When Their Shifts End, Uber Drivers Set Up Camp in Parking Lots Across the US (bloomberg.com)

A feature report on Bloomberg today illustrates the lives of several Uber drivers, who find shelter in car parking at nights when it's too pricey and tiring to go home. An excerpt from the story: In Chicago, Walter Laquian Howard sleeps most nights at the "Uber Terminal." "I left my job thinking this would work, and it's getting harder and harder," Howard said. "They have to understand that some of us have decided to make this a full-time career." Howard has been parking and sleeping at the 7-Eleven four to five nights a week since March 2015, when he began leasing a car from Uber and needed to work more hours to make his minimum payments. Now that it's gotten cold, he wakes up every three hours to turn on the heater. He's rarely alone. Most nights, two to three other ride-hailing drivers sleep in cars parked next to his. It's safe, he said, and the employees let the drivers use the restroom. Howard has gotten to know the convenience store's staff -- Daddy-O and Uncle Mike -- over the past two years while driving for this global ride-hailing gargantuan, valued at $69 billion. "These guys have become my extended family," said Howard, 53. "It's my second home. We have this joke that I'm the resident. I keep asking them: 'Hey, did my mail come in yet?'"

Comments

Doesn't sound like any Uber drivers I know or have

[rnmartinez]

They all seem grateful for the work and only work as much as they want. Also a taxi license plate sells for $125k in my Soviet Canadian city - Uber is a great deal for those needing a bit extra here. I would seriously consider it if I got sick of my business.

Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not

[Joe_Dragon]

Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations uber does not give a dam about them but what will happen when an uber driver falls asleep at the wheel and does big damage?

Re: Welcome to the future of capitalism

[Joe_Dragon]

you must rent / buy your uniform and rent our phone / pda at $50 a week to work for us.

Re:Regular Taxi Service fears..

[Anonymous Coward]

And makes you realize that the economics of Uber are not understood by the "contractors". They compare something like "$20/hr" from Uber to $15 an hour somewhere else and think Uber is better without realizing their effective wage may even be less than $0 from Uber after taxes. It also makes you realize how we ought to prioritize protecting people like Uber drivers rather than worrying about increasing minimum wages. Uber has destroyed many people's lives, generally to the benefit of the upper middle class and the wealthy having lower taxi fares.

I am a conservative but until we add financial literacy to the high school curriculum we need to protect the idiots that fall for these scams where you bring in the depreciating capital equipment to bear for another company. Uber is essentially a modern day Ponzi scheme. The only difference is you are not giving Uber cold hard cash - you are amortizing your capital investment in a car for their and their customers benefit.

We force people all the time

[rsilvergun]

if you don't pay your taxes you go to jail. If you speed in your car you get a ticket. If I shoot somebody I go to jail. We're just arguing over where to draw the line, not whether it should be drawn.

You're going got get forced to do things one way or another. If you leave a power vacuum by trying to live with a weak central government then somebody will step in and take the reigns. Central Governments are just too valuable. Somebody sooner or later will create one for their own purposes. The question is never, "Will we have a strong Central Government?" but whether _you_ will participate in it?