Staying parked waiting for a ping?

I get anxious so I carry my baby guitar in the trunk a lot. Unless the ride takes me to BFE, I just find a good spot to position myself and wait it out. Considering the cost of driving empty, i find that trolling around is usually unefective. There are spots where there are just too many drivers. I figure they thinking the same thing and patience is my friend.

When it’s nice out I try to find somewhere to get out of the car. Sitting in a car seat for hours on end sucks. When you get out you are bound to hear that phone start beeping too.

I have a spot in Nashville that I can go that hits downtown, opryland, the airport, and other good spots, and I can chill inside and watch tv and easily hop in and go on request. When not doing that I will go and park in a lot somewhere popular, put on netflix on my phone and route the sound through my speakers and have a mini theater.

Even when working saturday nights, there can be downtime. If I count starting a shift, Id say my downtime is 40%. I don’t drive much without a passenger. Unless I end up in an area where chance of getting one is little to none. I figure overall even my drives to pickup location are nearly as much as my drives with someone in the car. That means my cost is nearly double the mileage that I get paid for.

I have one spot that always has parking so as soon as I drop off someone I start heading to that spot. On a good day I only get a couple blocks before I get a request. On slow days I make it all the way to that spot and wait it out. Longest I have waited is about 20-30 minutes but that was a very slow day. The spot I go to also usually gets ignored.

I prefer to stay parked and usually pull out my Kindle. However, if I have half an hour without a call, and I’m not between two Ubers in the same area (which means I need to move a little), I’ll move into an underserved area.

With so many uber drivers out there I stay put. U just never when you will get the “bing.” But man! So many uber drivers how can one make good living…means longer hours and wait time plus 20% commission to uber… Frustrating! So ya, stay put don’t want to burn more gas.

I wait at home for the first trip. Depending on the location where I dropped off the first client I drive slowly on non crowded roads towards the places I am more familiar with, by avoiding crowded roads when the phone starts beeping I have time to pull over and enter the address on the GPS to go to the next client. The last thing I want is to get a ticket for using electronic devices while driving.

I stay in Pasadena until a rider asks me to leave. I find that the first or second Pasadena rider will have me going somewhere far like one of the airports or downtown. I go online around 8:30 in the morning and park near the hotels.

I have been appreciating the adventure lately. Just takes one ride to really take me somewhere new, often then that grows into an interesting shift. Of course there are usual patterns that I encounter. Just lately Ive been more excited about the oddball rides to new locals. When Im further out I find it takes longer to get a request, but in general those requests will be more highway driving.

I also go to a fast food place or coffee shop where I’ll buy a coffee and sit until I get my first call. Some people have told me that you get more calls when you drive around but I can’t risk wasting gas in an AWD town car.

Also I am not a fan of rush hours I prefer easy traffic as opposed to getting stuck in traffic. Uber does not give good per the minute waiting time to make it worth my wile.

Not exactly, this law has done nothing that will protect the cab industry or the Levine family which owns Yellow, Checker and the majority of cab companies in Chicago.

As Uber’s CEO has stated the future of the industry is manless vehicles. Google is investing heavily in Uber and Google has created and has a fleet of manless vehicles in California.

The industry will be turned upsided down on Uber’s ultimate goal. They can get rid of uberX but the future will wipe the Levine family out and send him back to Israel broke.

After 3 years and 3500 trips, I’ve learned a few things about the system and how to make it work to my advantage. You drive Providence or Newport, RI often enough, you start to learn where the ride requests will come from and you park yourself inside that circle. In Providence, I find a spot on Weybosset Street just off Memorial and the rides come from Brown, The Amtrak station, MBTA terminal and most of the hotels. In Newport, sit in front of the Starbucks and you’ll get rides all day long. I also use the rider app to see where other Uber drivers are positioned and then move out of that area so I’m alone. Works pretty good. I’ve also discovered it’s a complete waste spending time deciding what rating to give a rider. Makes no difference at all. Doesn’t impact my life one way or the other. Unless they put a crowbar thru my window, they all get fives. The one hard and fast rule I can give is this: If the rider specifically says they will tip you in the app, rest assured, they won’t. They never have, although they like to make me think they will. Once the door is closed and the ride is over, you’re history as far as the rider is concerned.

I have given over 20,000 rides. Nothing matters. There are always 2-3 areas in city where you can get trips at certain time. Just go to that area. Some days are busy some are not. When it is busy, rides find you, when it is not you have to find rides. The more you run around, more tired you get and hence less work. So relax and only rate a really bad rider low otherwise just give 5 star.