Once while leaving a date I ordered an Uber. I gave my date a kiss goodnight and hopped in the Uber. He must have seen me kiss her goodbye, because the rest of the unfortunately long ride was full of invasive and sexually explicit questions about lesbians.
I work in tech, and my friends are also often coworkers. That’s a roundabout way of saying most of my friends are guys these days. They were once discussing taking Lyfts or Ubers intentionally to sleep a bit on the way home. It was appalling to me. Falling asleep in a Lyft sounds terrifying. I told them about my experiences with the services and what other women deal with. They were shocked at just how different the experience is for women.
The truth is, the world isn’t a safe place for women, and neither Lyft nor Uber can change that. A Twitter thread once caused concern and rage because a woman questioned: “Women, what would you do if men had a 9PM curfew?” The thread was full of women talking about things they’d do if they feel safe. Spoiler: it was things guys just do. Go out to bars alone. Use public transport. Walk the dog. One situation men might not think about is just how vulnerable women feel getting into a stranger’s car. As it turns out, we have very good reason to be worried, and companies aren’t doing enough to ensure rider safety.
Now, over 30 women have come forward with harrowing stories of sexual assault and rape. They’re suing Lyft for not only doing little to protect them, but also doing too little to ensure other women are safe. Lyft has largely ignored their complaints. Maybe now they won’t.
In This Article:
What Happened?
Trigger Warning: Skip to the next section if descriptions of violence of a sexual nature may upset you or causes PTSD symptoms. The next section, titled “What Has Lyft Already Done,” and past that will solely focus on changes Lyft has done and should do.
In September, 14 women sued Lyft for their horrific experiences in Lyft cars. This month, 20 more joined the lawsuit. In 2017, a woman hailed a Lyft for what should have been a 15 minute ride. Instead, the driver held her at gunpoint, drove her out of state, and, along with two other men, raped her. When she reported her harrowing gang rape to Lyft, she says she received a canned response, though Lyft claims she only reported an unusual route. It gets worse. After any confusion was clarified, Lyft’s response was still unsatisfactory, and she still had to pay for her ride.
Lyft “apologized for the inconvenience that I’d been through” and informed me they “appreciated the voice of their customers and were committed to doing their best in giving me the support that I needed.” However, to my utter shock, Lyft informed me that I would still be expected to pay for the original estimated cost of my ride and I would be “unpaired” from the driver in the future — I’d later learn he remained a Lyft driver.
The NYPD and then the FBI have been involved with her investigation. Meanwhile, Lyft couldn’t even bring themselves to fire the man who, along with three other men, brutally gang raped a woman. He later used a different name to continue working for Lyft for years.
Now, over 30 women have joined a lawsuit against Lyft for these disgusting oversights that put women’s safety at risk. Many of them report that Lyft still charged them for the rides that involved sexual assault, and have not paid their medical bills. Lyft’s lax attitude toward rider safety is the direct cause of these assaults. As of now, Lyft hasn’t said whether or not they’ll fight these claims in court of settle.
What Has Lyft Already Done?
Both Lyft and Uber have made small changes to their services, but they’ve been entirely inadequate. They also show what a serious problem this is. When Uber began doing regular criminal background checks on their drivers, the new policy lead to outing 20,000 drivers. Those drivers could have given millions of rides over years. Why did it take so long to get rid of them?
Lyft says they’ve got one out of five of their employees working on improving safety in the app, though this doesn’t match what those who have tried to get Lyft to improve their standards seem to say. Still, Lyft has added colored lights in cars that match up to your app. However, these aren’t common. They also allow users to contact emergency services right from within the app, but if you have your phone, you could just call 911. The app doesn’t seem to make this much easier. They’re monitoring their employees for criminal activity, but don’t detail what they’re banning drivers over, or how they’ve improved background checks.
Lyft also points to mandatory reasoning behind low ratings as a positive measure they’ve taken. However, this could have the opposite effect. A woman who heard some rude or sexual comments may decide that it’s not worth reporting the driver or giving them a low rating. Lyft made reporting drivers and rating bad drivers more difficult. The end result will raise drivers’ ratings unjustly.
Now Lyft says they’ve partnered with RAINN to improve their app and their messaging around sexual assault. These all feel like surface-level changes, nothing to make the service actually safer, just seem safer. According to those who have talked to Lyft, that’s because they say those changes would be too expensive.
