LA Uber Drivers Are The Most Miserable, Study Finds

BEVERLY HILLS, CA — Uber drivers are the unsung heroes of early flights, late nights out and everything in between. They drive on Christmas, they drive at odd hours of the day and they'll even sit in L.A. traffic for you while you play on your phone in the backseat.

But Angelenos, we have to start treating our Uber drivers better. According to a study by AutoInsuranceEZ.com and The Rideshare Guy, L.A.'s Uber drivers are the most miserable in the country. The company studied more than 220,000 posts on the complaint subforum of Uberpeople.net, a popular site where Uber drivers frankly share about their experiences.

Between April 2014 and August 2019 when the data was collected, Los Angeles and Orange County combined had more than four times the amount of complaints as the runner up, Washington, D.C. The Southland had 47,684 total complaints, which "probably reflects local traffic conditions: L.A. is notoriously congested," the study said.

Top Areas For Driver Complaints:

1. Los Angeles and Orange County: 47,684 complaints
2. Washington, D.C.: 11,274 complaints
3. San Francisco: 11,021 complaints
4. New Jersey: 8,731 complaints
5. Chicago: 8,228 complaints

The most talked about neighborhoods with complaints were Santa Monica (3,667 complaints) and Hollywood (2,420), followed by Santa Barbara (345), Van Nuys (270), Sherman Oaks (229), Skid Row (202) and Venice (185). Other most talked about neighborhoods in Southern California included Los Feliz (117), Pacific Palisades (108), Bel Air (98), Highland Park (91), Eagle Rock (77), Canoga Park (58) and Laurel Canyon (53), according to the study.

The most common complaint keyword among all drivers, by far, was "passengers," so it may be time to check the snooty attitudes and drunk antics at the (car) door.

Most Common Complaints Include These Phrases:

1. Passengers: 15,706 complaints
2. Uber drivers: 6,440 complaints
3. Cancellation fees: 1,926 complaints
4. Service animals: 1,854 complaints
5. Don't care: 1,704 complaints

Although holidays can present drivers with opportunities to earn more thanks to surge pricing, it's also a reminder that drivers do not receive paid holiday leave, the study said. Christmas and Halloween were the top two worst holidays for drivers.

Unsurprisingly, the top time for driver complaints was midnight (with 331 total complaints), and the least were mid-afternoon, between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. (ranging between 14 and 25 complaints per hour). More generally, more than 1,000 complaint posts included the phrase "at night," the study said.

To read more about the study, visit AutoInsuranceEZ.com. And the next time you hop into an Uber, remember to keep it civil.

AutoInsuranceEZ.com Methodology:

Auto Insurance EZ analyzed approximately 221,511 posts in the “Complaints” subforum at https://uberpeople.net, a forum for Uber drivers with more than 149,000 members at the time of our analysis (August 2019). Posts ranged in date from April 2014 to August 2019. Some similar phrases were grouped by topic.

To find the number of complaints by city, Auto Insurance EZ matched the user names found in all of the city-specific subforums with those in the Complaints subforum. Auto Insurance EZ found a total of more than 50,000 unique users in the various city subforums.

Auto Insurance EZ searched through the Complaint subforum posts for total mentions of various holidays, as well as times of day mentioned in posts. These times were not indicative of the time they were posted to the forum.

Auto Insurance EZ focused on four cities for another part of our analysis and gathered posts from Uberpeople.net’s city-specific subforums. These included posts of all kinds, not just complaints. To find the neighborhoods that were most discussed in each city subforum, Auto Insurance EZ searched for well-known neighborhood names within the data and grouped various spellings of the neighborhoods into categories.

Posts from Uberpeople.net reflect the opinions of only some of Uber’s many drivers, and their opinions may not accurately reflect upon Uber as a company. Additionally, it is possible that posts in the complaint forum may include both complaints, praise, and neutral comments.