Uber issues their 2018 safety report a few days before the end of 2019. All hail the self-regulating free market!
Uber disclosed 3,000 sexual assaults reported in U.S. rides last year in its long-awaited safety report, amidst widespread criticism of its safety practices and pressure to increase its transparency over the issue.
In a lengthy report, which divides sexual misconduct into 21 categories, Uber said it recorded 235 rapes last year and hundreds more reports of assault which could involve unwanted touching, kissing or attempted rape.
The report also examined other safety categories, including violent crimes such as physical assaults and motor vehicle deaths. Uber said there were 107 motor vehicle fatalities in 2017 and 2018 in a total of 97 fatal crashes involving users on the app. The company also said there were 19 fatal physical assaults over the same time period.
Of course we have no context on the deaths and assaults versus taxi services, so I don’t know if they’re better or worse than cabs. My guess is worse, since the barrier to entry to someone who wants to turn their car into a independently contracted grope wagon is lower than a driver who wants to join a taxi service.
Also, is it just me, or is Lyft’s relationship to Uber similar to Target’s relationship to Wal-Mart? Both do basically the same thing, but the bigger one’s business practices are a bit worse, so they get most of the heat.
Disinformation Is Coming To A Computer Near You
sdhays
It’s not just you. Lyft is run by people who at least see the value in pretending to be a company that tries to have some ethics. Uber is run by people who are offended by the idea that they need to be held to any ethical standard. They MUST let their asshole flag fly.
TomatoQueen
A local taxi company in my town has a contract with the city to transport ambulatory/disabled persons hither and yon. I used it daily for three years before I was approved to work at home full time. While I had many complaints about the taxi service, mostly having to do with lateness in winter, the one thing I could be assured of was their drivers had to pass background checks. During the time I used the service, Uber and Lyft were actively recruiting among the taxi drivers, and a lot of the younger ones left for what they thought were greener pastures (keep in mind the vast majority of taxi drivers in Northern VA are refugees), but the older guys stayed, because they thought Uber/Lyft were exploiting their drivers, and at that time at least there was no vetting done in the way the taxi drivers experienced. I’ve been at home ever since so I don’t know whether the situation has changed in the 18 months since.
Chetan Murthy
I’ve never purchased an Uber ride[1]. I HAVE purchased rides on Lyft. And I’ve been told by women I know, that Lyft has more female *drivers*, and that they feel more comfortable taking Lyft, for this reason. I have no idea if this is true or not — I didn’t take Lyft enough to be able to measure, and since I took Uber *once*, I don’t have a control sample. But anecdotally, Lyft seems to have the cachet of being “nicer”.
And sure, maybe that’s even TRUE for riders. For drivers? It doesn’t seem to me that they’re any different in the way they treat drivers.
[1] full disclosure: once I was at a friend’s house, and was getting ready to leave. He was rich, and insisted on calling me an Uber, even though I had been in the habit (as always) of walking to the train station and taking the MUNI home). The Uber arrived, and so I accepted, b/c geez, he’d already paid. That’s the ONE time I used uber.
Mnemosyne
I’ve ridden in Ubers with other people, but I use Lyft when I need some type of taxi service I can get via an app. I do seem to get quite a few female drivers, probably because I’m a woman as well and we all feel that there’s safety in numbers. Also I’m a good tipper and thus a popular customer.
mistermix loves your ass
When I was traveling more for business, I went to places like Nashville that you can only (realistically) get a Lyft. I talked to the drivers and they said that Lyft paid better and treated them better.
Amir Khalid
We have Grab in southeast Asia — it was founded in Malaysia and originally named MyTeksi — and Sister Golden Bear seems pretty happy with the interactions she had with them during her time in Thailand. I’m generally happy with Grab too. They bought out Uber’s regional operation a few years ago when Uber pulled out. The sense I get from drivers is that Grab treats them much better than Uber did.
