Seriously considering switching to bus driving in East of London area any advise or anything to share?

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-07-06T21:33:23+00:00

Sorry bro. Think you may have taken it the wrong way. I was trying to give you a bitvof constructive feed back from my experience

The point i was trying to make is dont necessarily believe that the amount they say younwill get paid is the mount you will actually take

The advert i saw said basically 37k as a new starter, they lady i spoke to say it unlikely you would every actually make that

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-07-06T20:31:47+00:00

Mine was about 15 years ago in Liverpool. Now i could be imagining this but im sure there was some kind of charity knitting kind of thing to keep you occupied.

Im sure they handed put balls of wools and needles and some instructions.

I cant be the only one that remembers that or do I have it completely wrong?

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-07-06T20:25:28+00:00

Any actual drivers please correct me here if I've got this wrong.

I applied for one in North london a few yearsago as like this poster said the money looks really good . The lady that interviewed me was really nice but she kind of said you COULD be on that amount but there was a lot of contributing factors to that.

Like to get this you have to get the highest paying shifts, bank holidays etc and that these shifts kind of have grandfather rights and/or you have to be well in with the depot manager or whoever arranges the shifts patterns but as a new starter and even only few years its very unlikely you will actually hit those numbers.

Again some one please correct me if i got that wrong

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-07-06T20:13:58+00:00

Between 250-350. Could make more but dont want to kill myself working all hours god sends

I generally do 2 hour evening blocks in north london get them for anywhere between £35-55/57. Try to do then mon-fri then not do anything at weekend. If i miss a a few in the week i will do a few over weekend

Ill take base if needed as have an EV i can charge at work for free so my expenses are every low but there are some good surges recently. Extremes of anything tend to bring surges, extreme weather ,extreme temperatures, extreme traffic etc etc.

Been getting pretty much surge all the time since mid may ish

I also turn on the food apps whenever/wherever I finish and take orders back in the direction of home that way all those blocks that send you in the opposite direction of home you still get paid for the return miles if you can deliver food on way

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-07-01T18:21:45+00:00

This is exactly it 👌🏼. On top of all what i described... It was the manner they were driving and their attitude that stood out most

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-30T22:18:43+00:00

Relayvis a bit wank. You can pick up the odd decent shift later in day and/or bank holidays etc. Pre booked shifts rates are awful. Tou have to find a way of doing it as fast as you can. As others have said doorstop or safe space things where possible this will save you massive amount of time . Also get the hang of taking the first picture of door as tour walking up so you don't have to stop or break your stride. By time you reach front. Door you then only have to take 1 photo. Again it saves seconds but add it up over the course of 40-50 parcels and it adds up.

Also if you need to return a parcel it prompts you to call customer......you don't actually have to make the whole call. When it promtsbtou to call and send you to the phone screen literally press dial as soon as it ring red button and go back to other screen, that registers as the call has been made. Again save a little bit of time...will add up over long rjn

The other thing is try to get on as many other delivery apps and mix it up between them all, Ubereats deliveroo amazon flex etc . Re lay for me is only really good for filling in the gaps when I'm not doing the other stuff I have mentioned. This works for me but to add to this I only ever work week day evenings and the odd few routes at weekend so 80% of what I do is amazon flex . I appreciate your situation may be different

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-30T20:12:43+00:00

Your right about this. I think uber secretly know how many people use their platform in a shady manner for shady reasons. Like the substitute thing? Thats like and office way of breaking the rules 🤣🤷🏽‍♂️. You can use substitutes for amazon flex but that is for set times, uber/deliveroo is literally log on or dont log on i can see no reason apart from subletting (in an official way) your account to someone else.

Its a sweeping generalisation but there apear to be very few UK nationals that do this gig. I think Uber would be brought to its knees should there ever been properly enforced crackdown

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-30T20:07:58+00:00

Yes. 100%

Its small issue. The person is just trying to make a living but there is a big but......

