Ride-hailing platform Uber released 'Uber's US Safety Report', on Friday. The bi-annual report highlights and presents data for the most serious safety incidents that occurred on the platform, in 2017 and 2018.
According to the report, which the company says is the first comprehensive publication of its kind, 3,000 sexual assault cases were reported during Uber rides in the US in 2018. This figure includes 229 rape cases, across the company's 1.3 billion rides, last year.
In 2017, during 1 billion trips, 2,936 sexual assault cases were reported. The report will be released bi-annually, with the next report to be out in 2021. The attacks, company notes, included assaults on both the riders as well as the drivers. Cases of assaults between riders were also reported.
The company reported 97 crashes in 2018, which resulted in 107 deaths. It also said as many as 9 murders took place in 2018 occurred during Uber rides, while 10 were reported in 2017. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took to Twitter to inform about the report. "Some people will appreciate how much we've done on safety; others will say we have more work to do", he tweeted.
How were the figures curated?
The company came out with the figures, according to the incidents reported by riders and drivers. Hence, the actual numbers might come out to be higher, as sexual assault cases often remain unreported. The report segregates sexual assault into a number of broad categories: non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part, attempted non-consensual sexual penetration, non-consensual touching of a sexual body part, non-consensual kissing of a sexual body part and non-consensual sexual penetration.
Lawsuits against Uber
In April this year a woman from Washington D.C. sued Uber for $10 million, after she reported being sexually assaulted by the driver. In 2017, a Kansas woman sued the company, after being raped by the driver. An Indian woman too filed a lawsuit in the same year, and the case led to the ouster of former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who was accused of mishandling the woman's medical records in order to discredit her.
In November, London refused to renew Uber's license over concerns about impostor drivers and other safety issues. Uber has till now released the safety report for the United States only. Whether such a report will be released for other countries is presently not known.