Yarrow
A friend of mine was recently in New Orleans, which is not where she lives. She took an Uber at some point and the Uber driver took her off-map to some dark, deserted part of town, stopped the car, tried to get her to come sit with him in the front seat, tried to get her to kiss him, give him a blow job and come back to his apartment. She threatened to call 911 and eventually he took her back to her hotel. She was beyond freaked out. When she was in the deserted area she didn’t feel she had a lot of leverage. She could have called 911 but she didn’t really know where she was. Sure she had location mapping on her phone but she didn’t know the city and didn’t know how long 911 would take. She had no idea what the driver was going to do to her. Terrifying.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, here in the Los Angeles metro area, most drivers seem to drive for both Lyft and Uber. I think that many of them are driving as their primary source of income, not just a side gig, so they want to get as many rides as possible. I also tend to ride at odd hours of the day, so that may be another reason I get a lot of dual drivers.
NotMax
Across the pond – Uber will not be granted a new licence to operate in London after repeated safety failures, Transport for London (TfL) has said..
donnah
My sister-in-law had issues with an Uber driver. She was taking a ride from the airport back to her house and he went on a way-too-long roundabout route. She told him to let her out at a shopping center and he refused. She finally jumped out at a red light, called the police and reported him.
I don’t know what ever happened after that, but she was pretty scared.
Dan B
Somewhere I saw an article that said Uber has a separate drinking fountain(s) so the white collar workers don’t have to use the same fountain as the drivers.
Character = Policy?
different-church-lady
Nearly 10 a day?!?
BBA
Between Uber and Lyft being morally bankrupt, taxis being owned by Russian organized crime fronts, and the MTA being perpetually out of commission because all the fare money is diverted to inflate pensions for 50-year-old retired LIRR conductors who moved to gated communities in Florida long ago… I think I’ll walk.
Ken
I’m writing up the prospectus now. We should have a couple million in venture capital funding by the first of the year.
laura
@Dan B: separate bathrooms at Uber 1 for drivers and 1 for employees.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
How is it we never hear this in the news. We get endless coverage when an overworked UPS driver tosses a tee vee on the porch. Yet one person every three weeks is getting murdered in an Uber and we hear crickets.
different-church-lady
@laura: Well, would you want a bunch of rapists using your corporate bathrooms?
Baud
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch:
It’s not clear whether that includes drivers getting killed by passengers.
Belafon
I haven’t used either, but I believe Lyft allowed both the passenger and driver to specify the gender of they person they were willing to be picked up by/ride with.
Dan B
@laura: Uber is the new Jim Crow.
Martin
It’s pretty damn easy to become a taxi driver. Basically, drivers are just renting the cabs now – they aren’t employees. Some days they’ll lose money.
In theory Uber drivers should be more accountable because the passenger can positively identify them through the app simply by using the review feature. You can’t so easily do that with a cab.
That’s not a defense of Uber. My guess is that taxis are no better on user miles travelled. But I think Uber has an opportunity to be significantly better which they choose to not take.
schrodingers_cat
@laura: IIT Madras has two drinking fountains, sinks to wash your hands etc. One for people who eat vegetarian food and one for people who don’t. But the caste system is dead or so I was told.
Eating vegetarian food == stand is code for being Brahmin in that state.
different-church-lady
@Martin:
Algorithms!
cthulhu
@donnah: Given that the drivers for Uber and Lyft are getting paid a pre-determined amount for the ride, it makes no sense for them to go way out of the way as per some classic drivers do to up the fare. Plus the driver app is supposed to keep them up on the currently optimal route. So anytime the driver is doing something like you describe, that’s a big red flag of something more sinister.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I was partying with some friends a few summers ago in Colorado. My one friend who actually lived outside Denver passed out after we were dropped off and when he woke up the Uber driver was way the fuck on the other side of town. His bill wound up being over $250. Lol…. Good times.
mrmoshpotato
A few weeks ago, a buddy of mine on Ann Arbor sent me pricing for a 6-mile Uber trip on a football Saturday – 63-122 dollars.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin: Metered taxis, in the cities where I have taken them, have a license or medallion number and the name and license number of the driver posted prominently inside the cab. They also have a *local* regulatory body that you can turn to. so if you have an issue in NYC, you refer it to the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. If you have an issue with an Uber in NYC, good luck getting anyone to respond.