What More Can Lyft and Uber Do?
Both Lyft and Uber could do far more to prevent these problems. Many, like monitoring pickup and drop-off locations, or checking with a rider when a route is off course and requiring a passcode to respond that everything’s okay, would be lower cost, software based solutions. Other solutions could use a mix of hardware and software changes to make the service far more secure.
For example, Lyft has lights for the dashboards of cars. These are color matched to your app, so you know a particular driver is there for you. However, they’re not in every car and the interface on your phone doesn’t change dramatically if a driver is using one. This is to hide the fact that most drivers aren’t using them. In fact, in my experience, they’re quite rare. Lyfyt and Uber could mandate that all cars have this style of hood ornament.
Furthermore, it could be more than a light. Many drivers have a dashcam and client-facing camera to protect themselves and have proof of what happened in incidents. Uber and Lyft could mandate such recordings. They could put those recordings in the hands of their users as well. Users who don’t feel safe could request their ride is recorded through the app (the driver would never know), and forward anything to the ridesharing company.
Another feature using either the user’s phone camera or this in-car camera would be live support. A person could bring on a live person who could witness a situation and call emergency services when a passenger or driver is incapable of reporting what’s happening to them.
No one should ever get an automated response when reporting an issue with their ride that involves sexual offenses. The fact that anyone could is beyond reason.
All companies should conduct and share background checks. They could work together for a registry of banned drivers so someone banned from driving at Lyft can’t find a job at Uber. No one who is a registered sex offender should ever have a job where they can be alone in a car with a potential victim.
Finally, and this is something I already touched on, but all companies need to work to make reporting drivers for sexual misconduct easier. This shouldn’t be buried in settings. People should be allowed to give one star without any other reasoning behind it. Many people do not want to talk about a sexual assault immediately after it occurs. Allow women to rate their driver as one star and file a report in the morning. Sexual assault is traumatic, don’t try to force people to talk about it right away, they’ll shut down.
Still Better than Cabs
The old Checker Cab, a popular taxi up until the 80’s in New York.
Of course, all of these options are still better than cabs. Sure, a driver could lose their medallion, meaning they couldn’t operate in a city like New York, but many can get away with driving violations. I personally have witnessed cabs commit crimes, as have many of my friends. Cab drivers know they can get away with it. In many cities, cars are considered more important than pedestrians, and cabs get more leeway than anyone else. Speaking from personal and secondhand experience, New York is exceptionally bad with this.
However, being better than the worst option is not enough. No one should feel unsafe using a ridesharing app. Ridesharing should be one of our many steps towards reducing the number of drivers on the road at any time. People need to feel safe using any form of shared transport.
A Growing Problem in Tech
From the Google employee walkout over sexual harassment in 2018. Photo: Stephen Lam/Reuters
As tech grows more personal, it becomes obvious that the people making it are predominantly men. Women making a ridesharing app would think of safety first, and prioritize it. We know all too well what happens when a service doesn’t do this. Uber is a clear example of what happens in a “bro” atmosphere, and the poor state of their app makes those problems only more clear.
Women already pay more for transit because public transit isn’t safe for us. I’ve woken up some mornings feeling awful, thinking, “I can’t skate to work today,” but then I remember that I’ll be getting home after dark, and a large piece of wood and metal is a great anti-harassment deterrent. I skate. Other days I’ve taken a Lyft, but I always prefer to do it with a friend for safety’s sake. I rarely take a car alone, and usually do a rideshare if I do, both for safety and to reduce pollution.
Women regularly take Lyfts and Ubers to be safe, because, despite its flaws, it’s still a safer way to get home than walking in the dark. There are too many problems to count here, from city governments not prioritizing safety in pubic transit or neighborhoods to private companies not realizing the danger they put women in. Our governments, lead mostly by men, often overlook these issues, as do our tech companies for the same reasons. However, we can speak up. Lawsuits like this one can force the hands of private companies, and show politicians just how serious these problems are.
These women coming forward with their traumatic stories are doing an incredibly brave thing. They’re making the world a better place, and I hope they’re successful.
Sources:
- Maria Cramer, NY Times
- Jon Fingas, Engadget
- Andrew J. Hawkins, The Verge
- Faiz Siddiqui, Washington Post