Pushing those kinds of costs onto the drivers seems to be one of the main points of Uber.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/understanding-the-econom...
>Since no one can provide plausible Uber growth theories based on major productivity/service improvements, one must consider the possibility that Uber management’s growth strategies may be at least partially based on drivers it would not want to publicize. The labor exploitation hypothesis suggests that Uber not only hopes to avoid paying higher costs that might be needed to attract drivers away from competing companies, but hopes to actually achieve driver costs lower than what existing companies face, by exploiting significant information dissymmetries. One key is Uber’s “independent contractor” approach, whereby those drivers provide the vehicle, vehicle maintenance and liability insurance. As mentioned earlier, traditional business logic suggests that this approach could not work because existing companies could always get much better rates than individuals acting in isolation. In these situations Uber has shifted the full vehicle capital risk (normally borne by a taxi company) to the driver; this allows Uber to grow without raising much capital, but there is no evidence that drivers are being compensated for their (collectively) large capital contribution, or the risk that Uber exercises it rights to suddenly terminate the contract of the person who had purchased a vehicle on its behalf. Similarly, the typical taxi/limo driver may not understand the true maintenance/depreciation costs of intensive commercial use as well as professional fleet managers, and multiple reports indicate Uber drivers do not always understand the requirement to purchase commercial insurance with significantly greater liability coverage than their personal policies (carrying paying passengers would invalidate their personal policies and violate laws in most cities).