Last Sunday, as I dropped off one passenger on United Airline gate, the next ride came. My lesson learned: keep the Uber Driving app online. In the past, sometimes I turned off new request when I drove into airport dropping off passengers.
This evening, I dropped off a friend at Southwest Terminal 2. But the Uber Driving app told me to go to the STL waiting lot. I was hoping to get a ride right there, and I was not going to waiting lot.
Some safety features for the drivers
Don’t drive during the night, or early mornings, basically when it’s dark outside. Quite recently, once I woke up early, it was New Year’s Day (01-01-2025), as I drove around for Uber, I picked up a ride for 2 guys. I was not 100% sure what those 2 guys were doing, I suspect they were drinking and f?!x around, as I heard a bit of their conversation re: women etc. I have zero intention to learn their business. There was a small incident during pickup too, I parked, one guy came aboard: he took the seat behind me. Just as I was pulling off, I saw another guy pull my door or knock on the windshield, asking me to stop. Turns out he is another passenger. The ride was not eventually, until the end, turns out two guys have a slightly different destinations: one guy lives about one mile from another. They did give me $10, and after my Uber ride is over, I used Apple map for navigation dropped off the other guy. Note Uber does allow for multiple stops and they are probably not sophisticated Uber users and didn’t use this multi stop feature.
Set the minimum rider star rating (score) to 4.5, unfortunately we need to do it every time we go online. I used to set minimum to 4.5, but the article says Any lower than 4.6 could be a potential issue, because it’s at this point that Uber can consider deactivating your account.
I saw from this Reddit thread one driver says 4.85 for Uber. But I also saw some passenger’s rebuttal. Just copy one back and forth below:
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Driver: Anything under a 4.8 is a no-go. 10 years driving rideshare.
Rider: I am 4.79, always respectful and tip well. Just had a few too many drivers give me a 4 instead of a 5. The rating system is BS and you are losing money by rejecting perfectly good passengers. Now if someone had a 4.2 or 4.1, I’d understand why you wouldnt pick them up.
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Go offline if we are not familiar with the destination or area: I did this once at East St. Louis. I didn’t realize the ride was going to East St. Louis at the beginning. It appears a security guard was getting off work at Clayton, and went back his home in East STL.
I will add more as I think of some more tips.
Last but not least: some other blog posts I wrote re: Uber driving