This is the story of my second, first Uber taxi ride. My first, first Uber taxi ride didn’t happen – that should have been two weeks ago when I wanted a lift from my house, to the Jaipur restaurant in Milton Keynes. At this time, I could see one Uber taxi in Milton Keynes, six minutes from my house. I tried calling it several times from the Uber app, but it just kept timing out, so in the end, I took my Alfa Romeo.

Last week went like this:

• Monday: Milton Keynes to Derby (home to office)
• Tuesday: Derby to Milton Keynes (say hi to my family), then Milton Keynes to Woking (hotel)
• Wednesday: Woking (training course) to Milton Keynes (home)
• Thursday: Milton Keynes to Derby to Milton Keynes (home, office, home)
• Friday: Stayed in Milton Keynes (home)

That’s quite a bit of travel, made worse by two things:

1. My manager insisted that I work in Derby on the Thursday (there was absolutely no need for this, I could have worked from home)
2. I was having a recurring issue with the exhaust on my MINI:

So I phoned my dad to ask if I could borrow his car for a day. He was having dinner with friends at a pub at Cauldecotte, Milton Keynes. So I decided to get a taxi there. As I had £10 free credit to use, I hailed an Uber taxi – there were 4 showing as being available in Milton Keynes at the time.

Within 7 minutes, Mahad picked me up and took me to the pub. It was quite expensive at £11.03 for a short trip, but I had £10 free credit, so it was fine.

Mahad was a taxi driver for a living and was just doing this to earn some extra cash in his spare time. He was happy with Uber and said that Uber customers (which get rated by the drivers) were generally  better behaved than many of the people that he picks up as part of his day job. Note that passengers get to rate the drivers too!

On the way, we chatted about Uber, driverless cars – and of course Tesla (which I am a big fan of). He knew about all these things – it was nice to meet him. Once we arrived at the destination, we rated each other 5 stars.

Once at the pub, I picked up the keys from my dad and drove his car down to Woking.

Overall, I like the idea of Uber – my first attempt to use them was a #fail, but the second attempt worked. I do think it was quite expensive though (compared to standard taxis), so I’m glad I did get the £10 off.

You can get £10 off of your first ride, with the promo code 8usb5 (this will also give me £10 credit, after you take your first ride).

There are only a few Uber taxis in Milton Keynes at the moment (and none in Derby right now – which is where I’m currently working from), but there are loads in London, including lots of different categories (going from standard cars, to high-end luxury).

I am fascinated with Uber, they have quickly grown to be the biggest taxi company in the world – and they don’t own any taxis! Last week they stated to experiment with driverless cars in Pittsburgh, USA. Tesla have already announced that they intent to allow people to rent out their cars as taxis (self-driving, fully automated), which will help people pay for (and/or earn money from) their Tesla’s, as well as put a lot of taxi staff out of business. This whole space has moved and is continuing to work at a fast space.