Source
r/uber•
ChefAllez

Uber Pool Express is a great idea. However, at least in my city it seems incredibly dangerous for drivers and passengers.

The express pool almost always asks me to meet my driver on a street corner and get picked up from the street side. In my city (Las Vegas) speed limits are 35mph on average with 3 lane roads in most places and 45mph 4 lane in front of my apartment. If I request an express pickup it asks me to wait on the side of the road and get picked up there. The driver has to stop in the right lane of traffic and block the cycling lane as well forcing cyclist into the street. There have been multiple close calls of cars either almost rear ending my driver, once a cyclist was yelling at us and multiple times they just went out into traffic in a 45.

My suggestion would be to only set pickup points in parking lots or doting them all over the cities in safe places instead of street corners. I suppose it probably works better in more crowded and slow cities but it definitely is not a one size fits all solution. For now I game the system by moving my pickup point so the edges don't touch any major streets, this changes my pickup point from the street in front to the front of the neighborhood. Setting up pre-determined pickup points for express throughout the city would also stop people from being able to abuse the system like that.

Posted Jan 3, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

27
SanPedroLover_•

Pool is a horrible idea

5
ChefAllezOP•

Do you mean regular pool, express pool or both? If you mean regular pool I'm assuming you're a driver as I e heard a lot of drivers complaining about the low payout of pools. As a passenger I won't take an Uber without pool because it's the only way it's cost efficient if I had to pay Uber X prices daily I'd just never take an Uber as it would be cheaper to own a car. Currently I can use express twice a day for my work commute and save a good chunk of money over paying even just for car insurance.

1
agenz899•

This is an issue in many areas. Both Uber and Lyft passengers do not take into account the type of street, as well as the traffic on said street. Plenty of areas around my city have cars parked on both sides, then they have a bike lane as well as the regular traffic. I cannot really stop on these type of streets, let alone wait for you to come out, without breaking a law. Usually waiting in the bike lane. Its not just Express.

2
ChefAllezOP•

Ahh. I guess I never considered other people don't think about this and request street side pickup with X and regular pool.

1
ClassyKaty•

Express in my area regularly tries to dump me on an express way exit with active construction. Yeah.

2
tydongworth•

The pools payouts are one issue I don’t understand. Why is the driver penalized because a rider wants to share cost. Makes no sense. The other issue is riders selecting express pool when they have somewhere they have to be quickly. I had one recently that had 2 pickups after the initial rider. The trip originally was 26 minutes. After the additional riders the first person didn’t get to their destination for 46 minutes and was annoyed. She even asked with 2 other people in the car if I could skip any other passengers cause she was gonna be late.

1
ChefAllezOP•

With me, I tip more compared to the rare occasion when I take an X. For example, last X I took was $12 and I did a 1 dollar tip, my pool this morning was 4.50 so I tipped 2, a month ago it was 50% off for venmo and I was tipping like 3+ every morning. I'm betting the number of people who don't tip balance the scales though, I work in service so I see the guy who tips 30% followed by the three who don't tip.

As a pool rider I do get pretty annoyed when people don't plan properly and leave with extra time. I've been riding with the impatient rider who was asking for the driver to hurry and drop her off first. It also really annoys me when I'm with the driver and we get to someone's pickup spot and they aren't there or ready. Like it takes 5 minutes for an Uber to get to you, be ready before you request it. But since I plan for an hour for my 15 minute commute it's never caused an issue for me. When I'm running late I get an X.

I do like meeting new people with the driver in pool though, if I don't say anything pools get dead quite I've noticed, where with just the driver and I we have awesome conversations. I've gotten good at the getting the third wheels talking too. I realize some people find sociable people, especially at 5AM annoying though, I can usually read them and stay quite.

1