I readily admit to being an Old, but I prefer to use licensed taxis and to stay in actual hotels, because then I have some recourse (and I can have more confidence that there won’t be a video camera in my room.)
Patricia Kayden
Knock on wood but so far I haven’t had any negative experiences with UBER so it’s horrifying to see this story. Wowzers! That’s a lot of assaults and murders. Congress should consider passing regulations to force such companies to properly vet drivers.
jonas
Nobody talks about all the Uber riders who made it to their destination *without* being assaulted.
raven
@mrmoshpotato: Surge pricing. I watch them fluctuate before Georgia games and mash the button when the get low enough.
Gin & Tonic
@Patricia Kayden: There are plenty of state/local regulations and enforcement agencies. Uber’s business model is based on ignoring them.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Uber ‘s demand pricing must have added a hefty premium to the regular, non-football-Saturday price.
Martin
@different-church-lady: No, not algorithms. The reason Uber and Lyft work at all is that driver and passenger are matched before the trip. It does that so the passenger can see the drivers reviews and decide whether to accept that driver – it’s a balancing of information that helps passengers, which taxis don’t offer – you get what you get.
That means that before any assault takes place, the identity of the driver is known to Uber, and the passenger has a way to communicate that this specific driver did this act. You don’t have that with taxis. It’s literally baked into the very premise of Uber. That’s why they have an opportunity to improve the situation so much, and why its so disappointing that they aren’t doing it.
raven
I just got back from the “Festival of Lights” Parade and the local nut job church had a guy dressed as a bloody jesus on the cross again. They’ve been banned before and I look for it to happen again.
Chetan Murthy
@Patricia Kayden: My understanding is that (for instance) in NYC Uber drivers must also be licensed by the TLC. I’m pretty sure that in SF, the same thing applies. And sure, that isn’t enough, but the problem really is all the places where such licensing doesn’t exist, or isn’t needed to drive for Uber. And that Uber doesn’t work with cities to ensure that all drivers are vetted by independent bodies.
Central Planning
My corporate overlord (a fortune 100 company) prefers we use Lyft if we are going to use a ride sharing service. We are big on corporate social responsibility, so if they give Lyft the stamp of approval for business use, that’s OK by me.
A few years ago we had a Lyft or Uber in Vegas, and she was a horrible driver. Swerving on the road, fast accelerations/stops, telling us how she gets suspended because of bad ratings. We were terrified and gave her a bad rating.
Last time in Vegas, all (ok, not all, but truly almost all) my Lyft drivers lived in Hawaii and then Alaska before settling down in Vegas. I can’t explain that.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
That was another reason Uber pulled out of southeast Asia: aside from getting clobbered by Grab, they were also scared off by national regulators’ plans in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.
Kent
Since Uber is so horrible and refuses to do legit background checks one would think it would be a perfect opening for Lyft to up their game and distinguish themselves by advertising full background checks and other value-added perks. I’m guessing bazillions of women would flock to Lyft if they gained a reputation as the safer and more reputable service.
But what do I know. I’m not a tech billionaire.
NotMax
@Central Planning
Huge number of people from Hawaii travel to or settle there, so much so that locally here Las Vegas is sometimes referred to as a suburb of Honolulu.
Paul in Saint Augustine
I drive for both platforms. Uber for 4 years, Lyft for just over one. I have driven 4,180 trips for Uber, and 638 for Lyft. My Uber rating (based on a sliding “last 500 ratings” scale) is 4.93 out of 5. My Lyft rating over a 100 ride sliding scale, is 5 out of 5. On my first day of retirement, in January of 2016, I realized I had to find something to get out of the house, and this fits exactly with my needs. This, from the Uber report, looks at this subject from 30,000 feet. I am not at all defending sexual harassment in any way, shape. or form. Harassment is abhorrent, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Just pointing our that, at least my Uber vehicle, like most is not an ” independently contracted grope wagon”.
