Driving Uber, Sleeping in Parking Lots

According to a Bloomberg article from Eric Newcomer and Olivia Zaleski, many of the best places to drive for Uber, in terms of regular work and high surge prices, are also the most expensive places to live—places like San Francisco, where high home prices and rents are slowing the economy and pushing out working families. One driver the reports spoke to, German Tugas, "… drives over 70 hours a week in San Francisco, where the work is steadier and fares are higher than in his hometown, Sacramento." After work, "He and at least a half dozen other Uber drivers gathered in the Social Safeway parking lot to sleep in their cars before another long day of driving." While Uber touts the ability of its drivers to work part time, Newcomer and Zaleski contend, "In a sense, drivers sleeping in their cars typifies, in an extreme way, what Uber said it does best: offer drivers flexibility."

"The vast majority of Uber’s full-time drivers return home to their beds at the end of a day’s work. But all over the country, there are many who don’t," Newcomer and Zaleski report. "In Chicago, drivers call the 7-11 at the intersection of Wrightwood & north Lincoln Avenue the 'Uber Terminal.'" Even in the relatively less expensive midwest, Newcomer and Zaleski spoke to a driver who sleeps in that parking lot and lives in Indiana. It's an issue that's unlikely to go away any time soon.