Rideshare Drivers Rush to Protect Earnings As Iran War Sends Gas Prices on Rollercoaster Ride

Rising gas prices might affect your ability to use rideshare services.

Business Insider reported that drivers are increasingly taking into account rising gas prices before accepting a ride request. According to AAA, the national average gallon of gas has risen from $3.19 a gallon to $3.58 a gallon in a week. Also, gas is about 50 cents a gallon more than it was at the same time last year.

Business Insider noted that rideshare drivers don’t control fare prices. But, they can control what trips they accept. One driver in California, Sergio Avedian, told the website that he expected drivers to avoid shorter city trips in heavy traffic that might eat up a lot of gas relative to the distance traveled.

“We do not call the shots. The fares are not going up, and Uber and Lyft are not paying us more to make up this difference, which is immense,” Avedian told Business Insider.

The website noted that in 2022 when the Ukraine war started, the companies implemented a 10-cent surcharge to help offset the rising cost of gas. No such surcharge has been announced so far.

“If a trip that is offered to you as a driver is not profitable, I tell them to ‘decline and recline.’ You have to decline bad offers, because this is not a public service,” Avedian told Business Insider.

The price of a barrel of oil briefly surged past $100 a barrel earlier this week. Since then, the price has fluctuated before settling in between $80 and $90. Still, oil is up from when the Iran war began on February 28, when the price was between $60 and $70 a barrel.

While the price of oil remains elevated, there was some good news on Wednesday. The International Energy Agency unanimously agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from emergency reserves in response to the Iran war.