Uber Driver Signup Guide and Resources Page

Sign Up

To signup as a driver with Uber, follow these steps:

Go to https://get.uber.com/drive/
When you complete the form, provide Invite Code HNFD9UE which will give you a $100 bonus for signing up.
The signup process will walk you through the rest of what’s needed.
You’ll need to provide your financial and banking information in order to receive payments. To do so, visit https://vault.uber.com

What You’ll Need

To become a driver, you’ll need to provide the following:

Social Security Number for a background check.
Photo of Driver’s License
Photo of your car’s vehicle registration.
Photo of your car’s proof of insurance form.
Exterior photos of your car on the driver’s side, passenger side, and from behind.
Interior photo of your car’s back seat.

Rewards Bonuses

You can earn reward bonuses by referring friends to Uber. Usually this is about $100 per person who signs up, but you may get an introductory offer for as much as $500 per person signing up.

Watch the Training Video for Drivers

You’ll be required to watch the Uber training video for drivers. This helps you become familiar with the app and the proper procedures for providing rides through Uber.

Reader Feedback & Comments

One of our readers posted this comment that inspired us to add a Q&A section below:

“Never gonna happen. Not even going to dl the app. First, the insurance the regular driver has is NOT commercial insurance and you are NOT covered as a passenger when money changes hands. They get in an accident and you are injured? You have to sue them, a poor broke joe average trying to make a buck. Second, Where I live ALL taxi drivers go through a police criminal check, where your Uber driver could be a registered sex offender. Third, Taxi companies have to have their cars inspected, and your Uber driver is just out making a buck, hoping the car makes it through this last fare. Inspection? Not since boot camp if ever!! I used to like what I was seeing here before, but this shows there is a lack of knowledge about the subject matter, aka Uber. Not impressed at all.” Denis B.

Here’s our reply to Denis:

Thanks for taking time to read this post and reply. I think you may be misinformed about your claims. I’ll post articles below with more details. Services like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar aren’t for everyone. Car shares are another option, as are services like Zipcar. Some of these industries are in their infancy. Problems will definitely be identified and grappled with. Yet, ultimately, the more that cars get shared, however they get shared, it will reduce humanity’s carbon footprint.

Questions and Answers

Here are some common questions and answers.

Q: What about insurance for drivers?

You’ll need to contact your insurance company and see what the cost would be if you use your car commercially. Some insurance companies are offering special insurance for the wide variety of rideshare drivers on the road today. Policies will be changing and expanding to meet this need. Here’s more information https://www.policygenius.com/blog/uber-lyft-and-other-rideshare-drivers-now-have-insurance-options/

Q: What about the driver who is a ‘poor broke joe average trying to make a buck’ and make ends meet?

Well, actually the statistics show that a driver in San Francisco averaging about 20 rides per day will make about $100,000 per year. In Chicago you’d need to average about 36 rides per day. The stats for this are here http://www.businessinsider.com/where-to-work-to-to-make-100000-driving-for-uber-lyft-and-sidecar-2015-1

Q: What about background checks?

The typical taxi company probably doesn’t conduct rigorous background checks. The background checks conducted by Uber are extensive. See the link below. Furthermore, cab drivers aren’t rated like Uber drivers, so those with a bad attitude just keep their jobs and offend riders. In cases where women have been victims of crimes by taxi drivers, in many cases, if it’s late, and maybe the rider has been drinking, there may not be an accurate record of who the driver was. With Uber, there’s a digital record of every rider and every driver. Drivers are rated, so a driver who is likely to do something illegal won’t get away with it more than once. Here are the full details on the Uber background checking process http://newsroom.uber.com/2014/04/uber-background-checks-3/

Q: Taxi companies have their cars inspected, but what about Uber cars?

