No way is that a good use of time for a driver. Plus, it seems extremely stressful.

It looks like a great way to get a shitload of parking tickets.

Both answers are are correct. Drivers are already complaining about what a shit deal uberEATS is. Paying right at $10/hr, but uber is bumping it up by subsidizing it to $15/hr guaranteed to keep drivers interested. I'd need $25/hr guaranteed to even think about slow-rolling food deliveries all around town, otherwise, I'll drive passengers only.

Anonymous wrote:Can you see what any individual rider rates you?

No, never. A driver will NEVER find out what you rated them, so please feel free to rate all your drivers accordingly. Ratings are quickly becoming meaningless for the driver anyways. This is an attempt to keep as many drivers on the road as possible, no matter how bad (a driver in the low 4s is pretty bad). Uber figures as long as a ride is completed from Point A-B as quickly as possible without an accident or ticket, then the job is done. Ratings given out by drivers already mean nothing for the passenger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There have been several recent threads about how bad drivers are in the DC area. What is your view of our driving?

I think about this one all the time. Traffic in DC is made up of a perfect storm of situations. Transplants who really don't know their way around, tourists who are completely lost, aggressive local drivers who scare the shit out of both the previous groups, uber drivers paying more attention to the app on their phone than the road, lots of confusing road layouts outside the downtown grid, bad signage and terrible road design, and crummy roads filled with potholes. Combine all these together and you get our daily mess. It's not "bad drivers" per se, more like tentative, confused, and lost drivers who are very unpredictable.

Fully autonomous cars are coming in the next 20 years or so. I do believe these will solve all of DC's traffic woes and make this a really, really nice place to live in the future when you can always get across town reliably in ten minutes or so. Hopefully metro will do their part with increasing capacity, more 7000 series 8-car trains, a second Potomac river crossing at Rosslyn and either dedicated government funding or even privatization. This area is still in the middle of a huge ongoing building boom as evidenced by the dozens of construction cranes all over DC, Arlington, and Tysons, and is only going to grow more. By 2018, Virginia's 11-tallest office/residential buildings will all be located between Rosslyn and Tysons. In the meantime until the 2030s when autonomous cars are a reality and commonplace, we deal with the current mess status quo.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes when I have early meetings I uber to work b/c metro is awful, but first I ask the driver to drop my son at school. It is only 4 blocks away and it takes me 2 min tops to sign him in and get back out to the car so we can be on our way.

Would you hate this? I figure since the "meter" is running and the driver gets paid for wait time this is not a big deal but since this is such a great thread I thought I would ask your opinion? BTW I did it today and it added about $2 to the typical $8 ride.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes when I have early meetings I uber to work b/c metro is awful, but first I ask the driver to drop my son at school. It is only 4 blocks away and it takes me 2 min tops to sign him in and get back out to the car so we can be on our way.

Would you hate this? I figure since the "meter" is running and the driver gets paid for wait time this is not a big deal but since this is such a great thread I thought I would ask your opinion? BTW I did it today and it added about $2 to the typical $8 ride.

No, not at all. This is what makes uber really efficient for a passenger. If it's surging then I would even prefer making stops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you see what any individual rider rates you?

Read the entire thing, that question was answered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes when I have early meetings I uber to work b/c metro is awful, but first I ask the driver to drop my son at school. It is only 4 blocks away and it takes me 2 min tops to sign him in and get back out to the car so we can be on our way.

Would you hate this? I figure since the "meter" is running and the driver gets paid for wait time this is not a big deal but since this is such a great thread I thought I would ask your opinion? BTW I did it today and it added about $2 to the typical $8 ride.

No, not at all. This is what makes uber really efficient for a passenger. If it's surging then I would even prefer making stops.

Great thanks for the answer. Now I won't feel guilty when I ask. Especially if it is surging.

[Anonymous]

Where is the Uber office located in DC?

[Anonymous]

Besides driving only during surge areas/times, picking up in crowded areas to be assured you aren't wasting time, what are other "hustles" you can share with us in terms of contributing to your success in this gig (making max $$)? I get you are offsetting car maintenance as you've said, etc. but just curious on some of the other "skills" that you feel separate you from newbie drivers and even maybe experienced ones who also drive during surge times - do you feel that that is the key in max $$?

Love your thread Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Those greenbeans. Totally worth a drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:3) Do you have a celebrity doppelganger?

3) My celebrity doppelgänger would be, ummm, Bret Baier? That's a generic white guy that comes to mind.

This is totally how I've been picturing you. I had no idea who Bret Baier was, but my ex-coworker, Tom (from early in the thread), looks like this guy!

[Anonymous]

I am in a wheelchair right now. I can transfer to an Uber X and fold the chair, but I can't load it. Are there rules requiring a driver to lift the chair in and out? What if the driver has stuff in his trunk?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

2) If Grandma lived in Pennsylvania, I could not give uberX rides there. If Grandma lived in Cumberland, MD or Eastern Shore, I could do uberX there. As a "DC" uberX driver I am approved to pick-up in the ENTIRE state of Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia with a southwestern border of a rough straight line from Winchester, to Culpeper to Fredericksburg to Tappahannock.

So what if you pick someone up in DC and they want you to drive them to Philly.. does that mean you cant' pick up anyone on your way back until you cross the line into MD?

Also I'm thinking of taking an Uber from Bethesda to BWI and back. To me, it seems like a different "service region"... will a driver refuse me if I request an Uber in either place, since it's a long drive? Or do they have to take me since it's within MD?

Can Uber pick up in BWI?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am in a wheelchair right now. I can transfer to an Uber X and fold the chair, but I can't load it. Are there rules requiring a driver to lift the chair in and out? What if the driver has stuff in his trunk?

This shouldn't be a problem as long as the driver isn't a total jerk. Just ask for a hand and your driver will be able to help. The trunk of an uber should be empty and fully available to load in luggage, wheelchairs, walkers, etc.