{"id":2887,"date":"2015-07-30T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-30T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/?p=2887"},"modified":"2015-07-30T09:27:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-30T13:27:47","slug":"just-how-far-is-your-uber-driver-willing-to-take-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/2015\/07\/30\/just-how-far-is-your-uber-driver-willing-to-take-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Just How Far Is Your Uber Driver Willing To Take You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Most Uber passengers love the convenience and low cost of calling an Uber. \u00a0But many may be unfamiliar with a lot of the company\u2019s policies. \u00a0Drivers on the other hand, have to stay on top of the changing landscape in order to protect themselves: whether it\u2019s new rules regarding insurance requirements or issues with airport drop-offs,\u00a0change is the only constant in this\u00a0industry.<\/p>\n

So passengers actually have it pretty easy\u00a0when it comes to calling and paying for an Uber ride. \u00a0And that\u2019s exactly how Uber wants it: their goal is a frictionless experience for passengers that allows seamless transportation\u00a0from point A to point B. \u00a0That\u2019s why you can enter your destination ahead of time, choose a Spotify playlist and\u00a0rate the driver at your convenience.<\/p>\n

Do Drivers Prefer\u00a0Longer Or Shorter Rides?<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Sherpashare<\/a>, a company that sources ride data and provides driver analytics,\u00a0the average Uber ride is 5.41\u00a0miles. \u00a0Sherpashare co-founder, Ryder Pearce, says \u201cDrivers like longer rides to break up the monotony of city driving and mentally, it\u2019s a huge boost to get a larger fare from time to time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Drivers actually make more money too on longer rides but since there\u2019s no way to control the destination, they could be forced to do a return trip empty handed. \u00a0There are some features like Lyft Line\u2019s destination filter<\/a> (and Sidecar\u2019s drop-off radius) that allows drivers to target riders headed in the same general direction as them\u00a0but those features haven\u2019t really caught on yet.<\/p>\n

Most drivers that I talked to still\u00a0prefer long rides over short ones though and for some reasons you might not expect. \u00a0Bradley Zane, a driver out of Dallas, Texas, told me that, \u201cI prefer long trips, but not to the extent that I would lower myself to the cab driver mentality where I would refuse short trips. It is the nature of the business that some rides will be long and some will be short and the law of large numbers will shake it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Rubin, a driver out of Park City, Utah,\u00a0also noted that, \u201cSince most of my rides are 35 miles+ to the airport,\u00a0I have close to 45 minutes to chat with my passengers. I greatly enjoy the time to learn about their career, family, visit, which restaurants they dined at, etc. And as someone that also owns a sales focused business, I feel this is great time to further practice the art of selling.\u201d<\/p>\n

One common complaint from drivers was that Uber\u2019s cut can actually be as high as 40% on a $4 minimum fare (instead of the advertised 20%). \u00a0Zane stated, \u201cthere is a much higher cost for shorter trips that earn as little as $2.40 (after Trust & Safety fee and the TNC cut) in the Dallas market<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zane\u00a0is referring to the fact that after the $1 safe ride fee and 20% Uber cut is taken out, drivers only end up with $2.40 from a minimum fare of $4. \u00a0That seemed to be a common gripe\u00a0amongst the drivers I talked to.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How Far Is Too Far?<\/strong><\/p>\n

So while drivers seem to overwhelmingly prefer longer rides,\u00a0is there a limit to how far your Uber driver will take you? \u00a0According to Uber\u2019s company policy,\u00a0there isn\u2019t. \u00a0An Uber representative that I spoke with let me know that drivers\u00a0are free to drop off in any state as long as the trip originates in the driver\u2019s home market. \u00a0Some drivers in San Diego have even gotten special approval and licensing from Uber to make trips across the border down into Mexico.<\/p>\n

Uber competitor Lyft, on the other hand, has instituted a 100 mile limit<\/a> on all rides and re-requesting a ride with the same driver won\u2019t work if you travel outside of a driver\u2019s home market. \u00a0But even though Uber\u2019s company policy dictates that there is no maximum distance limit\u00a0for rides, drivers always reserve the right to cancel a ride if for example, they don\u2019t want to drive to another state.<\/p>\n

The longest such request\/ride\u00a0that I could find<\/a>\u00a0was given by a driver named Joe Strandell who picked up a woman in Santa Barbara, California and took her all the way up to Palo Alto, California. \u00a0That trip was\u00a0320 miles, took just over 5 hours and totaled a whopping $658.45.<\/p>\n

When Joe\u2019s navigation loaded, he was shocked to see the destination but he was up for an adventure regardless. \u00a0\u201dI had this epiphany while I was driving and just thought how cool it was to be getting paid to do a California road trip. \u00a0I was lucky to be a part of it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not every driver will share\u00a0Joe\u2019s enthusiasm for a 320 mile Uber ride though. \u00a0Joe\u00a0recommends \u201cIf you plan on calling an Uber anytime soon to take you on a cross-country\u00a0journey, just make sure you give them\u00a0a heads up so they can bring a change of clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About Harry Campbell, The RideShare Guy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hello TFF Readers, my name is Harry Campbell and I run a blog for rideshare drivers called The Rideshare Guy<\/a> and I also write about the on demand economy for Forbes<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ll be sharing articles from time to time on what’s going on in the world of rideshare and what you need to know as a passenger whether you enjoy taxis, rideshare or all of the above!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post was originally posted on Forbes.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Uber passengers love the convenience and low cost of calling an Uber. \u00a0But many may be unfamiliar with a lot of the company\u2019s policies. \u00a0Drivers on the other hand, have to stay on top of the changing landscape in order to protect themselves: whether it\u2019s new rules regarding insurance requirements or issues with airport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[116],"tags":[272,239,270,269,105,136,271,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2887"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2931,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2887\/revisions\/2931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxifarefinder.com\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}