Do you feel safe letting strangers in your car?

Do you stop and drop some of the money that you get anywhere so you're not carrying a bunch? How do you get paid?

Seems like a really dangerous thing to do.

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"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix

I carry no money; everything is paid thru the app. Lyft has a name, phone number, and debit/credit card for anyone getting in my car, so yes I'm comfortable with that.

They also do a complete background check on drivers.

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I miss YaHey

The smart money is to drive for both.

The recent MIT report is bogus.

My expenses are $6/hr including maintenance, insurance, and depreciation.
I average $28/hr during the week and $38-50/hr on weekends after commissions but before expenses.

Regarding insurance, Lyft/Uber only have you covered when you have a passenger in the car.

Over 6000 rides and I've never felt threatened. I'm a guy over 200 pounds.

I've only kicked one person out of my car. A guy kept asking if I wanted, let's just say sexual favors. He was honestly shocked when I kicked him out.

Most women drivers carry mace.

We have a 15 year old kid in our neighborhood, built a business for lawn care at lower prices than the commercial operators. He is making 40.00 hr before his expenses. Seems better than Lyft to me. I think there is major market for outdoor care for older people without the funds to hire full lawn service which charges double this rate. Also reliable people to do general help. Heck, charge 40 hr and help out retirees once a week, little expense.

And anyone who hires him is a fool. A fifteen-year-old cannot get commercial liability insurance which means he is operating without insurance which means if he gets hurt on their property they are screwed

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I miss YaHey

Not for me. The bonuses that I go after on Lyft would make it a big hassle. If I got a Uber ride then I'd have to turn off the Lyft app to avoid getting a request; by not taking the request it would hurt my acceptance rating and you have to stay at 90% or above to get the bonus. If you don't care about the bonus then yes you are right.

Uber just approved me now that I've officially had a license for more than a year (in their mind anyway) so I may try Uber for a couple of weeks and see how that goes.

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I miss YaHey

Earlier you said "If I make $900 a week and drive 1000 miles "

So How many days that week would you be working and what kind of hours?

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Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.

That would be 2 days of 8 hours, 2 days of 3 hours, and 10 hours on Saturday.

They just made a change to the bonus system by adding extra "peak time" hours to make it easier to hit the bigger bonuses. So thru the summer I'll be able to drive M-F 6:30-4 (taking breaks in there too) and bring in $1200-$1400 gross and won't have to drive Saturdays at all.

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I miss YaHey

I make more driving for multiple apps than driving for one app

That calculation doesn't sound right. You'll probably burn 2 gal gas in 1 hr driving = 6.00 which wasn't in your calculation.

I don't burn 2 gallons per hour.
Besides, gas is only ~$2.30/gal here.

In Nashville Lyft is cheaper than Uber for some reason. When I travel for work, I generally use Uber and get a black car (and tip).

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

If I make $900 a week and drive 1000 miles then $540 of that $900 is written off.

But it's not taxed because it's considered a business expense under the IRS mileage rates, right? The whole idea behind that is that those $540 are the prorated costs of using your own vehicle to drive $1000 miles, such as loan payments, depreciation, insurance, gas, and maintenance.

In other words, were you not to drive, then you'd be saving $540, in which case you'd only be making $360 per week. That said, you would have to balance that against other options and opportunities. So, for example, you may still need a car, so the car payment portion of the IRS rate is still there. Likewise, you'd have to have insurance but perhaps at a lower rate. But depreciation, gas, and maintenance are all probably properly factored in to the actual costs.

Look at it this way, putting 50k plus miles into a car every year takes its toll. A car that could last 10 years may only last 4 or 5. Oil changes every month or two instead of twice a year. New tires every year or less, instead of once every three. Same for brakes. Also, you blow through the warranty a lot quicker. You might make up for that by getting an extended, but then that's also eating into your profits.

I'm not saying it's a bad deal -- it may very well work out. Just that you have to look at the $540 differently, at least over the long term. You might have $900 more disposable income each week, with a good portion of that being tax free. But you also have to be putting a good portion of that aside to cover the expenses that will arise over time, and those expenses will become greater as the car gets older.

I'm interested in hearing about any funny and/or crazy stories about passengers.

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I get that the MIT report may have been flawed, but that doesn't mean that, once factoring in expenses and fees, it's not still a low hourly wage.

When you say $6 per hour as expenses, how do you come up with that? I generally have considered the IRS rate (currently .545 per mile) as a relatively accurate, albeit conservative estimate of the actual per mile cost of using a personal vehicle for work. If that's accurate, then to keep expenses at $6 per hour, you can't drive more than around 11 miles each hour on average.

Likely covered by most homeowner's insurance policies. That doesn't mean that a legitimate claim for an injury that occurred on the property won't impact the premium, but an incremental impact to the premium is not the same as being screwed.

Also, just because a business has commercial liability insurance doesn't mean the homeowner will be off the hook for injuries that occur on the property.

No it means if he damages their property they are screwed. If you want to be protected against someone getting hurt on your property you need your own insurance, e.g. an umbrella policy.

edit to add: Geez I respond to a post several days old and Alan posts the same response just in front of me!