Uber seems like a quick and convenient way of traveling to your next destination, but it actually could be a traumatic experience for some passengers.
Uber has finally released their analytics reports for 2019-2020 and they have admitted to almost 4,000 sexual assaults occurred in it’s U.S. vehicles.
A 78-page US Safety Report, released Thursday, detailed that the company received 3,824 reports across five categories of severe sexual assault between Jan. 1, 2019, and Dec. 31, 2020.
This included categories of sexual assault such as “non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part”, “non-consensual sexual penetration,” and rape.
While the report stated that the total number “represents a devastating experience for the individuals, families, and communities impacted,” it is actually 38% down from the 5,981 assaults recorded in Uber’s first safety report, published in December 2019, which covered the period 2017-2018.
The assaults also accounted for just 0.0002% of the total Uber rides during the 12-month period to Dec. 2020.
“Uber was the first in the industry to produce a comprehensive safety report back in 2019,” Uber’s Austen Radcliff said. “As we said then and continue to say today: secrecy doesn’t make anyone safer.
“Together with leading advocacy organizations, including the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Urban Institute, we developed a first-of-its-kind taxonomy to consistently categorize instances of sexual assault and misconduct. That taxonomy is now open source and used by others, including Lyft, and we encourage more companies to follow our lead.”
While a 30% decline is obviously good news for Uber customers, the company also acknowledges that they had a decrease in riders of only 650 million trips in 2020 compared with 1.4 billion in 2019.
“The change in rate of sexual assault reports over time may have been impacted by a number of factors, including how the COVID-19 pandemic altered usage of the platform as well as Uber’s safety and transparency efforts,” Uber stated in the report. “But each reported incident represents a harrowing lived experience for the survivor. Even one report is one report too many.”
Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer, echoed the latter comments in a news release about the safety report.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today without the guidance and support of experts and advocacy groups,” he wrote. “We are thankful for the opportunity to listen, to learn, and to partner with people from around the world.
“They continue to guide our safety journey and help us create many of the policies and processes we have in place today,” he added.
Many of Uber’s customers have suggested a better vetting process when it comes to hiring drivers. This could create a better class of drivers and promise a more secure service.
I will never understand why anyone male or particularly female will get into a vehicle with a stranger at the wheel! I said from day one these rides were going to be trouble! Put these companies out of business, this report should prove that they need to be ousted!