My First Three Days Driving For Uber

A little over a week ago I applied online to become an Uber driver. The good news was that the application process was rather easy. The bad news is that the application process was rather easy. I will explain in a moment.

I picked an interesting time to start driving for Uber, as they have just released a new and improved, revamped driver app. This rendered the large amount of YouTube how-to videos obsolete. The videos did however let me see some of the things to expect. They also contained some good tips for new drivers.

One tip involved a method, albeit not a great one, to see where other Uber drivers are located given that Uber does not provide any way for their drivers to see where other drivers are positioned. The way to do it is to use the Uber Ride app which shows the nearest six Uber vehicles. If you are online in the Uber Driver app, one of the vehicles displayed in the Uber Ride app will be your own so you get to see where the five nearest Uber vehicles are positioned relative to your current position.

I have been using the Uber Rider app as suggested from day one. What I have determined is that in the suburbs of Chicago there are way too many active Uber drivers at any time. Today for example, after an early morning fare to O'Hare and a subsequent fare to the Loop, I ended up at Woodfield Mall. As I sat waiting for the Uber Drive app to ping me I switched over to the Uber Ride app and noticed that there were five vehicles very close to where I was. Subsequent checks of the User Ride app as I ended up in different positions near Woodfield always produce five other Uber vehicles close to me. After a while I realized that there must have been a hundred Uber drivers in the general area of Woodfield Mall. Although I did get a fare here and there it was a long wait between them. The same has applied for the other various locations I have positioned myself in during the past three days.

If you think about it from Uber's point of view, it is a good thing to over saturate areas with drivers. When someone requests a ride the response time is great since there is most likely a driver nearby. A vehicle showing up within minutes of a request is very good for business.

Over saturation is not a good thing for the suburban drivers. This is where the ease at which anyone with a newer vehicle and a clean background check can become a Uber driver is great for Uber and its passengers but bad news for the drivers.

The NFL app on my Android phone is great but buggy

My brother Jack came up with the clever saying, “The smarter the smartphone, the dumber the apps”. I really like the official free NFL app on my Android phone and use it frequently during the NFL season, but the “Drive Chart” feature does have a couple of glaring bugs.

I have noticed one in particular all season and have a hard time believing it has not been fixed. If you look closely at the above partial screen shot from my phone, Arizona had the ball first and 10 at their own 34 when Kerwynn Williams ran for 9 yards. It is now second and 1 at the Arizona 43 yard line however the down and distance line displayed under the score still shows “1^st & 10 ARI 34” as if a play had not taken place. For most plays during a game the down and distance display is one play behind the current state of the game leaving me to do the math to compute the real down and distance.

The second bug, which I noticed yesterday for the first time, is that the play description for kickoff returns shows the incorrect final position of the ball. For example, Arizona kicked off to New Orleans with the play description stating that the kick went 54 yards and was returned 15 yards to the New Orleans 11 yard line. This is incorrect. The 54 yard kick was fielded at the New Orleans 11 and after the 15 yard return was actually positioned at the New Orleans 29 yard line.

A third problem is an annoying 'feature'. If you click on a play description in the drive chart, it is expanded to to show the full detail of the play but then automatically reverts back to the abbreviated description after two seconds. In many cases two seconds is not nearly enough time to read and comprehend everything that is there. This feature really should be click to expand and click when done.