Taxi Driver Online

Guy must have the patience of saint, particularly in a big city like Manchester

73-year-old as well, but looks in reasonable nick for that age. And he's doing six 14-hour shifts per week, and 200 jobs, which averages 33 per day

Reckon I'd end up with a nervous breakdown doing that, even in our wee town, never mind a metropolis like Manchester


UK’s highest-rated Uber driver is 73 and has made over 67,000 trips

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/07/uks-high ... -17716109/


Image: PA Real Life/Metro

Ever since Uber started letting people see their Uber ratings, it has been a bit of a badge of honour to get one close to five stars.

Clearly, this evaluation cuts to the core of who you are as a person – whether you always wore a mask when it was mandatory, whether you slammed the car doors or whether you or a friend (admit it) ever puked in the back seat.

It’s pretty hard to bring your average close to the big 5 – but not for driver Michael Quinn.

The 73-year-old has been named the highest rated driver on the app, after racking up over 67,000 trips (which also makes him the most prolific for country-wide trips).

He has been recognised for his achievement at a ceremony in London last week where he was given an Uber Hero Award.


Image: PA Real Life/Metro

Michael, who was born in Liverpool but has spent most of his life in Manchester, claimed the title ahead of 85,000 other drivers across the UK.

He said the secret to his success is a positive attitude and keeping his car clean.

And he’s not one to rant about politics while passengers nod along, advising other drivers to ‘speak whenever you need to speak or what have you, but it’s mainly to make sure that person gets to where they are going from A to B as soon as possible and as comfortably as possible’.

He has worked for Uber for seven and a half years, and has received the most five-star ratings of any driver across the UK.

Most of his trips are your standard pick-up and drop-off, but some were much more memorable – such as a recent trip where he rushed a university student who had suffered a suspected heart attack to hospital when it emerged an ambulance could take up to 45 minutes.

He said as well as just driving, he also tried to keep the young man calm ‘because he really was so worried and panicking’.

Michael said he was able to keep the young man settled before safely seeing him into the hands of hospital staff at Manchester Royal Infirmary.

His journeys have also featured moments of ‘beauty’ which he said have stayed with him.

‘I always remember this couple I picked up a long time ago now, a very young couple that had just gone to the chippy,’ Michael said.

‘It was a Saturday night about eight o’clock, and their evening was going to be in front of the fire with their fish and chips, and each other.

‘It’s always been with me, that experience… how beautiful to see – they had nothing, but they had each other.’

He now averages approximately 200 trips in his six-day working week, starting at 6am and finishing around 8pm.

Michael, who lives alone 10 minutes outside Manchester city centre and previously worked as a taxi driver, said getting the award was ‘a very proud time in my life’.

He was honoured as Uber celebrated 10 years since it first launched in London – when just 69 drivers worked for the company.

Alongside data on the most trips and highest ratings over the last decade, Uber’s busiest day in the UK was revealed – December 14 2019 when over one million rides were completed in 24 hours.

The app’s top visited destinations and cities in the UK include New Station Street in Leeds, London King’s Cross, Manchester Piccadilly, Birmingham New Street and Victoria Station, London.

Uber also confirmed its longest journey taken by a passenger – a six-hour, 438-kilometre trip from Heathrow Airport to Loch Lomond in Scotland.

Presumably he's not logged on for 14 hours, six days a week, though. Didn't Uber restrict the number of hours drivers can log on? If he's logged on14 hours per day or anything like that then the restriction must be pretty lax


That's been reported in a few outlets, but as 422 miles in some, strangely.

But whatever the precise number, it must be miles rather than kilometres.

And amazed that's the longest Uber job out of the one billion or so they've apparently done in the UK. And one million on their busiest day

I mean, even ignoring jobs to and from the south and south-west of England, there's plenty destinations in Scotland north of Loch Lomond

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/heathro ... 56.1113678

Even St Andrews is further than that:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/heathro ... 397753!3e0

This is how you get a 5-star review, Bolt style

I'm a bit different - no pesky ratings scheme for me as an independent HCD, obviously, but I lock the punters in till I get a tip


Woman says Croydon Bolt driver wouldn't let her out of car until she gave him 5 star review

https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-lo ... r-25458192

She claims the driver yelled at her to give him a positive score on the app

A South London woman has claimed a Bolt driver refused to let her out of the car until she gave him a five star review. The passenger said she was alone in the car in Croydon when the driver demanded he give her a positive review.

When she said she would do it once she left the car, she claims he insisted that she do it immediately. The woman said she was terrified that he wouldn't let her out of the car.

Taking to Reddit to share the horrifying ordeal, she wrote: "I was getting a rideshare in Croydon and the first guy I selected from Bolt was going the wrong way for five minutes so I cancelled and retried after a few minutes and it is him [again]."

She continued: "He gets me to my place and before I can get out he demands me, an alone young woman, to give him a five star review. I try to tell him that I will once I get inside but he insisted I do it now and is yelling at me to do so. I did, but I was scared that he would not let me out of the car."

The woman said she reported him to Bolt after he dropped her off at the event she was going to. It comes after the news that a different Bolt driver has been suspended after he allegedly ‘kidnapped’ a female passenger in North West London last week.

The passenger took to social media shortly after the incident on Sunday, October 23, claiming her Bolt driver had ‘tried to kidnap’ her. The alleged victim claimed that the Bolt driver had taken her to his house rather than the destination she had requested. In regards to the October 23 incident, a Bolt spokesperson confirmed the diver had been ‘temporarily suspended’ from the job amid an ongoing investigation.

The spokesperson said: “We have temporarily suspended the driver to allow time for a detailed investigation to continue.” MyLondon has contacted Bolt about the Croydon incident but are yet to receive a response.

Sometimes businesses pay part of the wages based on your ratings I remember seeing a review of a Disney Cruise where the reviewer stated that the restaurant staff constantly badgered the customers demanding a 5 star rating because they got paid more. Perhaps the "bonuses" that Bolt pay depend on you getting a great rating ?

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

84 hours a week for a 73-year-old.

Nothing unsafe about that whatsoever.

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IDFIMH

I take it they mean ‘miles’ ? And 6 hrs ? Someone put their boot into it!

I take it they mean ‘miles’ ? And 6 hrs ? Someone put their boot into it![/quote]


If the figures are to be believed that would be an average start to stop speed of 73MPH I wonder if the police read uber press releases

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

As I said earlier, some outlets reporting it as 438 kilometers, like the article above, but others as 422 miles. You could just about understand miles and kilometers getting mixed up (although who uses kms in the UK?), but why the numbers are different is anyone's guess.

Anyway, it certainly can't be 438 kilometers, and 422 miles seems reasonable. Which would equate to just about bang on an average 70 mph. Which seems a tall order, but I suppose that if the driver got a clear run then it would just about be feasible without going too much over the limit, because it's motorway the vast majority of the way. And the reports of the timing are a bit vague. Some say approximately six hours, or over six hours. I mean, it could be that the number of hours was just rounded down, so it might have been 6.9 hours, say, which would mean an average 61.1mph, which certainly sounds feasible.

Certainly reasonably cheap as well, at about £1.28 per loaded mile