How To Avoid Tickets While Driving Uber or Lyft
If you’ve driven for Uber or Lyft for any length of time, you may have received a ticket of some sort. It may have been a red light ticket, or a speeding camera ticket. Or, you may have received a ticket for waiting in a bus stop zone.
These tickets can be a real pain, and expensive too. A bus stop ticket ranges from $50 to $150 depending on which city you’re in. A speeding ticket can wind up costing you several hundred dollars and lead to an increase in your insurance rates. So, if you can, you’ll want to avoid getting tickets.
Now, for some types of tickets, the solution is simple. If you got a ticket for waiting in a bus stop, the solution is not to wait in a bus stop. If there’s a bus stop in front of the pickup address, pull over outside the bus stop, and text your passenger to let them know where you are.
On the other hand, if you’re worried about getting a speeding or red light ticket (or have gotten one already), there’s a simple solution that can dramatically decrease your chances of getting a ticket.
Download the Waze app, and use it for navigation instead of Google Maps or the built in Uber navigation.
What is Waze?
Waze is an Israeli navigation startup that crowdsources traffic and road information to help give drivers the best routes. Google bought Waze a few years back but has kept it separate from its Google Maps application.
In terms of the navigation, Waze works like most navigation systems. You enter in an address, and it tells you how to get there. It also gives you multiple routes you can take, and the distance and time differences between the routes
Waze is already the navigation tool of choice for many Uber and Lyft drivers. It usually gives better trip time estimates than the in-app Uber navigation or Google Maps. It also automatically helps drivers route around traffic jams.
While Waze lacks the lane assistance feature of Google Maps, it has one amazing feature that puts it head and shoulders above other navigation systems.
Waze Tells You Where Police And Red Light Cameras Are
Where Waze really shines is with the amount of crowdsourced information it makes available to drivers.
Waze users can, and do, send the app information on all sorts of road conditions. You can send in info not only on traffic jams, but also on pothole and construction locations, speed trap locations, police car locations, and speeding and red light camera locations.
What this means is that if you use Waze, you will automatically know if there is a red light camera ahead, because another Waze user sent in information on that red light camera. You’ll also know if there’s a police car waiting around that bend in the highway up ahead. Waze can even tell you which nearby gas stations are the cheapest.
While some users prefer the interface of Google Maps over Waze, no nav system beats Waze when it comes to helpful features for rideshare drivers.
So, if you’re looking to avoid tickets, and get your trips done in the most efficient manner, download Waze today. It’s available on Google Play or in the App Store.
