Uber Report Reveals Platform’s Users Experienced Thousands Of ‘Harrowing’ Sexual Assault Incidents During Pandemic
July 1 2022, Published 1:17 p.m. ET
Uber experienced a dramatic plunge in the number of sexual assault reports filed in the United States between 2019 and 2020, but the number of claims was still in the thousands, the rideshare company announced, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The U.S. Safety Report, released on June 30 and the company’s second ever, states data “continues to show that the vast majority of trips on Uber–more than 99.9%–are completed without any safety report at all.”
The report, which covers 2019-2020, acknowledges that rides with Uber during the height of the pandemic decreased as much as 80 percent. Still, riders took 2.1 billion of them.
The report states government data showed that “2020 was the deadliest year on American roads since 2007 as a result of a rise in risky behaviors such as drunk driving, speeding, and not wearing a seat belt” and “Uber’s platform was not immune to those broader trends.”
The company also reveals they received 3,824 reports “across the five most severe categories of sexual assault and misconduct” between 2019 and 2020, which was a 38 percent drop compared to Uber’s first Safety Report covering the years 2017 through 2018.
According to Uber, in 2019-2020, 43 percent of the time riders were the accused party in sexual assault reports.
In 2020, Uber received 141 reports of nonconsensual sexual penetration in 2020, or about 1 in every 5 million rides.
“Each reported incident represents a harrowing lived experience for the survivor,” the company says. “Even one report is one report too many.”
The number of rideshare accidents resulting in death remained well below the average in the United States, the rideshare company says in the report.
“Uber’s motor vehicle fatality rate is still half the national average,” the Safety Report states, explaining, “Consistent with national trends, more than half of the motor vehicle fatalities highlighted in this report include at least one risky behavior, such as impairment or speeding—and 94% were related to third-party drivers.”
Uber notes the company has been building on their commitment to safety in multiple ways, such as launching safety features in the app that include text-to-911 and on-trip reporting features to sharing driver account deactivation information with Lyft and other platforms concerning serious safety incidents.
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“We’re constantly innovating and investing in the safety of our platform,” the company explains in the report. “We’ve prioritized robust screening processes and technology, built new safety features and invested in providing riders and drivers with support in times of need."
