Education & Work Any uber drivers out there?

A nice bottle of water, mints/minties even a travel packet of tissues - all part of the Uber customer service model.
I like how it emails you a receipt and map of your journey (good for tax!) and there is also a little GPS thing you can use whilst in transit to send to your friends so they can see how far away you are.

 

I don't support über because of the profit shifting overseas. Contributes nothing to the australian economy. Just as apple and google do. Another multi national avoiding taxes in Australia. I would rather spend more on a taxi.

 

Yeah i disagree strongly with that but unfortunately it's prevalent. With the largest taxi company in WA now Singaporean owned I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens there.


I assume you don't use any apple, Samsung, idea, iTunes etc either? All those idiots do the same thing. Not excusing it btw.

Also keep in mind that operationally I doubt uber would be hugely profitable in australia atm if at all, worldwide they lost a couple of billion last year as they're more focused on expansion and market dominance than profitability. So I doubt the australian taxpayer is missing out on much. Gst is also now collected (good move by govt) and drivers would be paying tax on their earnings too.

 

Pretty narrow minded focus on a single entity. Every driver takes 80% of the fare, pays GST of 10% on that amount and income tax on the remainder. They're providing thousands of people who otherwise would be unemployed with employment and providing what is a great and much needed service.

The profit shifting is a result of Australia's archaic taxing system that incentivises and encourages large entities to shift as much profit offshore as possible. If Australia's government wasn't so obsessed with trying to take as much as possible instead of taking a more reasonable amount then they'd find companies would be far less inclined to profit shift. It's time the Australian people asked questions of the governments creating the issue instead of the companies just doing what everyone else does by minimising their tax. The government needs to embrace the global economy and start trying to make Australia a great place to do business instead of somewhere you want to have as little interaction with as possible.

 

I just downloaded the app. 5 cars within 7 minutes away. Just need somewhere to go.

 

I wonder if the late owner of Taxis Combined Services could have stopped Uber if he were still around. 'Ol Reg was pretty influental. He got away with the 10% surcharge for many years lol.

Yep some people made a killing from the industry. The poor immigrant driver had it tough. Long hours and little money. I think that Uber will have the usual problems and more. Uber is not the silver bullet that everyone thinks IMO.

 

What are the "usual problems and morr" youre referring to? As someone who has done clone to the 300 ride mark it is an oystanding service from a customer pov. Not perfect of course but nothing is. Cheaper, superior, more reliable and safer than the incumbent. How is it a bad thing?

It doesn't need to be a silver bullet. In San Francisco last year more people took uber rides than the rest of the entire taxi industry combined. That's a phenomenal statistic

 

I don't think it's being narrow minded at all. I agree the world is one big market place now, the government is not making big multi nationals accountable for their earnings in Australia, setting up offices in Ireland, tax havens etc.

The government needs to get its backside into gear and stop being 10 years behind.

So I still stand by my comments and totally agree with what you are saying that it is the governments fault for enabling such companies not paying their fair part of tax, thus taking wealth out of Australia.

 

Usual problems and more include dirty smelly vehicles, unroadworthy vehicles, dishonest drivers, danderous drivers etc etc

These problems will become more evident as the market becomes flooded withUber drivers and competition increases especially in the non peak periods.

 

I have used Uber a lot this past week and have to tell you that at times I thought of going back to taxis.

Remember a Taxi can generally stop anywhere , a Uber will only stop where he's legally allowed.
At least there's a rating system with Uber where you can rate the driver out of 5 starrs.
But dont expect too much.. These are not trained taxi drivers...one driver yesterday didnt know where Chinatown was .. So dont expect much

 

Yet they still accepted the fare not knowing where it would take them?

 

To prevent drivers skipping short fares like taxi drivers do they are not told the destination by the gps until they accept the ride. I'd say many drivers uber or not might not be familiar with Chinatown but as you have to input the address into the app for the destination it will be self evident via gps where it is.

 

So far the cleanliness/smell has not been an issue. At the end of each ride you comment and rate the ride and anything I've been unhappy about has been read by the customer service team, contacted and addressed to the driver.
It would be hard to be unroadworthy as they are all pretty recent models or not allowed but possible I suppose if they don't service and maintain, ie tyres.
Dangerous drivers certainly possible.
Not sure if dishonest is possible as they have to follow gps and rides are tracked and emailed to you after the ride. If it looks like they took a route that was too long you could report it.

 

If you don't tell the driver the destination of the fare the driver will be peeved off when they find out the job is only to the local shops lol

This is an age old problem for the taxi industry.

 

If Uber becomes legal and the market gets flooded with drivers (as it will) the things like cleanliess, dangerous driving , rip offs will occur.

Of course Uber drivers will do street pickups...it's too tempting...and that's where rip offs will occur and where the driver gets assaulted and robbed.

Uber is not the panacea for the taxi industry. It will still be a mugs game.

 

I think the only get the sestination once the ride starts, not even when they accept it but Imy not 100% on that

 

Screenshot_2015-12-13-09-32-12 by sanj posted 13th Dec, 2015 at 9:33 AM

Screenshot_2015-12-13-09-31-47 by sanj posted 13th Dec, 2015 at 9:33 AM

Screenshot_2015-12-13-09-32-19 by sanj posted 13th Dec, 2015 at 9:33 AM

Not at all, I take short, $6 uber rides regularly. Not once has one been ****** off.

I've attached some of my rides in the last 10 days or so, as you can see many are short distance.

Your claims simply aren't true

 

Name 1 city in the world where uber is being used significantly, if at all, for street hails. It has just been made legal in Canberra, one of the conditions was that absolutely no street hails were allowed and uber was happy to do so since their system doesn't allow that anyway.

The app does not allow for it, the driver cannot pick a random passenger and accept cash. If he/she does they are working outside of the uber system and, at that time, are just someone driving around picking up fares and not an uber driver doing so.

Uber is certainly not a panacea for the taxi industry and why would it be? Theyve been at loggerheads since launch.

Who will it be a mugs game for? Passengers or drivers? I'm genuinely curious what u mean.

 

Whilst Uber isn't perfect I think the temptation to rob a driver is a lot less as there is no cash in the transaction. All payments are automatically debited from paypal or credit card. You cannot do an Uber ride with cash. So after a couple of hours driving as an Uber driver you simply do not have a robbable amount of cash that would be tempting on you.
But it is up to the driver if they want to join this mugs game. They are at risk (legal, physical, emotional) and it needs to be their choice if they want to be a driver or not. Just like taxi drivers choose to.

 

Minimum $8 fare in Sydney.

Had only one guy complain of the short distance... I was going from Darlinghurst to Paddington RSL Club .
I gave him 1 star !