Taxi companies are just that. They are companies — trying to maximize profits. This explains why so many taxi cabs are in a state of disrepair. It’s similar to rental units where the landlord keeps them just barely operating within the law. Nobody ‘rates’ the taxi vehicle. They are just happy to get to their destination in one piece. Drivers probably want to drive in a safe vehicle, but otherwise aren’t too concerned about the quality of the vehicle, and aren’t necessarily in a position to promote repeat customers (who might prefer that car or driver). With Uber, on the other hand, vehicles are owner driven. People are generally more conscientious about their own vehicles. The entire Uber experience is rated including the driver and the vehicle. If there’s something unsafe, or even aesthetically unpleasing about a vehicle, that’s likely to get reported. Not so with a typical taxi company. Take a look at this thorough comparison http://newsroom.uber.com/harrisburg/2015/02/uberx-raises-the-bar-for-safety-quality-3/

Areas of Concern

There are a few aspects of the Uber experience that could use improvement.

Background Check. You’ll be told at the time of signing up that Uber will provide you with your complete background check. However, this may never happen.
Cancelled Account. If you have a full-time job, and were only planning on driving over the weekends or evenings, and if you live in an area that doesn’t have many Uber rider requests coming in, you may end up not getting any rider requests over a period of time. This will result in Uber canceling your account. This suggests that Uber is really designed for big cities with lots of Uber drivers and riders.
Driver App. The driver app is not available in the App Store for iOS. It must be downloaded from the web. If you search for it, you’ll find a link on the New York City Uber site. It’s not really a good idea to be downloading apps that haven’t been approved by Apple. It’s also confusing for people who would naturally search for the app in the App Store. It’s not clear why Uber didn’t create a single app for drivers and riders.
Driver / Rider Connection. After becoming a driver, you can test the Uber experience with a friend. Have them request a driver and wait to be notified. When you run this test, you might find that the rider isn’t notified that there’s a driver (you) in the same vicinity even if you’re already there having logged into the Driver app as being available for riders. So, the rider and driver app may not work to connect people.
Google Docs Form. If your account gets cancelled to to inactivity (see above), you’ll receive a text message asking if you are still interested in being an Uber driver. When you click to respond, you’ll be taken to a simple Google Forms page. It’s not clear why Uber is using Google Docs instead of a landing page on their own website with a web form.
High Rates. The Uber rates seem a bit higher than typical taxi rates for the same metropolitan area. For example, if an airport ride with a taxi service would be $36, the Uber fee would be $56.
Identity Theft. In the process of becoming a driver, you’ll be handing over to Uber the complete portfolio of your personal identity including your drivers license, photo, birthday, SSN, banking information, home address, work address, and the contents of a complete background check. This makes Uber an extremely attractive target for hackers, and if Uber gets hacked (as most companies eventually do), you won’t just have a small portion of personal identity information exposed — all of it will be exposed. Everything a person needs to pretend they are you.
Rider App. As a rider seeking a driver, it’s not quite clear what to do. There’s no responsiveness to the app. If you find the hidden menu (accessible by clicking on the person icon), and click on Get an Uber, nothing happens. There’s no navigated interaction. There’s no message stating, “We’re currently seeking a driver for you.” It just sits there. The instructions say to click on Pickup Location to define the pickup location. When you do that, a menu pops up asking for home and work addresses. Your only options are search or cancel or enter addresses for home/work. The Rider App needs improvement.
Uber Under Criticism. If you do a Google search for Uber horror stories, you’ll find among the 300,000 results, many stories of bad experiences. Similarly, if you do a Google search for Uber bad company, among the 5 million results, you’ll find many criticisms of Uber as a company. Some videos that have leaked, seem to be staged attempts at making Uber drivers seem bad. It seems that Uber has done something to upset Taxi drivers, and others. On Progressive.org, there’s an anti-Uber article that states, “an astroturf group backed by the Koch brothers, to inundate social media with pro-Uber propaganda urging support of the free market and innovative entrepreneurs.” So, getting on board with Uber as a driver makes you an open target for anti-Koch activists who want to make the company fail. Uber could be the best company in the world, but if anti-Koch activists don’t like it, the negative propaganda spin and backlash will be unending and make it almost impossible to succeed.
Vehicle Photos. You’ll be told you must upload four photos of your vehicle: driver side, passenger side, rear of vehicle, and back seat. After successfully uploading these photos, and seeing that they are in your profile for several weeks, you may login one day and find that only the driver side photo remains and it’s still listed as “Status: Pending” indicating that nobody has approved it yet.