From the report:
For 2017 and 2018 combined:
••Non-Consensual Kissing of a Non-Sexual Body Part was reported to occur in about 1 in every 2,000,000 completed
trips.
••Attempted Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration was reported to occur in about 1 in 4,000,000 completed trips.
This category covers a wide range of reports and includes attempted clothing removal and incident reports that
are fragmented or incomplete due to memory loss or lack of event recall.
••Instances of Non-Consensual Touching of a Sexual Body Part were reported to occur in about 1 in every 800,000
trips.
••Non-Consensual Kissing of a Sexual Body Part was reported to occur in 1 in every 3,000,000 completed US trips.
••Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration—the most serious sexual assault category—was reported to occur in about 1
in 5,000,000 US trips, or on approximately 0.00002%40 of US trips.
••Across these 5 categories of sexual assault, riders account for nearly half (45%) of accused parties.
••From 2017 to 2018, Uber saw approximately a 16% decrease in the average incident rate of the 5 most serious
sexual assault categories reported.
Based on preliminary estimates for the first half of 2019, the same 5 categories of sexual assault currently reflect a 17-20%
decrease when compared to the full year of 2018.
Central Planning
@NotMax: But why did they all detour through Alaska first? They didn’t seem like rugged outdoors types
mrmoshpotato
@raven: I know. It’s still ridiculous.
Martin
Having lived in NYC when Son of Sam was running around murdering people, I’m going to call shenanigans on the utility of the TLC. I don’t know if they’re any less mob captured than they used to be, but they seriously used to be.
Uber corp has an app which is real-time tracking both the driver and the passenger. Their opportunity for making their service safer is clearly better than TLCs.
Your point further down that Ubers business model is ignoring local regulation is on the mark. That was necessary to change the market, but they never adapted their business model once they won that battle. I won’t take Uber for these various reasons. I think Lyft would be wise to keep investing in addressing this. They could work with companies like Apple and Google to expand safety services in their devices – work to hook 911 more directly into the app, etc.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
It used to be a feature of Easter in the mostly-Catholic Philippines that a few guys would get themselves nailed to a cross in emulation of Jesus. It looks as horrific and dangerous a way to spend a weekend as it sounds. The Church there frowns upon the practice, and I hear it’s rarer than it was before; but I’m sure some people still have a misplaced idea of what following Jesus’ example entails.
J R in WV
@Martin:
I’ve taken cabs in NYC, LA, NOLA, DC, and there is ALWAYS a cab license showing the passengers the driver’s photo, name, number, etc… with a phone number for complaints. Most drivers we had last Nov in NYC were polite, good drivers, willing to chat if we asked questions.
In a NY snow storm we helped our cabbie from Ghana get the defroster running, and he took us from the American Museum of Natural History down to Murray Hill; took nearly 2 hours in 8 inches of snow with trees down in residential neighborhoods. BIG TIP when we were stopped in traffic a block from our hotel.
Went into a Japanese restaurant between the cab and the hotel, was great. Cabs are professional grade. We had a great Ukrainian cabbie in LA last February, wished we could have taken him to dinner to chat. From the Getty back to the hotel near the airport.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Ugh
Gin & Tonic
@Martin:
Opportunity =/= actuality.
NotMax
@Central Planning
Your guess is as good (probably better) than mine. Travel to Alaska from Hawaii has historically been brisk. From Alaska to Hawaii, not so much.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Of course travel to Alaska is going to be brisk!
/rimshot
oldgold
Just now at CNN town hall:
Pelosi: “I am not on a time schedule. I am on a mission.”
Jeffro
@oldgold: It needs its own thread, desperately.
God bless Nancy Smash!
mrmoshpotato
@oldgold: Yes! She will punch Dump with impeachment on her own schedule.
Jay
Keep in mind, these are reported cases, to Uber.