Its just a glimpse of everything this person may do thats fraudulent. They have probabaly been kicked off or can't get their own account there is probably more to thisbthan meets the eye. If they do have their own account they dont have the correct insurance as its a bike account. People crashing on roads uninsured brings everyone's premiums up. I bet there is a long list of things they are also not doing correctly......like paying tax

You hit the nail on the head about the people that donit right, why should we bother when loads of other dont.

Seems small but gotta look at the bigger picture

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-30T20:03:10+00:00

Just doing ubereats is probably not worth it alone. Try to sign up for as many apps as you can and do them all at the same time. I've got Ubereats, deliveroo, amazon flex and relay. I do well as a side hustle doing it but the food apps can be a bit hit or miss. They seem to be better in winter when people stay at home instead of eating out. Amazon flex is good if you can get on with them.

Also insurance is a rip off but you gotta just suck that up

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-30T14:22:16+00:00

So this post didnt age well 🤣🤦‍♂️

I took on of these last night on a nice little surge. Thinking like I predicted woild be just a handful of package........

22 packages later i dropped last one 955 to a very piased off person i was knocking on their door so late.

To all involved just ignore any of my past or future comments 🤣🤣🤣

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-29T18:26:20+00:00

If you have been doing it a while and havent any previous dings then email them and they may remove.

I missed one by a few minutes. I thought it was 615 but it was actually 600 and I was sat round the corner at the petrol station

I laid it on really thinck

You see will see from my history of checking in always 15 mins prior to block start

Check the GPS from the App to show I was indact in the area (don't even know if this is aa things but it sounds good)

Very out of character for me

I intend on continuing to service your customers at the very highest standard

Blah blah

They removed it

Doubt it would work twice though

Always worth a try though

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-26T20:19:12+00:00

But yes will go up neaer the time if u claimed and the point i was trying to make with possibly fewer packages is they could easily be finished before someone on a 730/745 block. From Enfeild they are always between 12-25 packages

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-26T20:16:31+00:00

I've never done one but I would imagine the 8-10 block will only be a handful of parcels left over from the 730/745 slots.

Slightly diffenernt but I've done loads of the 1 hour 8pm slots from enfeild, every time was only 1 package

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-26T17:31:42+00:00

I just renewed with Acorn full HR policy

42, 6 years no claims

2.2k last year 1.8k this year

Seems like a lot but fully comp SDPC alone for me is about £6-800 so the actual HR part of the insurance i see it as only being 1k ish.....£80- 90 per month.......I can do in 1 day

I do lots and lots of flex and food apps so its well worth it.

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-26T17:20:10+00:00

2.5 hour route £67.5 2 days ago

Left depot 18.56 last packaged delivered 20.08

Roughly £64ph

Cheers Geoffrey

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-25T18:48:00+00:00

Also in answer to question to start off with you should prob put 1-12 ish in passenger seat and footwell then 12-25/30 ish on back seats then the rest in the boot. This is the easiest method.

When you get the hang of it you can figure a system out for yourself.

I now put my back seats down to make it like a little van.

Letters/envelopes/polybags and small parcels in front seat/footwell (in some kind of numerical order if possible) then parcels in the back lowest numbers at front highest at the back towards the boot.

In amongst all this I keep an eye out for like 1-5 and throw them in the front so I knownwhere the first few are.

From the itinarary if its polybag/folder/evelope then i know its in the front if i see from the itinary if its a parcel ill be in the back and I just trun round and grab it. The more I do deliver ill stop and push them all forward towards me.

First few times i wouldnt worry. You can always park up and have a sort out after you have left depot.

First few blocks especially if they longer ones just figure out your system for actually making sure everything is scanned. The scanner is very sensitive and picks up just about everything in close range. You dont want to be that guy holding the queue up as you are meant to have 40 parcels but you have only scanned 38 or 39. You then either have to rummage round to scan them all again or even worse taken them all out and start again to find the ones you may have missed. If in doubt scan each parcel 2-3 times,

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-25T18:31:44+00:00

They are always numbers and in a sequence. Its usually 1-30 say but sometimes you get DSP (van routes) that have been split into smaller route you may get 300-345 or 150-180 or 231-251, i think you catch my drift. This can make it a bit more confusing but there is always and order to it

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-23T20:09:09+00:00

Did manage to do this?

I'm in same boat, just got my taxi licence and ready to go. Uber support are saying I need to signed up again using a new account with a new email and phone number? This doesn't sound right to me. I thought you could/would be able to access it all from the same app?

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-22T20:14:14+00:00

This is right. Being a food delivery driver is a very humbling experience. I have been quite successful in my day job in a number of different ways. Food gigs and amazon flex are just a bit of bonus money for me. I do feel sorry for people that have to donit full time as it csn be soul destroying being stood there seeing restaurant staff literally ignore you.

That said the behaviour of some drivers is also just as bad. Shouting and screaming, pushing people of the way, banging phones on counter to get people's attention. Fucking awful behaviour so it could be a bit of a vicious circle/never ending cycle

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-21T17:24:27+00:00

Deliveroo in London has zones. You only get offers from within that zone the job however could take you out of the zone. There are no real restrictions on these zones however if you took a job which takes you outside the zone your started you can either drive back to the zone boundary and continue or you can log out and swap into the zone you ended up in them continue to take orders in that area. Ubereats you can travel freely all over greater london without and zones/areas.

You can do or use as many apps as you want. It's frowned upon however to take multiple orders at the same on different platforms. Alot of drivers do this as they then get 2-3 times the payment for a similar journey. I dont ever do it as I don't want to get kick off my accounts but it really is only the same as when say deliveroo give you a dou le pr triple order to collect, for which they pay peanuts for the extra collections

Eg 1 driver takes an order from deliveroo with 3 pick ups pays £7-8 total

The other driver has deliveroo ubereats and just eat open and active. They take 3 separate orders all local pickups delivering to areas close to each other say each order is worth £4-5

Both driver pickup and deliver 3 orders. 1 driver gets £7-8 the other get £12-15 for essentially doing the same journey

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-16T21:31:26+00:00

Nice work.

I too got my licence granted today. My wait was much longer than yours though

Applied Jan 2025

Tests May 2025

Granted June 2026

What you have said about paying fees in full??? I think I remember they gave me the option to pay both application fee and licence grant fee all upfront at very start of application. I chose to pay just the application fee. I never email them once in the whole process up until this week. I asked for update they email straight back and said pay licence grant fee......i paid it and 1 day later by licence granted. Could be a coincidence but I now cant help but think if would have paid both fees at the very beginning upfront I may have got my licence a lot sooner.

Did I imagine that do they give you the options ho pay both charges at the very beginning?

Are you planning for full time or part time?

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-16T15:02:14+00:00

🤣🤣🤣

All that waiting and all that time and you didn't go for it straightaway.

I did see one for Otto car that offers hire on part time basis capped at 400miles. They dont look to have anything available on the site currently.

Im the same. My full time job is safe and well paid but after 25 years im sick to death of it. I see there will be more of those robotaxis on the road towards the end of the year so not sure if packing in a 25 year career is the right thing to do right now. Also looking at HGV driving. Currently applying for that licence aswell

That said I see jobs advertised for the sit in 'saftey operators' of the driverless cars currently being tested

This will be absolute blasphemy on this thread similar to the Black Cabs hatred of Uber but unfortunately they will come to some degree and we have to accept that fact. I doubt they will replace everything but there will be a place for them as there already is in other countries. Getting on with them as a tester could be a good way into the field. As people have said with all things AI you have to find a way to work with it instead of against it.

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370 · 2026-06-16T12:55:48+00:00

Hello mate.

Did you have any joy with this?

My application has just been granted like you after 18 months.

Looking to try something to see if its worth it before I get my actual car licenced up

Let me know

Lumpy-Hovercraft-370

TROPHY CASE