Generally sexual assault cases are greatly under reported by the victims.
Emma
This is very surprising. I take Uber daily and I have never had a bad interaction with a driver in a year. In Miami Uber is a very multicultural bunch. Last night my driver was an older gentleman from Jamaica and he was playing Bob Marley so we spent the ride talking about music “from the islands.” In the morning my driver is usually from my town; in fact one of my drivers is a young woman that lives in the townhouses down the street. I suppose I must have an unusual set-up.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I’ve known quite a few folk from Alaska(my uncle used to live there), they often vacation in Hawaii during the winter. Satan’s Alaska subsidiary used to fly one of their planes from ANC to HON on a regular basis for employees to vacation in Hawaii.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Difference in the volume of vacationers versus the volume of those who pack up and move (for at least part of the year).
Jay
@Emma:
by Uber’s numbers that’s 3165 sexual assaults in 5.22 billion rides.
PST
@Baud:
I pulled up the report, and it is clear. Of 19 killings over two years, drivers committed 8. With 2.3 billion rides, the chance of being killed by a driver on any particular ride is 1 in about 290 million. Very long odds. Uber used definitions in the report that include assaults by passengers against drivers and against each other. That is true of the sexual categories, where many of the acts are between passengers. The definitions also include acts within 48 hours of a ride, and thus include acts committed by one passenger against another after reaching the destination.
Personally, I use Uber and Lyft quite a bit and have always felt safer than in a taxi. I like the fact that every transaction is recorded, which is not true in cabs, no money changes hands, and I get to influence whether the drivers keep their jobs.
It may be different in some locations, but the scrutiny given Chicago cab drivers seems cursory. In general, I like cab drivers, but I’ve had scores of disturbing conversations in cabs, including overt racist diatribes against all kinds of groups, especially Jews, and truly weird oversharing on the subject of sex, mostly by men of my own mature years who feel compelled to talk about erectile dysfunction. I have to believe that women experience far worse. I’ve reported incidents before, with absolutely no follow-up. They included being put out of a cab on the side of the Kennedy coming back from O’Hare when the driver decided that my friend and I owed two fares instead of one because we were neighbors and not residents of the same house.
None of this is to deny safety issues at Uber, but I was impressed by the efforts at improvement documented in the report, and I have no idea how ride sharing compares with the alternatives. I get millions of results, for example, if I Google sexual assaults by bus drivers, although I did not find statistics.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@NotMax: Very True, they call Las Vegas “the ninth island”
Marcopolo
Totally OT but Lawrence ODonnell is about to go after Butigieg for his comments about the D’s and deficits in NH. Should be fun.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t recall that being nailed to the cross was Jesus’s idea. People are actually voluntarily being nailed to a cross for 24 hrs? I’m thinking pretty obvious insanity…..
janesays
@Dan B: Uber drivers don’t report to any sort of office, so… pretty sure that’s an urban myth.
TS (the original)
@Marcopolo:
Just listened – he’s also invited Buttigieg to go on his show & discuss that republicans create deficits, democrats reduce them – often at much political cost.
Marcopolo
@TS (the original): This episode is a fine example of why I am not particularly high on Buttigieg. Will vote for him if he’s the nominee but not feeling whatever it is that folks who like him do.
NotMax
@Marcopolo
re: Buttigieg
To paraphrase Abe: Tis better people think you a tool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.
Amir Khalid
@Ruckus:
I’m not Christian myself, but like you I’m pretty sure that getting crucified wasn’t Jesus’ plan. And it’s for certain not what one is supposed to emulate.
Anotherlurker
@Gin & Tonic: You summed up my feeling about Uber and Lyft perfectly.
Taxi and Limo commissions keep tabs on the drivers of the Medallion Cabs. I like that.
kwallio
I drive for both lyft and uber and the commenter above who said that riders or passengers can specify the gender of the other is 100% wrong. You can’t specify anything about the driver or passenger, you can only cancel the ride if you don’t like something about your driver or passenger.